Imre Makovecz FoundationImre Makovecz Foundation

A few decades after the war, with the old associations long gone and the era of enforced “culture houses” of the 1950s being over, people in villages and city quarters want to get together for celebrations again, they want to hold wedding parties and balls in a friendly and pleasant place where they can spend…

“What compels me to build detached houses? One of those compelling forces is my fear from the atrocities of mass commercialization, the urge to escape from the consequences of mass urban housing projects, their inadequacy in  terms of quantity and quality. The other compelling force is the economic and power circumstances that annihilate the cycle…

“The present within me is made up of what was and what might have been. The organising strength to of those left out of history, victory and the achievement of power, the dangerous world of might have been, belittled by many, rolls over us in the sky like Uriel or Prince Csaba. Did you not…

They seem to contain the same creative force, yet are unaware of each other’s existence. We are the same way vis ŕ vis the angels, with this difference, that the angels know about us and are our  complementary and accompanying parts, and that we must learn to rise to their level. That certain young man…

“I don’t know whether what has been forgotten is any different from what has not yet come. Seeing the plant that grew out of the ground and being aware of the limits of my capabilities, I have to say: it is impossible. Life is impossible. Yet I have to admit it is possible, and I…

“The Hungarian words that relate to the top of buildings – bun, spikes, ridge, horn, hair (shell), spine and tail all express two approaches. One set of these words suggests that the house and the housetop are like the head of a being that has hair, spikes and horns. The other set of words depict…

“I don’t know how much longer I will work. Possibly, this church is the last. I made no compromises. But I honoured what I was given – the ground plan and the characteristics of the walls and pillars. Since the ground plan was symmetrical, this was not against my liking. The inverse of two-thirds of…

“The consecrated world of plants, especially trees, has always inspired me to let their “word” be heard inside the walls of my buildings. The vitality of its dynamics, its flexibility, tied to a place yet resistant to storms, the protecting embrace of its shade, the fragrant scent of its blossoms offering themselves up to the…