Vadas József (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 11. (Budapest, 1991)

STURCZ János: Maróti Géza pályaműve a Rockefeller Centerhez

JÁNOS STURCZ „VEDEREMO - IT'S JUST HAS BE WON!" GÉZA MARÓTI'S COMPETITION DESIGN FOR THE ROCKEFELLER CENTER ATTRIBUTION AND FUNCTION The first problem concerning the signed and dated plan of Géza Maróti

's bequest now in the collection of the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts - is raised when defining its function.

1 (picture 1, 2) The material and technique suggest its being a design while the inscription of the preliminary sketches („Detroit 1932") refer to the time and place of the plan. On the other hand, the literature

2 regards it a competition piece

4 for the mosaic decoration of the Radio City

3 in Chicago. However, I managed to find a first sketch

5 among the documents of the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts with the inscription „First sketch, Radio City, main entrance, mosaic. (New York)", proving beyond doubt that it was meant for the mosaic decorating the main entrance of the New York „Radio City".

6 The name „Radio City", refers to the Rockefeller Center (RC), the famous business and trade centre in the heart of New York. In fact, Radio City is used only for one building in the entertainment complex: the one containing the movie, the theatre and the variety theatre. Yet there is no mosaic decoration of any kind either on the facade or inside the tower of forty-five storeys. On the other hand, there is one over the 6th Avenue entrance of the main, seventy-storey building of RCA (Radio Corporation of America), designed by Barry Faulkner, which resembles Maróli's sketch both in format and in some of its details. It is apparent that Maróti 's failed to win the competition for the Rockefeller Center. THE ROCKEFELLER CENTER The RC office complex

7 is one of the century's biggest and most successful ventures both in business and in architecture: it is extremely popular among tourists and its occupants. However, from an architectural point of view it is much debated. It was intended to be - with the help of publicity given by the radio which occupied the building - a new metropolis of the thirties, a symbol of a favourable and humane city architecture of the future. Moreover, it was a symbol of American technology, civilization and economic democracy, promising wealth and happiness - a Utopia which was both illusory and manipulative in the threatening atmosphere of an impending World War II. The idea was to maintain the „American spirit", the „great American dream" and social „peace". The senior architect of the R.C. was Raymond Hood, but the building was actually planned - and constructed - by money. It was shaped according to the expected income: the position and the outlook of the buildings were defined by the customers,