Ferkai András: Housing Estates - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2005)
Housing Estates after 1945
The Competition for National Housing announced by the Ministry of Architecture invited suggestions for the widest possible range of home types from studio flats for one or two persons to flats suitable for running a household of two to six people, from two-storey terraced houses to the greatest variety of four-storey buildings (cube houses, multi-axis buildings with a closed internal staircase and external galleries, tower houses, etc.). The 1959 National Competition for Home Furniture was then announced for portable furniture suitable for the furnishing of precisely these homes. The finest, prize-winning and commissioned competitive designs were used as the basis of the first stage of the experimental housing estate in Óbuda. Seven-to-eight-storey buildings were meant to be erected in the second stage. Seven pairs of designers were invited in December of 1958 to submit (by New Year’s Eve!) development designs for the estate. Construction work commenced in May of 1959 on the basis of the first-prize winning plan (by Albert Kiss and János Pomsár, Buváti), and the fully-furnished flats were opened to the public the following summer. Seventeen buildings were erected based on competitive plans, with another three built according to existing standard designs (so that the latter could be compared with the newly designed ones in terms of economy of maintenance). The medium-height buildings (László Borostyánkői Dezső Dúl and János Pomsár, 1961—63) are specimens of standard designs used elsewhere before. The experimental housing estate in Óbuda was born at a favourable historical ■ Medium-height blocki on the Óbuda experimental Homing Citate (Dez/,6 Dúl, 1963) 57
