Prakfalvi Endre: Architecture of Dictatorship. The Architecture of Budapest between 1945 and 1959 - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

One building of the Fiastyük utca housing estate IN VŐLEGÉNY utca

Four hundred and fifty-six flats were to be built on the area, which number would have fallen short of specifications in terms of economy. The number of flats was therefore raised (i.e. the floorspace of the individual flats was reduced). Here is how the aggregate number of flats planned can be broken down: of the 515 flats, 141 were singleroom apartments (of which 88 had limited conveniences), 308 had two rooms and 66 three. The estate was given a household and a haberdasher’s store, a tobacconist’s, a hairdresser’s, a cobbler’s and a dress mender’s shop, a “Patyolat” laundry and a fast-food-cum-on-licence establishment. Each flat was to be equipped with a tile stove, a “Neptun” water-heater in the bathroom, a washbasin, a WC and a kitchen basin. Preparatory work was impeded by the lack of roads. The construction was started with small machinery (ten “Brunn” cranes, a pneumatic mortar pump, two mortar mills, six concrete mixers, conveyor belts, and vibrators); a short column crane was brought in at a later stage. There was a shortage of labour, and the workforce, further diminished at harvest-time, was supplemented with student workers. Furthermore, the account observes that the hurried pace at which the work was done

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