Historiography of post-war modern architecture in Hungary – evaluation – research – preservation

Reviewing the research on post-war modern Hungarian architecture we find a serious backwardness. This paper presents an overview of the situation and an explanation focusing on three factors. The first is the underestimation of the socialist modern architecture by the lay public, but also by some professionals. The second field of investigation is the research background: institutes, researchers, funds and the accessibility of archival material, and the results achieved despite the difficulties. The paper also surveys the preservation of this heritage, and finally presents a recent rehabilitation project, one of the few positive examples

The Arch Of Projection - Body and Mind in Herzog & de Meuron’s Architecture

The aim of the article is to interpret the body-mind relationship in Herzog & de Meuron’s architecture. We surveyed their architecture over the last twenty years, uncovering the parallel changes in buildings and writings, with the theoretical trends in the background. We found that a clear shift in their approach has been manifest. In the first phase, the architects’ bodily and intellectual sensations were mediated through the building, whose subtle deviations from architectonic rules were perceivable more to the senses than to the mind. In the second period, the sensuality of buildings increased, while intellectually they referred to the present. The buildings still had their integral body, but they had lost a clear contour. In the last decade, the buildings operate with an arsenal of material and sensuous effects; the aim is intensity, which is often reinforced with direct formal analogies. The body of the visitor is put centre stage

Specific Architecture Rooted in thr Country. Survey on Vernacular Architecture and Tourism Development

After the failed revolution in 1956 an intensive development began around the Lake Balaton in Hungary. It was a manifestation of political détente but was driven also by the economic interest, as an investment in tourism. The new regional plan included a survey on monuments, which was extended also on vernacular built heritage. The paper presents the findings of the survey and compares them with the planned and realised buildings, and with the architects’ manifestations. The investigation includes public buildings which gave the bulk of building activity in the first period, but it analysis also the awardwinning designs of weekend houses submitted for a competition in 1958. The research concludes that while decades later some architects remembered this time as when ‘the spirit of the vernacular was in the air’ the buildings were not fully in tune with this statement, against the previously welldocumented built heritage. The duality of placeform and product-form that is of tradition and technology – or vernacular and modern – was interpreted by the majority of architects as either/ or problem. by the middle of the 1960s this battle ended with the victory of technology.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Terroir: Wine, Winery, Landscape

Wine production has a long history in Hungary, but the system was totally rearranged following the change in the political-economic system. Due to the change in the ownership structure and in the scale of wine production several new wineries were built in the country in the last fifteen years, most of them also representing a high architectural quality. Parallel with the development of wine tasting culture these buildings had to answer to multiple requirements: they had not only to accommodate to the production but also to represent the firm, and being the part of the new brand. Taste of wine is also based on the territory where the grape was grown, consequently the land means more than just the soil or the climate, but it refers also to the culture of the place. Like the terroir gives the accent to wine, the local land may have an impact on the winery. New Hungarian wineries are mostly situated close to the vineyards that is in a characteristic landscape. The owners often connect the two touristic attractions: wine tasting and enjoying nature. They require a building which is not only practical but also expressive that reflects nature, the culture, the culture of wine and the place, the genius loci

Deeply Embedded in Tradition. Interpretations of regional roots for modern Hungarian architecture in the 1960s

Sigfried Giedion’s seminal paper of 1954 on new regionalism was first mentioned in Hungary by János Bonta in his opposition at the Congress of the Association of Hungarian Architects in 1961. He referred to it as an acceptable way of adaptation to the local conditions, to meet the given place, landscape, nation and circumstances. This was the first and the last case when this expression occurred in Hungary in the coming decades. However, the question of how to relate modern architecture to the local conditions was kept on the agenda during the 1960s. In the discussions, the reference point was never the region or the place, but tradition. Even though two parallel approaches can be detected. The representatives of the first trend referred to folk architecture tradition and proposed the detailed analysis of the Hungarian peasant buildings as an authentic source. The other source or rather model was Finnish architecture, which could develop a special but at the same time European modern architecture. Modern Finnish architecture was also rooted in folk tradition and the connection between Hungarian and Finnish art and architecture could be detected back to the turn of the century, which as a ‘special relationship’ made this approach even more plausible. The paper discovers the two parallel approaches – both looking for tradition – but based on different interpretations and leading to different conclusions. We present the protagonists, architects and ethnographers, and follow how these concepts appeared in theory, in architectural reviews and in realised buildings during the 1960s.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Drivers of natural gas price divergence between NBP and TTF in 2022

The European gas market has undergone substantial transformations and fluctuations in recent years, resulting in a decoupling in natural gas prices between trading hubs in 2022. Specifically, the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) in the Netherlands and the National Balancing Point (NBP) in the United Kingdom experienced large deviations. Utilization of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a supplement to pipeline imports has increased significantly after discontinuation of gas trade between Europe and Russia. The European gas market experienced constraints in supply and demand due to various factors, leading to elevated prices. The United Kingdom encountered a significant storage capacity crisis, necessitating the export of surplus natural gas to the Netherlands. The study of the natural gas market implemented a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, including the utilization of Vector Auto-Regression (VAR) models, correlation-, cointegration-, and Granger causality analysis. As Europe sought to replace the Russian gas supply with LNG, the Netherlands' relatively low LNG import capacity hindered the country to fully exploit the expanded use of LNG. Furthermore, pipeline maintenance on the Netherlands' connections to Norwegian gas, coupled with the surplus gas in the UK, resulted in capacity constraints on the direct pipeline connection between NBP and TTF. The fundamental economic theory of supply and demand demonstrated how the shortage of supply in the Netherlands generated higher prices for natural gas in the country. The exhaustion of storage facilities in the UK contributed to limits on arbitrage, causing downward price spikes in the NBP compared to TTF, as predicted by storage theory. Data analysis revealed that although the European gas market traditionally functioned as a highly integrated and efficient market, it became disjointed and less efficient in 2022, thereby increasing market predictability. The study's outcome was accordant to economic theories and findings from the conducted analysis. The findings emphasize the necessity for diversified natural gas supply sources, adequate storage capacity, and efficient transportation infrastructure to ensure a reliable and sustainable gas supply in Europe. In practical terms, the analysis results can potentially assist energy traders and analysts in making more informed decisions regarding gas contracts. By monitoring gas flow through connecting pipelines and analysing storage levels, they can make more accurate predictions about future price movements and adjust their trading strategies accordingly

Minták és módszerek. A hetvenes évek hazai építészete és a karakter

The general impression of Hungarian architecture in the seventies seems rather boring. However some tendencies emerged searching for alternatives and creating a characteristic Hungarian architecture within modernism. The folk architectural tradition was only obvious authentic source of especially Hungarian architecture in the seventies both for experts and laymen. Imre Makovecz and György Csete followed this way. But their analysis of traditional forms and patterns turned into searching for general signs and symbols, authenticity of folk art was proved by its connection to the organic world, to eancestral primitiveî. National patterns became cosmic signs. Some other architects turned to foreign lands for renewing national architecture; they concentrated on England, Finland, Denmark and Japan. Following of northern romantic modernism resulted in buildings made of local materials, adjusted to local scale and landscape. The other current tendency was the architectural structuralism whose representatives were just against loosing in detailing. This design method was based on the interaction of the flexible systems and the involved random things, as a perfect solution for the Hungarian reality, with its low standard building industry and mixed elements. International methods resulted in national solutions. The two opposite movements can be explained with the different interpretation of character: whether its source is in tradition or in place