Fabó Beáta - Gall, Anthony: I came from the East to a City of Great Palaces. Károly Kós, the early years 1907-1914 (Budapest, 2013)
Kós' First Steps as an Independent Architect
0 Pigsty and Well-house Magyar Építőművészet, 1910.2.. Bl Crow Castle from the North-West László Haris LIFE IN CROW CASTLE My house was built in 1910, so exactly 30 years ago. Its walls of natural stone are mossy in many places, but most of it is covered by ivy, up to the roof. The shingles of the roof have turned black or a greenish brown and the walnut tree I planted next to it is now reaching well above the rooftop. The grass is green around it, and so are the fruit trees and the few remaining oaks and yews that I left in memory of the one-time forest, which is still there above the garden on the hillside! K0STanya2°T packed up my family and all our belongings and we moved to Sztána (Stana) to our holiday house now turned into family home. To have enough woodfor heating in winter I also bought a patch of forest and I've set two sturdy little horses in the stable, complete with two yellow carriages and a sleigh.... We used the carriage, the sleigh or we walked as we went round the nearby villages paying visits to the priests, vicars, teachers, landlords, notaries and smallholders’.KOS 199I: 1,7~im ‘It was at one of these parties following a winter pig-killing that the conversation turned to the newspaper Kaltoaszeg used to have back in the 1890s (though only for one or two years), edited by the knowledgeable Antal Herrmann (not to be confused with the likewise knowledgeable Ottó Herman) and had Mrs Gyarmathy on the permanent staff (propagator of thefamous Kalotaszeg embroidery and daughter of the poetpriest from Gyerőmonostor, Farkas Háry)’.KOS 199I: us-Following this discussion Kós established, edited and published a weekly entitled Kalotaszeg !.. then I organised my first and last ball ever, the Calvinist Ball in Sztána, with the assistance of my brother-in-law staying with us for his holiday and very enthusiastic about singing and dancing Balázs Balázs (an official with the Royal Mail). And it did indeed turn out to be a ball whose likes Kalotaszeg had never seen before and has never seen since. All my friends from the region were among the invitees, but also myfrind Dezső Zrumeczky from Budapest, alongside with novelist Zsigmond Móricz (who, as far as I know, had never been to Transylvania before)’. KOS 199I: I2S-1 am at present buildingpigsties, and a stable, a garden is beingplanted thefields ploughed and dug 1 am hunting and by night reading writing and drawing. The weather is splendid the most beautiful autumn I can rememberfor a long time. When the sun rises in the morning I get up and lookfrom the mountain at the valley swimming in the mist. In the morning everything is white with the snowfrost and it is splendid the way the sun drinks up the mist and the frost. And night time is alsofine, with the wood burning in thefireplace and lean poke the openfire. It is at timeslike this I can think and remember, I can see visions. And at times like this I don't envy anyone. Because here I am the Lord for the greatest, great, great distances: around only the forest. And meadows, gardens’.M^^i^m^I^^'^muD^<^UMwe^I9IL 140
