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

After World War I

■ entrance with porch to a home on the ”OTI" garden city in Magdolnavároó

prominent names (Jenő Lechner, Loránd Lechner and Guidó Hoepfer), very young people who were to become known after the war (József Schall, Ágoston Benk- hard, Gyula Kéry), and a few noted modern architects (Farkas Molnár, József Fischer, Károly Dávid Jr, Aladár and Viktor Olgyay). Differences of outlook can only be observed about the ground plans (and there only slightly, as the architects were considerably constricted by having to design one and two-room flats on a tight budget), with the masses and fapades looking fairly uniform. Although Molnár would have corner-windows on the living-rooms, nothing of the sort can be seen on the finished buildings. On the other hand, shuttered windows and porches are recurrent features of the housing estates. The latter tends to include an arch supported by a brick truss or a squat column bulging out at the middle. 1 cannot tell whether the rustic style was an explicit requirement made by the clients or it was simply an expression of the spirit of the age, the vogue of the 1930s. As seen above, rustic patterns of architecture were invoked in housing estates of a garden-city type. In any case, the Social Democrat József Fischer’s remark on the list of his works is not without some relevance here: "No house in this spirit should ever be built!”

Seen today, the consistent appearance of the housing estate in Magdolnaváros is certainly an asset. This estate, which has never received official protection

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