Veszter Gábor: Villas in Budapest. From the compromise of 1867 to the beginning of World War II - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1997)
Works Iván Rakovszky and the lord mayor of the city of Budapest Ferenc Ripka, of the “model settlement of small housing on Pasaréti út” was destined to be the starting point of a new era in architecture. The fact that the project had actually been completed and that it had also been given recognition by the authorities was regarded as proof that theoretical controversies still very vibrant during the second half of the twenties had Finally come to a close and that practical difficulties could at the long last be conquered. The initial impulse for the organisation of an architectural exhibition on the model of the Werkbund housing estates was given by the occasion of an international architecture congress held in Budapest in 1930. The idea was launched by the Hungarian Architects’ and Entrepreneurs’ Association at the beginning of 1930, undoubtedly late with regard to the dates of the congress, especially as the building of a small housing project in a prime area of Budapest presented a number of administrative difficulties. The firm undertaking construction, building contractors Fejér & Dános, chose for the site an area of nearly 11,000 square metres at the end of Pasaréti út alongside the Ördögárok brook. The realisation of the project came up against a problem right at the start, for the minimum plot size for the district according to the relevant building regulations was just over 1000 square metres, while the planned area of the plots on which the villas were to be built was only one third of that. (The project was precisely intended to prove that complete, high-standard houses, fully equipped with all required comfort, could indeed be built on small plots.) At the beginning of July 1930, the Budapest Board of Public Works allowed the exceptional parcelling “with the purpose of assisting and promoting the construction of family houses”. However, the reservation was made that a maximum 25 per cent of the area of the plots was to be built on with one-family houses containing two to four rooms, that no annex buildings were allowed, that the houses were to stand at a distance of at least three metres from the limits of the plot, that the remainder of the plot was to be turned into a garden, and that the fencing was to be uniform and have a base height of 80 centimetres. These conditions were aimed at preserving the character of the district by avoiding excessive disparity in the general aspect of the residential area. 42
