Balassa M. Iván: Báránd (Bihar megye) települése és építkezése (Szentendre: Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 1985)
the yard. They consisted of 4 premises. From the street side there is one room, beside it is the kitchen, then another room and a pantry closes the building. In front of the first 3 premises on the yardside there is a porch, the fourth room occupies the whole width of the building. The porches are usually with wooden columns, columns from brick are relatively rare. The previously unknown buildings became widespread. The buildings of hay-storing belong to this group of buildings, as their importance grew due to transfer to animal-keeping in stables. The period, following the First World War is of less significance. By that time the expansion of the village decreased. The number of plots improper for the traditional farming is increasing at certain parts of the village, and houses of simple construction and poor appearance are built on them. These houses were mainly inhabited by railwaymen and not by peasants. At the end of the 1960 years the latest building wave started, which lasted in the time of the present investigation, at the beginning of the 1980 years too. The inner part of the village expanded further. On these plots, but on other parts of the village too it is becoming evident, that the newly built houses do not follow rural traditions, but follow urban and state-controlled patterns. The aim of this study is to decide, with which regions has the vernacular architecture of Báránd common features. It seems, that the ground-plan of the dwelling-house and other buildings shows only more general relations, they are not suitable to serve as evidence for connections with smaller regions. Though it is very useful to study the building materials and the building styles from this point of view. In the 19th century a few houses were built with reed-walls in Báránd. These were made with the same frame construction as was general in Nagykunság. The building techniques of Sárrét and the surroundings of Debrecen, Hajdúság: walls of unmoulded heaps of clay, or of beaten earth stamped between wooden shapes are not familiar here. Nagykunság can be first of all characterized by adobe building, like Báránd, though there were walls from unmoulded heaps of clay not uncommon either. It is worth mentioning the conclusion, that can be drawn from the names of certain parts of roofing. It can be stated, that certain parts of these names are common on the Great Hungarian Plain as well. That nomenclature, which refers to the name of the roof timbers and rafter is exclusively used in Nagykunság. The fire-places in Báránd have the same features as those of the Great Hungarian Plain. The oven, or ovens are placed into the dwelling-rooms. They are of cone-frustrum type and can be heated from outside. In front of their stoke-hole in the kitchen there was a ledge made of earth under the open chimney. In the middle, under the chimney, there was another cooking place of the same type one meter from floor level, where cooking was done above open fire. It is missing the other type of open fireplaces, very common in Sárrét, called ,,open hearth". It was placed in the room between the oven and the entrance door along the wall. It was not known in Nagykunság either. The border-line of roof-constructions reaches Sárrét. It could be stated only, that those roof-types are not known in Báránd, where the upper part of the gable mostly the one-third of it, was cut off. These roof-types are common east from Báránd. Here only gable roofs are known, similar to Nagykunság. Earlier the straight gable was made from plastered reed or from the stalks of sunflower. From the end of the 19th century it was made from boards, often nicely decorated. A peculiarity of porch-construction can be observed in Báránd. The lintel over the columns supporting the porch is placed lower, than the low level of the roofing. This type is common both in Nagykunság, and in the villages and towns of the Great Hungarian Plain, north from Báránd. There is no such a general rule of the research of vernacular architecture, that has application to decide whether the building-type of a village should be classified into this or that small regional type. The study can draw that conclusion, that instead of definite classification, one can state, that the vernacular architecture of Báránd in the last 200 years was st r ongly influenced by Nagykunság and carries very similar features. It shows closer connections to this direction, than to Sárrét. One of thereasons of it is, that Nagykunság represented more developed forms and techniques. Beside ethnical connections the situation of the settlement near to the main road made it possible to keep pace with progress.
