Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 25. (Budapest, 2007)

Magda LICHNER: Early Works by Gyula Kaesz: His Designs for the Parish Church of St. Nicolas at Muraszombat /Murska Sobota

NOTES

1 The theme emerged during comparison of the material of three archives, during the processing of sources for the history of the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest. Great assistance in the work was provided by Mrs. Levente Nagy of the Archive of the Research Institute for Art History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The art historians Zoltán Fehérvári and Virág Hajdú made investigations in the Archive of the Hungarian Museum of Architecture; Ibolya Cs. Plank gave information about those of the Kaesz papers that passed to the Photograph Archive of the Cultural Heritage Protection Office. I am grateful to them all. Verbal communications from colleagues at the Museum of Applied Arts have helped me to recognise the importance and influence of Gyula Kaesz. I should like to thank these colleagues - Dr. Hedvig Szabolcsi, Éva Kiss and last but not least Dr. Mária Zlinszky-Stemegg - for their time and their assistance.

2 The documents passed to the Museum of Applied Arts in the form of smaller donations, purchases and finally, after the death of Kató Lukáts, as a larger donation by the Bartók family. Inv. no. : Kit. 1637-3167, KRTF It: 29044222. See ‘A Kaesz-Lukáts hagyaték’ (The Kaesz-Lukáts Papers). In: Horváth, Hilda et ah: Az idő sodrában. Az Iparművészeti Múzeum gyűjteményeinek története (In the Slipstream of Time. A History of the Collections at the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest). Exhibition catalogue. Budapest, 2006.

3 Inv. no.: MDK-C-32/14731, donation, 1968. Most of these documents relate to the post-1945 reforms to education and training, the foundation and curriculum of the Academy of Applied Arts, and the last-mentioned institution’s new building in Buda’s Zugliget district. Nevertheless, there are among them a good number of private orders; contracts supplied with names, addresses and dates; invoices; price offers; and sketches that help identify the plans and photographs kept at the Hungarian Museum of Architecture, thus providing a chronology of the artist’s oeuvre.

4 Kató Lukáts’s donation was inventoried and placed in the collection of the Hungarian Museum of Architecture, a Cultural Heritage Protection Office institution, in 1970.

5 Archive of the Museum of Applied Arts (hereinafter AMAA) inv. no.: Kit.: 1682-1779 (picture- postcards and letters from Kozma to Lukáts Kató and Kaesz Gyula). In the Kaesz papers there are also personal documents belonging to Lajos Kozma that refer to the situation in which he found himself following Law XV of 1938 (29 May, ‘on a more effective ensuring of balance in social and economic life’) and subsequently Law IV of 1939 (5 May, ‘on restricting the spread of Jews in public and economic life’). For

a re-evaluation of Kozma’s work, for the social status of those who ordered it, and on the judging of it from the sociology of art standpoint, see Horányi, Eva (ed.): Kozma Lajos modern épületei [Lajos Kozma’s Modernist Buildings], Budapest: Tere, 2006, especially András Ferkai’s introduction (pp. 10-28) and Éva Horányi studies ‘Az új ház - Kozma Lajos budai villái’ [The New-type House - Lajos Kozma’s Buda Villas] (pp. 68-120) and ‘Kozma Lajos modem villái’ [Lajos Kozma’s Modernist Villas] (pp. 120-174).

6 For the building at Retek u. 32, cf. Háy, Gyula: ‘Kozma Lajos, ahogyan ma látjuk’ [Lajos Kozma Today], In: Tér és Forma 1929, pp. 278-28.1 am grateful to Zoltán Fehérvári for drawing my attention to the identity of this client.

7 Archive of the Research Institute for Art History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, inv. no.: MDK-C-I-32/2894.1-2. The papers contain the correspondence between Kaesz and Podovszky, the price calculation, the order, and so on. In the end the villa was never built: referring to a decision by a committee charged with the control of building materials, Budapest City Hall refused to give permission. MDK-C-I-32/2895.

8 Archive of the Research Institute for Art History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, inv. no.: MDK-C-I-32/2929. Both letters are located in the bundle of documents containing the design documentation of the buildings in question. Bank buildings, principally alterations to the front and interior spaces of such buildings in Budapest and Kassa (today: Kosice, Slovakia), represent the acme of Kaesz’s work as an architect. See Bierbauer, Virgil: ‘A Felvidéki Kereskedelmi Bank székháza’ [The Headquarters Building of the Commercial Bank of Upper Hungary], Tér és Forma 1940, pp. 171-177. Féja, Géza: ‘A Nemzeti Takarékpénztár átépítése és berendezése’ [The Rebuilding and Refurbishing of the National Savings Bank], Tér és Forma, special number, 1941. Lestyán, Sándor: Az Alföldi Takarék- pénztár székhaza [The Headquarters Building of the Great Plain Savings Bank], Debrecen, 1941.

9 For the launch of the journal, for the role it played in changing the direction of architecture, and for the character of the photographs it contained, see Ibolya Cs. Plank: ‘Dekoratív képek. Seidner Zoltán fényképei Kozma Lajos enteriőrjeiről’ [Decorative Images. Zoltán Seidner’s Photographs of Interiors by Lajos Kozma]. In: Horányi: Kozma Lajos..., pp. 28-66.

10 Photographs of his furniture that survives at the Museum of Applied Arts, at the Hungarian Museum of Architecture and in private hands are published in Kiss: Kaesz Gyula 1897-1967. Gyoma: Kner, 2000, pp. 46-92 and pp. 146-148.

11 Dénes Györgyi was to assist Kaesz later on also. For a short time Kaesz worked in Györgyi’s office.

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