Armuth Miklós - Lőrinczi Zsuzsa (szerk.): A Budapesti Műszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem Történeti Campusa (Budapest, 2023)
PECZ Samu élete és munkássága - The Life and CEuvre of Samu PECZ Gy. Balogh Ágnes
In 1905 Pecz was commissioned to design the Calvinist secondary grammar-school in Debrecen. However, because of his illness, he only got to finish his sketches and preliminary design, leaving the task of working out the details and managing the construction for his associate professor, Károly Nagy. The Library (Kö) of the Technical University, the building of Technical Mechanics and Agricultural Engineering Laboratory (MM-MG), that of Mechanical Technology (MTj, the Engineering Laboratory (L) and the central Boiler-House (Hő) were all designed by Pecz between 1905 and 1909. After the completion of the Campus in Lágymányos (a southern district of Buda) new concepts were outlined to extend the Technical University in 1911. Pecz drew the drafts for a new building to house the Museum of Transport and also for the boarding school schedulled to be built within the framework of the Diákliget (Students' Gardens) project of the Technical University. In 1911 Pecz made the designs of a five-storey house for civil servants with two yards and an outside gallery by integrating Gothic forms on the corner of Üllői Street and Haller Street to house a total of 120 flats with two, three and four rooms respectively. Pecz finished his last major project in 1898: the first drafts of the Hungarian National Archives to replace the palace of Jenő Zichy in the Castle District of Buda. However, the construction was delayed for a long time. As various sites were proposed meanwhile, Pecz kept drawing more and more designs to suit them. Between 1898 and 1905 he made several study tours in the company of archival erxperts in Vienna, Leipzig, Weimar, Karlsruhe, Strasbourg, Frankfurt, Basel, Bern and Paris. Construction began on the site finally chosen to replace the former so-called Bosnian barracks (in Vienna Gate Square) in 1913 only to be called off because of the outbreak of World War I. Owing to financial difficulties in the post-war era, the project was only completed in 1923, after the death of the architect. When working on these designs, Samu Pecz prioritized efficient lighting as well as fire protection. He put the official rooms and the research room in focus to be flanked by a document store on either side. To have easy access to the documents stored there, he designed the stores with 2 A m interior height and separated them from the central building mass. Uniting the 12 storeys in twos, he equalled them with the double-height central part. For safety reasons, he had the roof made of reinforced concrete and thus totally discarded the need for wooden structures. He clad the roof in glazed tiles. A tower was built right next to the building on the side towards the Castle to function as a water tower, chimney and staircase. However, it was demolished later on. MAGYAR ORSZÁGOS LEVÉLTÁR, BUDAPEST, I.KER., BÉCSI KAPU TÉR 2-4.. 1913-1923 THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF HUNGARY, BUDAPEST, DISTRICT I, BÉCSI KAPU SQUARE, NO. 2-4, 1913-1926 Q
