Post-war Budapest. A new optimistic era?

"During the painfully long fifty days of the siege, in the darkness of the bomb shelter and amid the roar of explosions, we often thought about what exactly could be destroyed in Budapest. We secretly hoped that only a couple of buildings that did not fit into the urban landscape would disappear," recalls Hungarian architect Virgil Borbiro.

But, unfortunately, Virgil's hopes did not come true. Budapest was on the front line from the end of December 1944 to the middle of February 1945. The battle for it was one of the most difficult at the end World War II, and the city was seriously damaged, first by aerial bombing by the Western Allies, and then by fighting between the Nazis and the Crossed Arrows.

The scale of destruction was comparable only to the siege of Leningrad, Stalingrad and Warsaw. The number of human victims was huge. The total loss, including victims of the Holocaust and deportations by Soviet forces, was almost 100 in Budapest.

Many historical buildings were destroyed. The Buda Fortress was heavily damaged, as it was one of the last strongholds of Nazi forces in the city. The castle district and the Buda hills overlooking the Danube lay in ruins. The architectural monuments that defined the silhouette along the shores were destroyed without the possibility of restoration. About 36 families were left homeless.

The scale of the destruction of the housing stock was critical: almost 5% disappeared completely, 6,5% became uninhabitable, and another 16% were severely damaged. A report written in December 1946 confirms that only 782-4 of the 5 houses in the first city district survived. 16,8% of buildings were completely destroyed, 62,4% were heavily damaged, and 20,3% were slightly damaged. 26% of public buildings and 94% of industrial facilities were destroyed.

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All seven bridges over the Danube were destroyed after the withdrawal of German troops during the siege. The most affected of them was Erzhebet, blown up in 1945 by retreating Wehrmacht units. Margit Bridge was destroyed as early as 1944, either as a result of an accidental munitions explosion or sabotage: the Pest side of the crossing was completely lost, and the following year the retreating Germans destroyed the Buda part of the structure.

Bridges were important arteries that connected the twin towns of Buda and Pest, as well as the eastern and western halves of the country. They became the personification of the devastation and disruption of the vital connections of everyday life in the city.

 

How a new city was built

Stage one. Reconstruction and elimination of housing shortage

For Budapest, as well as for the whole country, the first stage of the development of post-war architecture, which fell on the forties, was primarily related to reconstruction. Clearing the city of debris and reconstruction work began immediately after the end of the siege, and three years later construction activity in the capital was still devoted to major repairs of damaged buildings and infrastructure.

During this time, transport and pedestrian connections are restored. In 1945, the Kossuth Bridge was built in record time, and it lasted until 1960. Due to the hasty construction, a number of restrictions were imposed on the Kossuth Bridge. The bridge was used mainly for pedestrian crossing, trucks could cross it at a speed of 20 km/h in one direction only.

During the sessions of the parliament, it sometimes overlapped because of noise and for security reasons. Half of Budapest's main bridges have returned to life. In August 1946, the Freedom Bridge was completely restored, in 1948, Margit was reconstructed, and in 1949, the Chain Bridge, the revival of which coincided with its centenary.

At that time, the attitude of the new government towards historical architecture and objects of cultural heritage was ambiguous. Restoration was selective: some buildings were carefully restored, while others were forgotten for many years. Located in the very center of the Rumbach Synagogue, which served the Nazis during the Second World War as a center for the deportation of Jews, after the war it was in a neglected state for several decades and constantly changed hands.

The socialist principle of rejecting "architectural excesses" did not always contribute to the preservation of valuable architectural details. Thus, during the reconstruction of the already mentioned Margit Bridge, its decor was greatly simplified. Gone are the ornate handrails, lanterns and sculptures custom-made in France. Some of the ancient elements will be returned only at the beginning of the XNUMXst century.

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What saved most of Budapest's historical buildings from oblivion? Firstly, their ruins were saved from demolition by an acute lack of funds allocated to the construction sector, and secondly, by the awe-inspiring attention of individual specialists who had a direct relationship with cultural monuments. For example, after the end of hostilities, the son of the author of the building, architect Fridjesz Shulek, Janos, was engaged in the reconstruction of one of the most significant objects of Budapest, the Fisherman's Bastion.

The process of restoring the architectural heritage of the Hungarian capital was accompanied by the replenishment of lost art objects. Already in 1947, most of the works taken by the Nazis were returned to the Museum of Fine Arts (which was also heavily destroyed during the war).

In the first post-war years, the construction of public buildings was economized, they were erected in small numbers, and in a number of cases surviving building boxes were used, for example, the administrative building on the bank of the Danube was built in 1947 using preserved parallel walls on the site of a destroyed quarter.

The residents of Budapest, who were left without a roof over their heads, took part in the reconstruction of the housing stock. Thanks to the financial support of the government, already in May 1945, the brick factories resumed work, and the townspeople received loans to restore their homes. By 1947, out of 1335 destroyed houses of the first city district, 878 were already inhabited. "In the spring of 1948, under the leadership of the Minister of Labor and Public Works, the residents of the capital completed the restoration of the damaged roofs of 26 houses," says a small memorial plaque located on the wall of the capital city hall.

At the same time, the Soviet authorities were looking for another way to increase living space in an economical way. Initially, they achieved their goal by nationalizing large Budapest apartments and dividing them into smaller units. 200 buildings of the capital fell under the implementation of this task. However, the problem of housing shortage still remained acute.

Solving the tasks of new design and construction began immediately after the end of the war. As early as 1946 and 1947, competitions were held for projects of residential buildings and apartments designed for the use of factory-made building elements. One of the first large-scale events was a competition in 1946 for the design of two residential complexes in Budapest: on the section of the Danube embankment near the Freedom Bridge and in the Magdolna area.

The construction of a new housing stock began in 1947–1949 and was connected with the industrialization of the country and the creation of new mining villages. To provide housing for workers, three- and four-story brick houses began to appear. This in itself contributed to the development of typical design and was accompanied by the appearance of new types of residential buildings: single-section multi-story buildings, sectional buildings with three apartments on the landings, row and paired one-story blocks.

Thanks to the mild climate, it became possible to realize gallery-type houses. In Budapest, they were built on Miro Street, Zapor Street, in the Bartók Park area and in Chapel. Gradually, the construction of residential areas began to move from the center to the city limits. Even before the first half of the fifties, the neighborhoods were actively built up: Ladmanyos, blocks along Yullei, Kerepesha, Nagy Lajos, Fiashtiuk streets.

Stage two. Soviet influence and mastering the classics

Along with the scale of typical construction, the authorities adopted the thesis of mastering the classical heritage. Followers of functionalism were condemned as formalists and cosmopolitans. Modern buildings, functional and simple, in the understanding of the communist leadership, could not transmit socialist values. Instead of geometric white boxes, the party wanted to see heroic workers and porticoes with columns as decorations.

They tried to "re-educate" architects with the help of high-profile debates in Budapest organized by the Ministry of Culture and the Communist Party. In these discussions, architectural modernism was declared "wasteful and elitist" and therefore inaccessible to the general population. In 1949, the daily newspaper "Free People" declared: "We want neither ugly capitalist profit houses nor formalist buildings imitating the whimsical taste of American architects." Thus, in 1951, socialist realism became the mandatory style of Hungarian architecture.

"We want neither ugly capitalist profit houses, nor formalist buildings imitating the whimsical taste of American architects," declared the newspaper "Free People" in 1949

Instead of developing the progressive features of the architecture of 1945–1950, architects turned to models from distant eras. In 1952, Hungarian architects already used all the tools of classical design. During this time, many buildings were built in the spirit of the Renaissance and classicism. Such architecture often acquired the character of frank stylizations.

Buildings of culture, Houses of the party, craft schools and other public buildings differed in symmetrical planning and volume-spatial composition. This was the appearance of the House of the Party in Budapest, the main motif of which was the classical colonnade. The facades of the new buildings of the Budapest Polytechnic Institute, designed by the architect Gyula Rimanoci, were decorated with heavy order forms.

The pseudo-classical palaces were not the only indicator of a changed paradigm. Delineating a new zone of Soviet influence, urban planners made changes to the arrangement of the urban fabric. New residential blocks built in the 50s had symmetrical central-axial compositions. Later, in the second half of the 60s, an urban planning trend developed in Hungary, in which a regular, rectangular building system prevailed. In addition, significant changes were made to the symbolic marking of urban space. Soviet war memorials were opened with astonishing speed. The three largest of them were located on St. Gellert, Svoboda and Vigado squares.

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Stage three. The victory of rationalism and attention to historical heritage

Despite the prohibition of modernism, many Hungarian architects continued to work in the spirit of functionalism of the 30s and 40s. Examples of buildings made in this style in Budapest are the capital's film studio designed by Lajos Gadoros and the 80-seat People's Stadium by architect David Karoy. But gradually, the general industrialization of the country covered the majority of specialists with a wave of rationalism and forced them to abandon their excessive fascination with the classics. In the fifties, it was replaced by discreet ascetic houses. Tectonics became the main basis of architectural expressiveness. The concept of free planning arose in housing design.

However, the technocratic spirit and constructivist sentiments pervading the city at the beginning of the sixties made architects feel a threat to the architectural heritage. At that time, interest in the architectural past grew in Hungary, as in other European countries. This, by the way, is evidenced by the Venice Charter adopted in 1964 (officially, the International Charter on the Preservation and Restoration of Monuments and Historical Sites).

The value of historical ensembles, streets and squares began to be taken into account in the restoration and reconstruction of the old buildings of Budapest. Old houses were reconstructed and, under the condition of possible complete preservation of the external historical appearance, modernized inside. In the 60s, several large reconstruction projects were started in Hungary.

An example of careful and long-term reconstruction of a valuable historical ensemble is the work on the territory of the Buda Fortress in Budapest. The destruction of the war years exposed the medieval buildings and a number of valuable artistic details of Gothic and Renaissance architecture. The fortress underwent a thorough and comprehensive reconstruction, which required the cooperation of several archaeologists, art historians and architects, led by leading architect Tamas Dragonits.

The main goal of the restoration works was to restore the historically most authentic appearance of this architectural ensemble and free artistically valuable architectural and sculptural fragments from the layers of time. During the reconstruction of the castle, Hungarian archeology was a trailblazer, because in other parts of Europe the medieval period still remained outside the boundaries of archaeological research.

This reconstruction project rejected the plans of the Stalin period aimed at reconstructing the Castle as a center of state power and took as a basis the reconstruction plans after 1956, changing the concept in favor of new cultural functions. The Hungarian National Gallery, the Szechenyi National Library and the Budapest History Museum appeared here.

Alternative concepts of the development of Budapest

The post-war architecture of Budapest did not develop consistently and linearly. It cannot be said that each new stage crossed out the previous one and opened the door for a new one. Opposing trends prevailed here at the same time, there were constant discussions about the urban planning future of the capital, the emphasis shifted sometimes towards history, sometimes towards modernization. The development of a new general plan began in 1945, but at the same time, alternative concepts of Budapest appeared, which influenced its future fate.

In the chaos and destruction caused by the war, thinking futurist urbanists saw a unique opportunity to correct the mistakes of urban planning of the past years and create a completely different modernist model of the city, different from the one proposed by the party. Professional architectural magazines such as Space and Form and Budapest, as well as post-war urban design competitions, became new platforms for these efforts. The most striking of them was the so-called Competition of Ideas, organized as early as 1945! It was he who gathered the authors of the radical rethinking of the city. The prize place was shared between two ambitious projects.

Strip city

One of the winners of the competition is the work of László Askaj and György Masirewicz. The architects suggested avoiding the traditional radial-concentric scheme of Budapest and depicted the development of the territory along the "north-south" axis. The concept was to create a so-called "striped city" - to form long zones in the form of strips along the Danube and, depending on their proximity to the river, to give them different functions.

"Just like in a department store, the elevator will take you to the floor where the relevant products are located. The calming rationality of the grid, that is, pure geometry, will surpass the chaos of labyrinthine development," explained the authors of the "Striped City" project.

Thus, the strip directly adjacent to the river on the Pest side would serve for the location of government offices and administrative buildings, and the opposite coastal area, bordering the Danube on the Buda side, would turn into a health resort area: thermal springs and historical baths. The next strip in Pest was set aside for industrial and commercial facilities, and its reflection on the other side was intended for low-rise residential construction.

Another functional zone on both sides of the Danube was planned to be made into a continuous recreational strip connecting a number of park islands that existed before. And finally, it was necessary to place multi-story residential complexes behind the green belt.

Each zone was supposed to have its own transport channel in the form of an expressway with some connecting roads crossing the zones according to a strictly regular grid. "Just like in a department store, the elevator will take you to the floor where the relevant products are located. The calming rationality of the grid, that is, pure geometry, will surpass the chaos of the labyrinthine development," the architects explained their idea.

 

Four corners

The second winning work is "The City with Four Corners" by Aldar Münnich. The author of this concept proposed to correct the limitations of the city, which has historically grown, also using the strip principle and abandoning the ring-shaped structure. However, he does not completely erase the concentric-radial scheme, like previous architects, but only updates it through decentralization.

Munich introduces several centers in the immediate vicinity of the Danube and seven such magnets in the outskirts and suburbs. In this way, different parts of the city are connected in a single pattern, which resembles the pattern of a snowflake. Such decentralization would make it possible to expand the small historical center of Pest, Ferenc Deak Square and Erzebet Square into a representative city "forum" that would be a place for public celebrations.

Aldar Munich proposed to correct the limitations of the city, which has historically grown, using the strip principle and abandoning the ring-shaped structure

This new urban structure was superimposed on a scheme of longitudinal functional strips in the north-west and south-east directions. Similar to the "striped city" plan, one area of ​​Pest was to be transformed into a city with high-rise hotels on the banks of the Danube, commercial and government buildings, and a recreational area located on the Buda Hills next to the river. The residential sector with a low population density was supposed to be placed on most of the territory of Buda, and the industrial function was to be transferred to the southern outskirts of the city.

In his work, Munich planned the construction of a number of expressways, and the most ambitious proposal was the creation of an underwater expressway sandwiched between the city's two main concentric transport arteries (Kiskert and Nadkerut).

 

The new general plan of Budapest

These seemingly futuristic and radical projects demonstrated several important aspects that should be taken into account when developing a new master plan. The first indicated that the basic city-forming element of Budapest is the river, which means that the development of the city along the Danube on the "north-south" axis, the improvement of the embankment and the formation of the affected architectural silhouette of the banks are among the most important tasks of the designers. Therefore, it is important not to forget about the expressiveness of large architectural complexes and the creation of vertical dominants when designing public centers and administrative buildings.

In this context, the existing potential of recreational areas and water resources should not be overlooked, because Budapest is the only resort capital in Europe that stands on hundreds of mineral springs. Therefore, attention should be paid to the development of resort architecture and the principles of its integration into the natural landscape. Among other things, these concepts considered the city as a single system, assuming a comprehensive approach with a logical, rational division of the territory into certain functional areas and decentralization. Let's see how these aspects have affected in practice.

Principle 1. Integrated approach and district planning

If at the initial stage of post-war construction, urban planning problems were solved point by point, then at the end of the 50s they began to be solved in connection with the general problems of district planning. Cities began to be considered not in isolation, but in a system of interconnected settlements. In 1959, systematic development of regional planning projects for the entire country began. To carry out this work, the territory of Hungary was divided according to territorial and economic characteristics into 9 large districts, and district planning schemes were developed for them by the mid-60s.

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The principle of the integrated approach was extended not only to the organization of the master plan, but also to the decision of local areas, in particular residential areas: buildings are no longer isolated objects, but elements of a general ensemble, structures. If previously "sealed houses" appeared on the site of the destruction of row buildings, separate houses were built, then gradually housing kits, which also provided for the improvement of the area around the house with a developed service system, began to be welcomed.

These were mainly long multi-story and multi-section buildings. One example is the experimental residential area of ​​Kahlenfeld in Budapest. At that time, private housing was transformed into housing of a collective type: apartment buildings, dormitories, hotels, collective houses. An example of such buildings is the collective house on Baiza Street in Budapest.

Principle 2. Architectural expressiveness and work with the silhouette

In the mid-sixties, Hungarian architects began to pay great attention to architectural expressiveness. They worked on the formation of new silhouettes of the city, the creation of high-rise dominants, and changed the usual morphology of residential complexes.

In urban planning at that time, high single-section tower-type residential buildings were often used, which created height accents or rhythmic rows. As a rule, they were located in front of reservoirs or other free spaces that open a good view.

Most important in the silhouette of the residential area were the collective-type houses or dormitories, which were usually built as high-rise buildings in combination with low, flat blocks of services or shops.

Architects began to use community centers as the main means of forming and developing the central districts of large cities. At that time, the construction of new large buildings and complexes intensified. Particularly prominent among them were hotel buildings, which are located in places responsible from the point of view of urban planning. Among the best is the "Budapest" hotel, built in the Hungarian capital.

 

Principle 3. Development of recreational and resort areas

The new general plan of Budapest provided for the development of the territory from north to south, along the Danube. Architects and urban planners began to focus more on the development of recreational areas and the resort function. As a result of the adopted program of densification of central buildings and densification of construction on the outskirts, the territory of the city center was vacated, where new green areas for recreation were created. Industry was decentralized and evenly distributed throughout the city, which also made it possible to separate industrial facilities from residential areas with green areas.

With the introduction of the district planning system, recreational areas began to be dealt with systematically. The first object of district planning was the coast of Lake Balaton, for which a project of territorial organization of resorts was created already in 1957. In the future, this project was developed and detailed.

At the end of the sixties, the tourism industry was actively developing in Hungary. Resort hotels, holiday homes of collective recreation centers, motels and sanatoriums were most often built in Budapest. In the late 60s and early 70s, the construction of individual houses for seasonal use became popular. For this, local building materials and composition techniques traditional for folk Hungarian architecture were used.

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Opening the curtain and international experience

During all three stages of post-war Hungarian architecture in the country, restrictions and stereotypes certainly took place, but for the sake of justice it should be noted that Hungary was one of the freest republics of the Soviet camp. During the four decades of communism that existed here, it was not completely hermetic. The penetration of the "iron curtain" led to a higher standard of living, and it gave architects a chance to gain professional experience abroad.

In the XNUMXs, travel opportunities opened up for Hungarians. For architects, urban planners and designers, this meant the right to participate in international symposia and conferences, and therefore to exchange ideas with their foreign colleagues. In addition, access to professional literature increased. Large libraries, including the library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, began to subscribe to journals published abroad, including leading publications.

The writer and urbanist Pal Granashtoi (1908–1985), who had a keen interest in historical heritage, recalled a number of congresses he attended in East Germany and Czechoslovakia. Another architect, Gábor Loksmandi, whose name was later closely associated with urban revival in Hungary, made his first western trip to Salzburg in Austria in the late 1960s. As a young associate professor at the Department of Urban Planning at the Budapest Technical University, he participated in an international symposium, where he clearly felt the difference between the new currents in urban planning and the approaches he had learned during his previous studies.

Access to education abroad, the experience of working in international teams and the expansion of the worldview of specialists contributed to the appearance of large-scale and high-quality buildings in the following years. One of these projects in Budapest is called the largest regeneration of urban space in Central Europe. We will talk about him further.

Corvin Promenade. Renovation project of a residential area in Budapest

In the mid-eighties, Gabor Futo, the son of Petr Futo, one of the richest Hungarian businessmen, went to study at Harvard University in the United States. He was interested in urban planning, the science of city life and architecture. During one of his visits to his native Budapest, Gabor learned about the problem with the 8th and 9th city districts: the territory, which previously had a reputation for being dubious and nameless, with low-quality amenities and housing, suddenly became interesting to foreign contractors, and under conditions of division between different owners turned into a patchwork quilt with architectural disharmony.

The Corvin Promenade project in Budapest is called the largest regeneration of urban space in Central Europe

What did Futo do? He "brought" this problem to the department of urban planning at Harvard. Professor Rodolfo Macado and Gabor's fellow students became interested in the unusual area and organized a whole seminar, to which colleagues from other universities were involved. Soon the idea grew into a multinational project. Designers, architects, sociologists, urban management specialists, bankers, and later local politicians and city authorities were involved in the design.

Now the Corvin Promenade project covers an area of ​​500 square meters and consists of 17 building blocks. It contains 2700 apartments, 130 square meters of office space, and 65 square meters of retail space. In addition, there is a Corvin cinema, restaurants, cafes, the largest sports complex in the city center, a shopping center and a closed parking lot. The buildings are connected by a green promenade 700 meters long. The entire complex is integral, but each building has its own unique features.

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This project has received various awards. In 2010, he won the prize for the best multifunctional real estate project at the International Property Awards, as well as the first place at the Real Estate Prix d'Excellence Awards for the Hungarian branch of FIABCI. In 2014, he was honored by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) for outstanding achievements in real estate development.

There were many contradictions in the development of post-war Budapest. Modernists competed with history buffs, minimalist houses competed with Soviet workers' palaces, classics with functionalism, and industrial with the resort industry. Industrialization became a powerful impetus to mass construction. The tourism business contributed to the development of the city's recreational areas and resort architecture.

Western influence on Hungarian specialists made a more awe-inspiring attitude to the historically valuable objects of Budapest and opened a new optimistic era for progressive projects. The steady development of opposite conceptual currents, which generated a large number of options for the development of the master plan, was able to balance the city and reveal its potential, emphasizing its unique features: the uniqueness of the cultural heritage, the picturesque landscape and the wealth of water resources, in particular thermal springs.

 

 

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