Northwest Hungary Archives - Imre Makovecz Foundation

Cápa Restaurant, Velence

LGF — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 11:44:56 +0000

Built on the sand banks between Lake Velencei and the motorway, the building has a fine view to the water. It has a car park in the front and a terrace that juts out from the top of the embankment. The kitchen can serve up to a hundred guests at a time. The walls were made of small bricks, laid on strip foundations in the loess ground. The ceiling of the basement and the ground floor is of reinforced concrete; the building has a tiled roof. The windows, the entrance and the portal of the dining area are steel structures; the white perimeter walls are rendered. The building’s front opens up like an eye or a helmet with a raised visor. In terms of architectural design, the Cápa restaurant displays equally the influence of the first Goetheanum and that of traditional, Hungarian peasant houses. To my architect friends from Western Europe it was a piece of organic architecture, while my Hungarian friends saw in it the renewed application of Hungarian folk architecture.

The building’s front opens up like an eye or a helmet with a raised visor towards Lake Velencei. In terms of architectural design, the Cápa restaurant displays the influence of both the first Goetheanum and that of traditional, Hungarian peasant houses.
It was considered a piece of organic architecture and the renewed application of Hungarian folk architecture.
The walls were made of small bricks, laid on strip foundations in the loess ground. The ceiling of the basement and the ground floor is of reinforced concrete; the building has a tiled roof. The windows, the entrance and the portal of the dining area are steel structures; the white perimeter walls are rendered.

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Roman Catholic church, Százhalombatta

LGF — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 11:44:33 +0000

“The church in Százhalombatta was inspired by the location. The site is a square covered with precast concrete slabs. The church is designed to lift this covering into the air. From the depths, huge oak trees push up the floor covering. Above the apse is a winged tower. Thus a clear and pure spirituality emerges from the ground, and this is what the church itself is trying to represent metaphorically. This is further emphasised by the hundred mounds that are in this area. Batta is an ancient settlement, Hungarian in the deepest sense, while it is also the scene of pre-Hungarian stories. It was used as much by the Celtics and Romans as by the Pannonians who lived here both with them and before them, i.e. all those peoples who can be traced back to the Scythian empire. It is a very old area, subsequently invaded by the 20th century world and all that came with it: the oil refinery, the housing estates and Zhdanov-style cultural policy.”

Imre Makovecz drew two design versions for the church building. The building permit plan of the first version and the development plan for the surroundings were prepared for an invitational tender. Finally, the church was built along a completely new concept in 1995. It underwent refurbishment in 2019.

The actually built structure comprises three mounds recalling the ancient settlements that used to exist where Százhalombatta is today. One mound accommodates the congregation room, the second hosts the vicarage and the parish while the third one comprises the church cupola. The latter is squeezed in between two walls that show the direction of the ancient road to Rome.

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Chapel of Gergely Czuczor Benedictine Grammar School, Győr

LGF — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 10:56:49 +0000

For this design, the architect took inspiration from two highly successful Wim Wenders movies: Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin; 1985) and Faraway, So Close! (In weiter Ferne, so nah!; 1993). Angels, the invisible, unseen helpers of humans are just there for us in everyday life…

The angel sculptures and furniture designs for the chapel built in the attic of the Benedictine grammar school were prepared by László Péterfy and Gábor Mezei, respectively.

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Castle refurbishment and extension, Felcsút

LGF — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 10:56:43 +0000

In the Spring of 2006, the Ferenc Puskás Football Academy contacted Imre Makovecz, asking for his help with the conversion of the Kozma mansion, a building on the Academy’s premises, into a student hostel. The late master’s design envisaged the removal of the U-shaped building’s roof, the installation of a new, raised roof that would also cover the inner courtyard and enable the doubling of rooms, the creation of an elegant indoor community space with a loft. He also prepared a development drawing, as the conversion into a student hostel was only a short-term project but the need for additional buildings was already taking shape.

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Elementary school and day care building, Neszmély

LGF — Mon, 31 Aug 2020 11:14:58 +0000

Imre Makovecz designed a school based on a pavilion arrangement: the compound comprised an eight-room school building, a separate gymnasium, a day care building, a workshop and a caretaker’s apartment. The main building is bird-shaped. The students are seated in the wings of the bird, to let them fly. The head of the bird houses the teachers’ room on the upper level and the library on the lower level. The body of the bird is the communal space, and in the central part, in the basement, the heating centre is the heart of the bird. Accommodating the different functions in separate buildings allowed the compound to blend harmoniously with the scale of the built environment. The school, with a larger footprint, faced the street with three hip-roofed wings. The size and design of the wings were reminiscent of the long houses typical for the area. The gymnasium’s layout followed that of the barns behind the school, and the workshop building was well integrated into the complex with its articulated mass.

First a study design was prepared, to be followed by an implementation drawn up by László Zsigmond in 1989. The planned gymnasium and dining room were never built. An article titled Almásneszmély was published about the building in issue 91/2 of the Országépítő [Country Builder] periodical. The school building was refurbished in 2018, with help from László Zsigmond.

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Makovecz – Center and Archives, Városkúti út, Budapest

LGF — Sun, 11 Dec 2016 11:34:14 +0000

The building of the Makovecz Archives and Memorial House was originally intended to be a home. Imre Makovecz built it for his wife and himself. He did not live to move in there, but the building can now fulfil its purpose by accommodating the late Master’s intellectual greatness instead of his physical presence.

The house, an independent being, had perhaps suspected what its role would be: not to be a witness of everyday life, but to safeguard the works, the intellect, and even the spirit of a true Central-European genius. The house comprises one large room and several smaller spaces: it is equally suitable for research work or as a venue for community events, concerts, conferences and ceremonies.

“My architecture is humanised architecture, it is focused on man. I always concentrate on the structure, the physiognomy of the human face, for I find in it not only the place but the form of expression as well. What makes the world so interesting to me is that I see in it everything that the Lord God exited from. The human face is an imaginary geography. That is why my buildings resemble the human face and the head, and the roofs resemble the skull. Possibly after the memory of a Chagall painting, I call my buildings houses with vision. They have eyes, eyebrows, a nose-like thing, too; with all that, I want to express the inner meaning, the fact that the building is a creature…”

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