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

Housing Estates after 1945

co-operative or home-builders’ community, as nobody is his own enemy. There is unfortunately little room for optimism here. An unworthy tradition of Budapest is that the city has failed to assist initiatives of the type described here with credit, tax benefits or inexpensive plots of land for the past 150 years. The situation today is in no way better than the Gründezeit of the 19th century.

Another compelling task is the rehabilitation of prefab housing estates. A competition was invited as early as the mid-eighties. As witnessed by the competitive designs, there is a wide variety of means available to those intending to reconstruct and improve these buildings. Flats can be joined vertically as well as horizontally, floor-plans can be altered within the framework of the external structure, apartments can be enlarged with the addition of newly-built sections, additional floors can be built or new attic space created, fagades can be "dressed up”, private or semi-communal gardens can be attached to the buildings, ground-floor rooms can be put to new uses, soil can be moved, open spaces can be built over to create new indoor areas, etc. To the best of my knowledge, nothing of the sort has been done in Hungary yet. Tenants-turned-owners newly forming themselves into condominium-associations are happy if they can obtain government grants for the addition of an external coating of heat-insulation or the reconstruction of the house engineering system. Yet, far more radical intervention would be required if housing estates are to be more than a graveyard of urban decay and a cradle of ever-renewed vandalism.

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