Földes Mária: Ornamentation - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)
buildings, conspicuous structural pieces are rare and superfluous, too. The required structures are normally so simple, their applications and sizes so similar to each other, that their continual external accentuation would be uninteresting or even boring. And it is hardly possible to achieve anything new or appropriate with elements whose use is not dictated by any good reason but habit and routine void of inner justification ... it is not possible that a logically thinking man should never have felt the contradiction between that kind of facade design and justice... I chose my decorative motifs from the spheres of both the animal and the vegetable kingdoms with complete freedom ... The number of plants and animals suitable for stylization has been thought to be limited. Griffins, lions, eagles, and snails on the one hand, and acanthi, laurels and fruit garlands on the other have so far carried the day. And yet, what an abundance and freshness the large number of animals and, especially, plants have to offer. How intimate and homely (I am not yet saying ‘national’ deliberately) we can make our ornaments, if we draw on the flora and fauna indigenous to our own country, and use this material in a way best suited to our special taste ... He urges us to employ all that which we have known before, adding, however, that we should not be averse to the application of new motifs, and what is more, we should look for such motifs.” Ho. 12 Szabadság tér, CIS Embassy, sculptural decoration BETWEEN THE WINDOWS 44
