Modernity and context - Hungarian architecture at the beginning of the Kádár-era

Abstract

The following work aims to examine the years when Hungarian architecture after the short but impressive period of so-called social-realism returned to modernism. The point in time is the turn of the fifties and sixties. This was the very period when in the history of Western architecture the first criticism of functionalist doctrine appeared. The International Style was questioned by a regional approach, and in 1956 the regular (and the last official) CIAM congress was devoted to the topic of ``identity´´. The last social-realistic style building was published in the periodical Magyar Építõmûvészet (Hungarian Architecture) just a few months before, in the fall of 1955. The return of modern was a liberating process for Hungarian architects. However in that special context several questions emerged concerning general and local topics. What is the attitude of modern architecture to its old environment? Is it possible for modern architecture to have a national character? How to put into practice the - still valid - theoretical demand for socialist content and national form now by means of modern architecture? Some of these questions were very similar to those raised in America and in Western Europe. The answers were however different.