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

Second-floor lounge in building “R”

In spite of this appraisal, it is notable that, following the stylistic logic of the period, the designers of the time tended to concentrated on fagades rather than on interiors, whose arrangement was not a major consideration. The impressive interior spaces of the People’s Stadium, its box of honour and dressing building, can be regarded as an exception. Very different to that is the workers’ hostel in Csepel (Kossuth Lajos utca, district XXI), whose “palatial” fagades (the street front is the work of Károly Dávid, while the one overlooking the garden was designed by Zoltán Boross, Zoltán Kosa and Egon Pfannl, 1952-53) are in stark contrast with the depressing squalidness of the interiors hiding behind them. Another case in point is the students’ hostel at No. 28-30 Bercsényi utca, district XI (Zoltán Boross, Katalin Biczó; design from 1953) with its characteristic portico, or the headquarters of the Bureau of Planning for the Forge and Machine Industry at No. 55 Krisztina körút, district I (under reconstruction at present; Pál Németh, Gyula Tálos, from 1950). Of similar apartment buildings, the so-called ÁVH building at No. 59-61 Attila út, district I, at the corner of Alagút utca, can be mentioned in this connection.

Garages were buildings with a special function, that of serving motor traffic, which had increased “enormously” after the war. Such were the (party) garages in Szabolcs utca, district XIII (István Nyiri, Ferenc Bandi), in Pannónia

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