Fabó Beáta - Gall, Anthony: I came from the East to a City of Great Palaces. Károly Kós, the early years 1907-1914 (Budapest, 2013)
Mihály Varga: The Art of Károly Kós
1907-1914 THE ART OF KÁROLY KÓS In order for us to understand the artistic intentions and efforts of Károly Kós, architect of the buildings of the Budapest Zoo, the Székely National Museum in Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfäntu Gheorghe and, halfway between them, his Crow Castle in Sztána/Stana, we need to start thinking not so much about his favourite, the main building of the museum, but the imitation of the 18th century Transylvanian manor and gates standing next to the main building of the museum, which were also designed by Kós. Their model, the Skansen of Artur Hazelius, addressed every stratum of the public in 1891, amazing the whole world by its precisely relocated relics of folk and national architecture, live workshops presenting folk arts and crafts, a botanic garden and a zoo without bars and cages. The creation of the Skansen of Stockholm can be traced back to a knowledgeable Swedish painter, Cedric I. Dahl, who had a Norwegian church relocated to Germany in 1841. Hazelius, who had previously only planned exhibitions of folk interiors, was inspired by this event, as well as by the scale models of folk architecture presented by János Xantus at the World Expo in Vienna in 1873. In the ‘Transylvanian Cottage of the International Village’, visitors were greeted by a welcoming farming couple offering local mineral water. Behold, the first real manifestation of the nowadays so oft-quoted ‘living museum’ principle. As for Xantus, it is worth mentioning here that - before founding the Budapest Zoo in 1866, originally intended for presenting the fauna of Hungary - he may have been among the visitors of the first ethnological exhibition in 1864 in Marosvásárhely/Tárgu Mures, while in 1875 he was one of the academics to verify the authenticity of the Székely National Museum then being established in Imecsfalva/ Imeni, in the Cserey Manor. The art of Károly Kós, ‘treading the path built on the firm basis of the lessons learntfrom the traditions of the national past and the products of folk art still alive today’ was immensely influenced also by the Arts and Crafts movement, whose values Kós proclaimed in 1910 in Marosvásárhely/Tárgu Mures. This is where Kós met his contemporary, Ede Toroczkai Wigand, and their cooperation began. It is Toroczkai who envisaged the first Hungarian skansen, including the first home of the Székely National Museum, the Cserey Manor of Imecsfalva/Imeni. In 1911 Kós and Toroczkai travelled to Dálnok/Dalnic to find a suitable building and gate to be relocated in the skansen. In 1913 Kós took his colleague and friend, Dezső Zrumeczky, on a round trip from Sztána/Stana on his own horse-drawn carriage. This is when they found the carved Székely gate for the museum building in Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfäntu Gheorghe, whose painted red-and-blue floral design rhymes with the Székely house presented at the World Expo of 1873 in Vienna. The concise yet comprehensive exhibition that served as the basis of this book presents Kós' strong commitment to his people, with his main works, the Zoo, Crow Castle and the Székely Museum set in it like gems. It is our great pleasure that the beautiful exhibition is now completed with such a unique book, which aims to give an overview of the earliest and most fruitful and exciting creative period of Károly Kós. Mihály Vargha Director of the Székely National Museum, Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfäntu Gheorghe H The skansen of the Székely National Museum in Sepsiszentgyíörgy László Alapfy 7
