Urbs - Magyar várostörténeti évkönyv 5. (Budapest, 2010)
Recenziók
Abstracts 525 ERIKA SZÍVÓS Burdensome legacy: the problem of Budapest’s historic residential districts in the Kádár Era, through the example of Klauzál tér and area The paper looks at Inner Erzsébetváros - particularly the area around Klauzál tér - as an example of how urban policy changed during the Kádár Era: moves toward protection of historic parts of the city in the late 1970s, and experiments in urban rehabilitation in the 1980s. The sorry state of Inner Erzsébetváros perfectly made it the ideal site for an urban rehabilitation pilot project. Another factor was the commitment to rehabilitation by the District Council (Budapest 7th District) and local Party leaders. Alarming figures on the state of buildings and the demography of the area were constant themes at meetings of the 7th District Party Committee and the council from the late 1970s onwards, and reached a wider public via the press,. The rehabilitation of “Block 15” in Klauzál tér served as a model, in terms of architecture and organisation, for several other tenement districts of Budapest, or at least might have done. The well-executed experimental block rehabilitation was a kind of showcase for the success of the new urban policy. The new approach was the subject of many council and party documents, and a new term was coined for it: “open urban policy”. Preservation of architectural heritage was not the only novelty in the Klauzál tér project: there were attempts to involve local residents in the process, and take their interests into account. In terms of social policy, however, the Erzsébetváros block-rehabilitation was somewhat contradictory: although not officially recognised, it led to a kind of “socialist gentrification” of the square and its vicinity, and was accompanied by the modernisation of infrastructure and amenities. The older residents of the square and its surroundings did not always see these changes in a positive light. What the planners envisaged from above as progressive modernisation was experienced from below as step-by-step clearance of a long-established micro-environment.
