The “periphery”, as Imre Makovecz liked to call the region. This is where he was finally given the freedom to work. Most notably in Sárospatak, a city that played a key role throughout his career and in Csenger, a town that based its entire new urban design on organic architecture. Sárospatak was already home to significant Makovecz buildings 1960s: the Bodrog Department Store and the House of Culture, the latter of which brought him international recognition.

It is a little-known fact that the House of Culture’s non-conventional design stirred a severe conflict between Makovecz and his employer at the time, VÁTI, causing the late master to quit his job and find “refuge” as an architect at the Pilis Forestry. This refuge, however, eventually helped him prevent that the House of Culture would be distorted irreversibly during construction on grounds of rationalization. Since the prefabricated panels for the roof structure were supplied by the Pilis Forestry, Imre Makovecz could keep an eye on construction throughout the process.

In the wake of that project, he received assignments from Sárospatak one after the other. Then came Csenger, where the persistent and loyal city administration, having once embarked on the path of organic urban development, held on to it for decades. This is how these two cities, besides Makó, became the “capitals” of Imre Makovecz’s oeuvre.