Prakfalvi Endre: Architecture of Dictatorship. The Architecture of Budapest between 1945 and 1959 - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)
út in district XI, is of interest is that here, as early as the spring of 1955, the ministry formally approved individualistic designs diverging, in form as well as in content, from the officially recognised trends and type-plans to accommodate the complex functions of flats (Kamill Kismarty- Lechner, 1955-56). It was at this time, too, that the planning of the TV tower on Szabadság Hill, that familiar landmark of the Buda hills, was in progress. The 1-kilowatt transmitter was inaugurated on 1 May 1956 to mark the festive occasion of May Day. The changes underway are also suggested by the works of Dezső Dúl, whose buildings dating to the 1950s can serve as a fine example of the turn the history of architecture was taking. The (officers’) housing estate in Hadapród (today’s Kelemen László) utca in Pasarét, designed by Dúl and built in 1952, bear the stylistic marks of the period as does the building of the Zrínyi Military Academy erected to his plans in 1953 (No. 9-11 Hungária körút). In 1954-57 a primary school by him was built in Zugló (No. 35-37 Erzsébet királyné útja, district XIV). Raised in 1956 in Csillebérc, the building of Hungary’s first, experimental, nuclear reactor was already conceived of in a Modernist style. Designed in 1953, Dúl’s twin apartment block on Nos. 47 and 49 Mártírok útja (today Margit körút), at the entrance to the Mechwart-iiget square, is a significant element of the cityscape itself with its colonnaded arcades, finely proportioned, stone-covered fagade topped with a roof terrace. Here, only the grooving of the stone slabs above the columns serves as a reminder of Socialist Realist forms (architects Róbert Hont, Lajos Hegyi and István Fenyves were Dúl’s associates). Winners were given their flats in the first “Lottery House” at No. 27 Mártírok útja (today Margit körút). Dezső Dúl had worked on the plans of the building since 1955. The arching facade with its top floor blends harmoniously into the row of remarkably fine, Modernist apartment blocks erected in this section of the street between the two world wars. A somewhat disregarded aspect of the architectural practice of the period is that of detached house building. The trend is worthy of attention because of the effect, felt to this day, that it had on popular tastes. A government resolution was passed in 1954 to encourage private initiative in building houses and freehold flats. (In spite of the indexes in the five-year plans, the problem of the housing 59
