Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 22. (Budapest, 2003)

Piroska ÁCS: Géza Maróti's Series of Drawings for a Planned Head Office of the National Association of Applied Arts in Hungary

Although the idea of eventual dissolution was swept away in the storm of history, restrictions on the right to free assembly after the fall of the Commune continued to cripple the activities of the Association (which is why the committee could not call a meeting). Despite adverse conditions, the management did everything in its power to prepare the ground for restarting the country's stalling applied-arts industry.

6 Besides internal reorganisation and drawing up a new charter, the acquisition of permanent exhibition and commercial facilities to support production in the applied-arts industry was regarded to be the most urgent task to undertake. In 1920, the board of directors found the time ripe for the staging of a large-scale exhibition of interior decoration, and the body assigned the Casino building on Margaret Island as the venue of the event. After the failure of this initiative, the minutes of a committee meeting held on 11 October 1920 recorded that the issue of a permanent exhibition hall was more urgent than ever "... because it is of vital interest for the community of artisans to introduce itself to the public at a grand exhibition on the one hand and, on the other, the only secure foundation of any further progress is the occupation of a permanent residence. All previous proposals have aimed at temporary solutions only, even though a long-term one is of utmost importance to the industry."

7 At the same time, the board also decreed that a special committee be set up, and it authorized the management to take all necessary steps to achieve the principal purpose of the day. The summary report of the same meeting also records the fact that the board elected Géza Maróti to replace Ödön Faragó, who had resigned his membership of the management, and that Maróti accepted the appointment. The true relevance of this information becomes clear when one reads the record of propositions made in the following year's board meeting. The idea of an independent exhibition hall "... was given concrete shape as the management submitted to the municipality of Budapest a request, complete with designs, for a preliminary building permit for an exhibition hall to be raised in a public space along a busy thoroughfare of Budapest. The request is now pending decision by the appropriate department of the municipal council."

8 The series of designs forming attached to the request is held in the Archives of the Museum of Applied Arts. The eight pencil drawings mounted on pasteboard are signed by Géza Maróti.

9 The draughts made on a scale of 1:100 bear the seal and the filing number (823./1920) of the National Association of Applied Arts in Hungary as well as the signatures of director Kálmán Györgyi and chairman Ignác Alpár of the Association.

10 According to inscriptions on its instalments, the series was made in November of 1920. Maróti intended that the building stand in a small square

11 bordered by the streets Mozsár utca, Gyár utca (today Jókai utca) and Andrássy út in district VI (fig. l).

12 The main front with its tympan (fig. 2)

13 and the side front (fig. 3)

14 display a clear classical style; both are ornamented with channel columns. The longitudinal section (fig. 4)

15 shows a building whose four storeys include a lower ground-floor and a mezzanine; the building is accentuated by two nodes terminating in a dome each. The smaller of these covers the octagonal hall continuing the line of the firstfloor council room above the vestibule in the mezzanine. The other series of vertically arranged spaces, covered with the larger vaulted roof, can be found in the end of the building, which terminates in an apse. Here, the lower floor was to have included an exhibition hall, the mezzanine and the first floor were envisaged to contain spaces meant to house exhibitions of ecclesiastic art, and the architect planned an impressive walkaround gallery for the second floor. In every other way, too, the building was designed in such a way as to best serve the needs of the Association. The lower ground-floor (fig. 5)

16 was planned to include the auxiliary rooms

17 as well as the rooms of the industrial artists' club with the attendant cloakroom. The lobby on the mezzanine includes the steps leading upstairs as well as the ticket office and the visitors' cloakroom; two offices also open from here. The vestibule itself leads to a three-door