Ferkai András: Housing Estates - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2005)

Government and municipal housing: the "Wekerle"

■ The development plan of the Wekerle Homing Citate

room flats were in semi-detached bungalows arranged in groups of two and, more frequently, four. The buildings, each of which stood on 70-to-8o-square- fathom plots, were raised to 48 standard designs made by several architects. The Wekerle Estate is essentially a garden city, even though it lacks the picturesque irregularity of its English and German models. The strictly consistent layout of the diagonal streets and the higher buildings arranged one next to the other on the main square also belie the idea of a genuine garden city. But then we know the familiar story of how the insolence of office (this time headed by architect Ottmár Győry) transformed the beautiful English-style plans of Antal Palóczi into a pattern of rigid symmetry, and how Károly Kós won the commission for the main square with a sketch chalked on a slate.

The Wekerle Estate has by now become part of the country's historical heritage, and deservedly so. For a long time it was not regarded as such. Knowing the innumerable reconstruction jobs, built-in attics, extensions and outbuildings disfiguring the gardens, one may wonder if one will ever see the estate restored to its fine original state. If not, then what is the use of official protection? How is it possible to reconcile individual interests with those of the community and the cultural heritage in such a way that the estate can be restored to and keep its original character? Or, to turn the question around, how can the occupants' reasonable intentions to build be kept within the framework of a frozen

21