Armuth Miklós - Lőrinczi Zsuzsa (szerk.): A Budapesti Műszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem Történeti Campusa (Budapest, 2023)

A Műszaki Mechanika és Mezőgazdasági Géplaboratórium épülete - The Building of the Applied and Agricultural Mechanics Laboratory Gy. Balogh Ágnes

KIR JGZSEF MŰEGYETEM EP1TKEZE5E,

Mel Lap,

MŰSZAKI MECHANIKAI ÉsMEZ0GAZDASAG1 LABOHATCHIUM,

The contemporaries of Samu Pecz observed that his earlier works as well as the buildings he designed for the Technical University are defined by "materiality" and his method of "constructing from the inside towards the outside”. Here is how Vilmos Magyar referred to Pecz in the periodical titled Építő Ipar ("Building Industry"):"... he is not looking for forms, but finds them in the floor-plan and thus processes them so. This is why all his buildings are picturesque. Especially well-done is the facade of the applied mechanics building that faces the courtyard and integrates a water-tower."

The forms of the facades and elevations evoke medieval architecture, just like all the

other buildings Pecz designed forthe Technical University. The large hall on its side facing the courtyard features buttresses, whilst the deck-roofed parts are topped by a pierced brick parapet. Like elsewhere, Pecz used here dry-pressed bricks, carved fresh-water limestone and ceramic inserts as decorations. Besides plastered and carved stone details (window-sills, plinths, turrets) the brick surfaces of the facades are the most formative elements. It is only the main facade overlooking the River Danube which hasa regulardesign: it is articulated by symmetrically arranged central and corner projections. Disused at present, the main entrance to the building had originally been positioned right on the central axis to face the river.

Pecz housed the rooms of Applied Mechanics in the northern wing of the MM-MG building and those of the Agricultural Mechanics Laboratory in the southern one. In the two-storey riverside wing connecting the two wings laboratories, the office and staff-rooms opened from the corridor running parallel to the courtyard. The northern wing of the building is a singlestorey one with a deck-roof, having two and partly three parts. Its rooms are accessible from the courtyard and house the functions of laboratories (e.g. mill, pulsator, grindery, freezer, burner, steamer, concrete analyser, engine hall), as well as the so-called Werder engine-hall.

The southern wing also features two parts, facing the street with a two-storey one. Originally it contained a laboratory, chambers, depot, a collection room, gas generator and a large-size engine hall, whilst the northern part included the experimental enginehall topped with a two-storey glazed steel-structure roof. The latter was used for analysing agricultural machineries. The largest and most precise tensiometer of Hungary was transferred from here to the specialised Museum of the Agricultural Implement and Machine Development of St Stephen University of Agricultural Sciences in Gödöllő in 2011. Belonging to this latter wing is the tower originally functioning as a water-tower. In his memoirs Pecz referred to the MM Building as follows: "...as far as I know, no institution abroad had a similarly furnished and equipped laboratory for agricultural experiments with associated machinery than the applied mechanics building at the time.