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

STURCZ János: Maróti Géza pályaműve a Rockefeller Centerhez

keeping the expected optimal profit of the lease the main guiding line.

8 This explains why the huge, closed and straight cubes of the Center look like variable and moveable pieces of a gigantic construction toy. The buildings have no individual features, they are almost identical, naked and plain, lacking any imagination. There are hardly any junctures or outside ornamentation; the monotony of the buildings is only relieved by the set-back nature of the upper floors and the works of art appearing at the most frequented places on the inside (see picture 3).

9 Having designed the complex in a most pragmatic way, the builders started to search for a potential symbolic interpretation that could unite the buildings with the help of the works of art decorating them.

10 Consequently, in 1931 J.D. Rockefeller Jr. asked Hartley Burr Alexander, a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California, to establish a guiding ideological line. In his preliminary report Alexander suggested Homo faber, „Building Man" as general theme; apparently to celebrate the sponsors rather than the workers. His programme is an excellent example of the way the creators of the Center, and especially J.D.R.Jr., saw and presented the complex. Obviously, the Center was not merely a business centre but a national, political and civilization symbol, expressing a need for universality and a wish to be the first and foremost in the world. Alexander was convinced that, beside art and taste, the RC was also going to re-establish the world of business, introducing a model for reforms necessary to lead America, and the rest of the world following behind, to a domain of welfare.

11 In his suggestion, Alexander appealed to general taste, to everyday „philosophical" ideas: the myth of technology being the tool for extending human power over nature was rather popular at the time. Yet, other contemporary interpretations presented the Center as a symbol of everchanging and developing knowledge (in fact, this was in the focus of most of the decoration, including Maróti's design) and as a concrete representation of the creative power of modern civilization, while giving a self-portrait of American civilization.

12 The above ideas were fairly widespread and determined the interpretation of the Center. Alexander used them as a bases for building his final scenario, which defined the details, including the material, technique, colours and shapes, of each piece of decoration, as in the case of the mosaic decorating the Sixth Avenue entrance to the Radio building. It bears the title Intelligence Awakening Mankind, which was the topic of Maróti's design. The program specification of the piece was the following: „A composition in which the figure of Intelligence (which has the double meaning of a state of mind and matter of information) should be responding to the Thinker, sending waves of sound throughout the Globe and arousing the public from its lethargies. The composition could be handled modernistically, somewhat after the pattern of the Last Judgment with a microphone replacing the temple of Doom and the soundwaves indicated as on color forms."

13 The commission was given to Barry Faulkner, who, following the regulations, introduced Intelligence as a strange triumvirate in the focus of the mosaic: the female figure of Thinking (picture 4, 5), shown from the front, covered with a long veil, is accompanied with two different embodiments: Written words, presented as a man holding a book, and Spoken words, a woman with an explanatory gesture. They are to conquer the allegorical figures of ignorance, violence, poverty and fear, with