XX. századi műemlékek és védelmük (A 26. Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai 1996 Eger, 1996)

Előadások: - Architecture and identtity

problem of national identity and its expression in architecture to be crucial. The ideological difference between them is due to their different perception of national identity. Thought there has been numerous overlappings between the different streamings, we may distinguish at least five parallel lines or traditions, that might be divided into further branches: 2.2.1. Conservative national architecture (1920s and the beginning of the 1930s) 2.2.1.1. The Christian-Conservative branch was authoritarian favouring historical expressions, without a precisely elaborated theoretical platform. (Architects: Gáspár Fábián, Gyula Petrovácz) It was supported by the establishment. 2.2.1.2. The Anti-Liberal (status quo) Conservative branch developed on the line of historian Gyula Szekfű and minister Kuno Klebeisberg: they condemned liberalism for the national tragedy (Trianon Treaty) and appreciated the past; their notion of nation was broad (not exclusive). In terms of architecture this branch was not homogeneous. Gyula Wälder was a strong adherent of historic traditions, particularly the 18th century Baroque, that united town and village, gentry and folk. Iván Kotsis had anti-plebeian feelings, fostered the research of historic monuments and the acceptance of their spirit, but he was partly opened to the socalled New Architecture. (Új építészet, i.e. modern architecture) 2.2.1.3. The Liberal branch considered everything Hungarian that is pervaded by Hungarian spirit without making special efforts to create Hungarian art or architecture. The adherents of this branch did not see any contradiction between the Hungarian and the European (i.e. Western) spirit. (Architects Marcell Komor, Dezső Jakab, Lajos Kozma, Móric Pogány) 2.2.1.4. The Romantic Nation Conception favoured accepted historic expressions of the nation, using Hungarian rhetoric and trying to establish a specific Hungarian expression in architecture (Architects Róbert Kertész K., Jenő Lechner). Jenő Lechner expressed his fear from the 'international style', he refused individualism and he was longing for an organic community, stressing the importance of the 'racial character' and projecting it back into history. In practice, he used Renaissance of Northern Hungary. (Kertész was slightly more liberal — the Turanian myth meant a broad national idea for him.) 2.2.2. National-Folkish Concepts (1920s, until 1933) 2.2.2.1. Turanian racial Thought fostered researches of the national (racial) past and spirit, showing explicit Anti-Semitism and Anti-German sentiments. Cultural renewal was expected from the 'unspoiled' country folk (Architects István Medgyaszay, Ede Thorockay Wigand). Medgyaszay accepted only ancient folk spirit and operationalised it as sobriety, gayety and the favouring of contrasts. Thorockay attacked cosmopolitan city life and favoured rural life and vernacular architecture, operationalising its principles as functionalism (not in the modern sense of the word), simplicity and contextualism. 2.2.2.2. Transilvanism is a parallel to Turanism between the two World Wars in Transilvania. Its main figure, Károly Kós, used multiculturality of Transilvania in the spirit of real politics fostering regional identity in culture and architecture.