Cseh Valentin szerk.: „70 éve alakult a MAORT” – tanulmányok egy bányavállalat történetéből (2009)
János Tóth: MAORT Housing Projects
The construction group - which started activities from November 1937 - was made up of an engineer, a foreman, and of workers whose number was aligned with the given needs. Needless to sav the employee headcount also went up later on. They engaged in earthwork (terrain correction), and built roads, machine houses, etc. first. In the spring of 1938, they begun the construcdon of 7 engineer's flats in Bázakerettye. The designs were drafted by Dezső Antal, an architect from Budapest, after studying folk architecture in the surrounding Göcsej region. (Dezső Antal wrote a booklet about his study 1 field trip to Zala in 1935: "On Hungarian folk architecture. Göcsej".) The houses, built in a pleasant environment, retained the atmosphere and style features of Göcsej folk architecture for posterity. In 1939, construction began on 6 two-room, semi-detached official's houses on the basis of the designs of Gvőző Keresztes, a technician, and the contractor's agent. These were each 187 m2 in size. Construction intensified in 1941. engineers', officials' and workers' homes were built. The Lovászi field was discovered in 1940. Home building also began in earnest here the following year (10/03/1941). Temporary housing barracks were constructed to accommodate some of the many new employees. A plant cafeteria, a shopping house, an abattoir, a workers' bathhouse, and a laundrywere built to properly cater to plant workers' needs; first in Bázakerettye, and then likewise in Lovászi as well. The company's management decided to locate the sections that could be centralised, along with technical and administration related management in Nagykanizsa. The township handed o\ T er a section of the strolling garden to MAORT for the construction of engineers' and officials' homes. The buildings from Bázakerettye and Lovászi, reminiscent of peasants' houses in the Göcsej I lills, however, did not fit-in at this housing project. New designs had to be drawn up. Master builder |ózsef Berkes - MAORT's employee - designed the 3, 4, and 5 room engineer's houses on the basis of architect Lajos Kozma's book entitled "Das Neue Haus". Although he studied the Yvekerle project's, the Pasaréti Street residential estate's, and the ONCSA project's flats beforehand, he did not find these adaptable. A part of the designs for the rest of the engineers' and officials' homes were drafted by Gór Viktor - a builder technician hailing from Muraszombat (Murska Sobota) - using blueprints by dr. István Kotsis, professor at the Budapest University of Technology. MAORT's construction activity was vigorous until the summer of 1943. There were 49 officials active in the Construction Group, who employed more than two thousand workers in addition to the contractors's employees. They primarily built bomb shelters and protective walls around plant equipment for the remainder of the year, then in 1944 on account of an authority decree, as well as war action. (After the war, it was the demolition of the protective walls that sensed as construction material.) The construction of the oil refinery at Szőny was begun before the year was out. Frame houses were produced for the personnel engaging in activities there. Only half (50) of the originally planned 80-110 flats were completed until the end of 1945 because of the war, and material sourcing difficulties. Forestry engineer Kálmán Bősze, the head of the site office, only stipulated the floor space of living premises, but he was the one who designed vegetation for the gardens, and managed horticultural work as well. Several people disagreed with the shape and siting of the houses, because - among other things - rooms did not open to the street, but the garden instead. No concrete pavement was built in the gardens.
