Fabó Beáta - Gall, Anthony: I came from the East to a City of Great Palaces. Károly Kós, the early years 1907-1914 (Budapest, 2013)
Kós' First Steps as an Independent Architect
H The eastern facade of the main square, aerial view László Haris HI Detail of No.2, Károly Kós Square László Haris ■ No. 2 and No. 3, Károly Kós Square, together with the bridging element, were designed by Károly Kós László Haris THE WEKERLE ESTATE IN KISPEST, BUDAPEST 1912-1913 The Hungarian Ministry of Finance announced an invitational competition in February 1912 for planning the centre of the Wekerle Estate - the largest green-belt housing estate in Europe at the time. As a result of the competition, Kós was commissioned to make the general design of the square. The buildings at No.2 and No.3 Kós Károly Square are his work. The other buildings lining the square were designed by Dezső Zrumeczky, Zoltán Tornallyay, Dénes Györgyi, Lajos Schodits and Béla Eberling - under Kós' supervision and according to his master plan. In the autumn of 1913 Kós returned home to Sztána/Stana, leaving the remainder of the work, essentially overseeing the construction, to Tornallyay. 7 can well remember wavering for a long time about whether I could submit a plan for a solution to an urban architectural problem, the likes of which I have never before dealt with (town planning was at that time not included in the activities at the Technical University), nor did I have any technical books dealing with the subject in Sztána (Stana). As the deadline approached, however -1finally set down to it and drawing on my memory of squares both at home and abroad, I selected those that were in my opinion the most successful (the ‘GroszerRinf in Szeben (Sibiu) and King Mátyás square in Kolozsvár (Cluj)). I formulated my proposal on the basis of the positive lessons to be drawn from these, the essence of which was: on the one hand, theformation ofan enclosed square, bordered by a closed row of two-floorfacades with eaves ofequal height. The buildings would contain flatsfor civil servants and the essential services required by the residents (pharmacy, post office, tobacconist, grocer, etc.); on the other hand bridging the openings of streets which would break up enclosure of the long side ofthe square, or minimize the openings using a building serving some kind of communal purpose, which would itself be incorporated into the architecture ofthe square. Thus prepared, I got on the train, and then appeared at the appointed time and place in Budapest, equipped with my proposal, to see the committee that had become the jury. ...then after only a few minutes of deliberation amongst themselves, the chairman simply announced the jury's decision; of the 6 proposals, my closed city square proposal had been found to be the most appropriate for the Wekerle estate. First we agreed that given the urgency of the matter and in the interest of avoiding monotony, the plans should be drawn up, not by one, but by several architects working on direct commission according to the programme we set up, with each working on at most two buildings. (On the basis of our agreement, I received the commission and directions for the urgentpreparation of the plans and the budgetfor the two apartment buildings (with shopfronts on the ground floorf.These would be builtfirst and would be joined by a bridge over the street.) 172
