A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve 2015., Új folyam 2. (Szeged, 2015)

TÖRTÉNETTUDOMÁNY - Fári Irén: Polgári lakáskultúra a két világháború között. Buday Árpád egyetemi tanár hagyatéki leltára

Irén Fári

Bourgeois Interior in the Era between the Two World Wars Inventory of Professor Árpád Buday

Bourgeois Interior in the Era between the Two World Wars. Inventory of Professor Árpád Buday

Irén Fári

The inventory of Árpád Buday, university professor and archaeologist, is preserved in the documentary ofthe Chancery of Szeged. Professor Buday moved to Szeged after World War I, when Transylvania was annexed to Romania, and the University of Kolozsvár was moved from Cluj-Napoca to Szeged. His son, György Buday gained an international fame as a graphic and woodcutter artist. The rich data of the inventory provides us with a thorough insight on the circumstances an upper middle-class intellectual family lived in between the two World Wars. The studied inventory also contains photos, which is rather rare. A part of Buday’s inventory is preserved in the Móra Ferenc Museum, in Szeged; consequently, we may gain an insight into the five-room home

of the prominent family. Árpád Buday was a first generation intellectual, who furnished his home following the trends of traditionalism and historicism. Instead of quantity, he focused on quality, by purchasing only few pieces but high quality furniture. The flat was characterized by functionality and comfortability. Value-saving conservativism and fresh, modern approach were equally present in the family. Although the professor could not accumulate a considerable private fortune, his income was well enough to finance the education and artistic ambitions, as well as the foreign trips of his son. Árpád Buday symbolizes the rational middle-class intellectual with a relatively high income.

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