Fabó Beáta - Gall, Anthony: I came from the East to a City of Great Palaces. Károly Kós, the early years 1907-1914 (Budapest, 2013)
Dr. István Kendere: The history of an exhibition
THE HISTORY OF AN EXHIBITION The name Károly Kós is an evocative term. For all Hungarians, whether they live in Hungary, in Budapest or outside Hungary in Transylvania - in Kolozsvár/Cluj-Napoca, Kalotaszeg/Tara Cälatei, the Székelyföld region, Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfäntu Gheorghe, and we could continue the list of those living in the thousand-year-old areas of Hungarian dwelling for whom the name of Károly Kós evokes both the idea of a strong attachment to being Hungarian, to one's motherland, to Transylvania and a European architecture rooted in the lasting values of folk architecture. Kós is claimed by several fields: architecture, art history, literary studies, history, ethnography and Hungarology. It follows from the multi-faceted nature of his oeuvre that so far there has been no exhibition with the ambition of presenting it in its entirety. Even this present exhibition concentrates on but a small part of the oeuvre and on a decisive stage within that. The young Károly Kós, at the onset of his career, in the short period between 1907 and 1914, created the works that we still consider the most important and most emblematic even today. Works in or near Budapest include the world of the Budapest Zoo reminiscent of Transylvania, the Parsonage of Óbuda, the Városmajor school complex, the church ofZebegény, the central parts of the Wekerle housing estate; and in Transylvania the Kós family home in Brétfű, the ‘church with the cockerel’ in Kolozsvár/Cluj-Napoca, Crow Castle in Sztána/Stana, the Sekler (Székely) National Museum in Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfäntu Gheorghe - to mention but the few most important ones. After this period, however, History (with a capital H) took centre stage with the First World War and the ensuing national tragedy of Hungarians in the shape of the Trianon peace treaty: Kós' career took a turn from celebrated architect in the capital city to living as a member of an ethnic minority - a conscious life choice on his part. Still, the narrowed scope of the exhibition notwithstanding, it somehow manages to incorporate the very gist of Kós' oeuvre: it sketches the figure of the significant architect who turns towards Transylvanian, Sekler and Saxon architecture following Anglo-American and Scandinavian models and there he finds what he has been looking for all his life: Transylvania and the life of the people of the Kalotaszeg/ Tara Cälatei region. Through presenting the architectural oeuvre the exhibition presents the history of this life choice. This is why the depiction of the world that surrounded Károly Kós in this period of his life is such an emphatic part of the exhibition - Budapest, Transylvania, Kalotaszeg/Tara Cälatei, Sztána/ Stana and Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfäntu Gheorghe. The exhibition was created by the Budapest City Archives and the Sekler National Museum in November 2012 at the initiative and with the curatorship of architect and associate professor Anthony Gall, the best expert of Kós' architectural oeuvre and co-curatored by Beáta Fabó, the chief archivist of the Budapest City Archives. The year 2012 marked the centenary of the two most characteristic architectural creations of Károly Kós, the Budapest Zoo and the Sekler National Museum of Sepsiszentgyörgy/ Sfântu Gheorghe. This is nothing short of emblematic: an outstanding cultural institution of the capital city, which is still a major landmark of the Budapest city-scape and urban space and the National Museum of (one of) the capital(s) of Székelyföld celebrating their common heritage together. It is likewise emblematic that the quantitatively largest part of Kós' architectural heritage belongs to these two institutions, the Budapest City Archives and the Sekler National Museum. The exhibition not only drew the two institutions together, but also brought about excellent cooperation. As a result, the restoration of the plans drawn by Károly Kós kept at the Sekler National Museum was carried out at the workshop of the Budapest City Archives and thus they can now be admired by the public in their full glory in Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfäntu Gheorghe. After being opened in Budapest, the exhibition was opened in Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfäntu Gheorghe as part of the Saint George Day celebrations. Following this, the Sekler National Museum organised the exhibition to be presented at the László Incze Museum of Guild History in Kézdivásárhely/Tárgu Secuiesc in August, in the Balassi Institute in Bucharest in September, at the Ciuc Sekler Museum (Miercurea Ciuc) in November and, in February 2014, at one of the most important sites of Kós' life, in Kolozsvár/Cluj-Napoca. At the same time, the core of the exhibition was set up in Sztána/Stana in the Károly Kós Exhibition Hall as a permanent exhibition - a donation from the Budapest City Archives. The travelling exhibition was received with enormous enthusiasm everywhere it went and we believe that the selfless efforts of the Sekler National Museum will yield success at the upcoming venues as well. It is thanks to this success that the Reader is now presented with the English version of the catalogue of the exhibition and its second Hungarian edition. Dr István Kenyeres Honorary Associate Professor Director General of the Budapest City Archives 11
