Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 32. (Budapest, 2018)
Piroska NOVÁK: On the porcelain designer career of Éva Ambrus
1. Éva Ambrus: Food service tableware for the café of the Hotel Budapest (Körszálló), diploma work, 1967, Museum of Applied Arts, inv. no.: 2017.33-42. Photo: Dávid Kovács—Jonatán Máté Urbán the 1960s, this approach had become out- of-date. That’s why the architect György Jánossy and I introduced the teaching of industrial porcelain design. Eva Ambrus’s class was the first to try out this curriculum. The main idea was that only plaster models of the designs were made at the college, while the factories produced the works out of porcelain. During this time (1965—1971), the Alföld Porcelain Factory in Hódmezővásárhely was built and put into operation. It was equipped with the most modern technology available in the socialist countries. Set up for mass production, the factory produced only a few types but in series of several thousands, which required a radical change in approach by the designer. We wanted to ensure that the education we provided at the college would meet this need. This essentially foreshadowed the contemporary design principle, which defined product design as “the structuring of the product to maximize utility.” Putting this into practice required serious preparedness in an educational system built on the principles of fine art. [...] Nevertheless, Eva Ambrus’s year laid the foundation for the teaching of industrial porcelain design, and the students completed their five years of study with outstanding exam results [in 1967].’8 In accordance with the college’s new educational program, the students had to undertake two different diploma projects: typically a larger-scale architectural task and a tableware series.9 Éva Ambrus designed both for newly constructed locations chosen by her, although, unfortunately, neither plan was ever executed. Her sculptural wall panelling was for the swimming pool of the College of Physical Education,10 while the tableware series was for the café of the Hotel Budapest (Körszálló).11 Already, the rational, design principles and methods she had learned at the college, which were aimed at practicality and utility and typical of her entire oeuvre, were evident in these early stackable, yet representative prototypes. The set was made in the Herend Porcelain Manufactory, where Eva Ambrus was expected to begin work as a designer immediately after receiving her diploma. When Éva Ambrus learned that her first assignment at Herend was to design a 106
