Fabó Beáta - Gall, Anthony: I came from the East to a City of Great Palaces. Károly Kós, the early years 1907-1914 (Budapest, 2013)
Influences
ffl The Baross Café on the Grand Ring, circa 1900 photo by György Klösz BFL Fotótár !.. it was in this year that the press of the capital discovered and presented me to the Hungarian audience - not as an architect butfirst as a writer and then as an illustrator. It was a strangely playful twist of fate, which I would even find somewhat annoying being an architect with no literary ambitions..’. 1909: ‘But the breakaway from the smoky, grubby stone-and-asphalt prison of those disquiet people running about their business to the dear, fresh, reassuring world of free Nature and more specifically to the beautiful stretch of the bank of the Danube between Visegrád and Szob... I started to consider in all seriousness that once 1 was going to settle in Budapest anyway - and I couldn't think of an alternative what with my prospects as an architect - then I must get a little building lot by the river here in Zebegény and build a little holiday cottage as soon as possible (obviously with a boathouse included)’. KOS1991 96~97 I became immersed deeper and deeper in the metropolitan sea of Budapest and I adopted ever more completely the way of life and cynical outlook of the city that threatens to devour every single Hungarian value. Also I was becoming further andfurther removedfrom and losing sight of the colours and sounds andfeelings and images oftheforests, mountains, ofthe towns and villages and the people ofmy homeland, everything that constituted my life of old. It all became like a set of worn and torn clothes, out offashion andfit to be thrown away. It was then, at the end of the summer that I received my mother's letter!KOS I991:10°After receiving the letter Kós returned to Transylvania and decided to build a house in Sztána (Stana), marry the daughter of the parson of Türe and quit the big life in Zebegény once and for all. 1909-1910: I'm being dragged in so many directions that I will end up quitting everywhere. Look. Here's a list of the things I'm doing simultaneously and with whom: I work on the zoo, then myfriend Janszky and I are completing the church in Zebegény, with Zrumeczky the parsonage of Óbuda, with Györgyi a small castle that has to be completed by the end of this year, and also with him I've made a little villa in Göd and a headstone in Vác. By the 1st ofSeptember I have to prepare the next issue of ‘A Ház’ (‘The House’), which involves making a lot ofdrawings and having lots of texts written, which are then to be proofread and edited, etc. On this very day I received a letter (special delivery) from my colleague Vigand (Toroczkai -ed.), asking me to enter the planning competition for the County Hall in Vásárhely (Târgu Mures) with him. I agreed; Ido indeed work on everything!KdmlyKÓS'lettert° his wife, 21st July, 1909.. ■ József Bartóky and friends in the garden in Zebegény, on the hilltop collection of Jékey Péter H The Bartóky family in the garden of their Zebegény cottage, circa 1906 collection of Jékey Péter ‘I'm but chopping up my precious time in this constant struggle for money and I have to put aside my ideals. 1 keep encouraging myself saying ‘next month there will be enough time, then I will focus on them with all my energies’. I could perhaps produce beautiful things, but then again, I can't. There's no time, or rather, time goes by so fast, day after day, year after year. And I'm growing old, my dreams are (jnivnr crrpv’ Károly Kós'letter to his wife, 14th February, 1910.
