Fabó Beáta - Gall, Anthony: I came from the East to a City of Great Palaces. Károly Kós, the early years 1907-1914 (Budapest, 2013)
Foreword
FOREWORD Two important, emblematic institutions of Budapest and Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfäntu Gheorghe respectively, are the Budapest Zoo and the Székely National Museum, which are also peak points within the architectural career of Károly Kós. Both had been created earlier as institutions, but gained permanent homes in new buildings in 1912. Their identity is inseparable from Károly Kós. Most of the buildings designed by Kós can be found in Budapest and Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfäntu Gheorghe, which testifies to the spiritual orientation of the elite and the political leadership of Hungary in this period and an openness to the ideas Kós sought to represent as well. The two places are connected by a railway line, by which, roughly halfway, we find Sztána/Stana- the village where Kós built a home for his family, his work, his ideas. The first stage of his professional career, 1907-1914 is of key significance within his oeuvre. This is when he came to be an outstanding figure of the world of art and architecture in Hungary as well as internationally. The years 1909-1910 saw major decisions made concerning his life. The young architecture student, at the onset of his career, started a family, built his home, the still legendary building of Crow Castle, in Sztána/Stana, in his beloved Kalotaszeg/Tara Cälatei region of Transylvania and some of his significant projects were realised. In 1908, just a year after graduation, he was commissioned, with Dezső Zrumeczky, to design the buildings of the Municipal Zoo of Budapest. The renovated zoo was opened to the public in 1912. Another outstanding work within his oeuvre, the Székely National Museum in Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfäntu Gheorghe was also completed in that year. So the year 1912 is exceedingly significant, even within this eight year period of his career. We intended the exhibition organised in Budapest and Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfäntu Gheorghe in 2012 and 2013 and its published version, the present volume, to commemorate Károly Kós and specifically this very significant period within his career. His designs, thoughts and realised projects from this period represent the inter-connectedness and parallels within the practical and spiritual world of his time. They give an outline of the first seven years of his career and some previous events, his network of friends, family members and colleagues as a backdrop to his art and also contemporary Budapest and Transylvania as its context - that is, all that shaped his personality as an artist. His personal belongings kept in Crow Castle were unfortunately lost in 1944. Most of his surviving designs are kept in the Budapest Municipal Archives (and some of them in the Kiscelli Museum and the Hungarian Museum of Architecture), while the Székély National Museum of Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfäntu Gheorghe also has a wide range of documents. 13
