Ferkai András: Modern buildings - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2009)

Detached houses and villas

■ The Hobtimann Home in Szépvölgyi út. around 1934

garian architecture. This was the Hoffmann House (88/B Szépvölgyi út, District 11) standing on the northern slope of Rózsa Hill. Its photo appeared on the cover of the 6/1935 issue of the journal Decoration as the foreign building awarded the prestigious title "the house of the month.” That is the reason why its image appears in Dennis Sharp's Twentieth Century Architecture. A Vióual Hi&tory, a bulky album surveying the international architecture of the twentieth century — as the only work other than those of Imre Makovecz. "It is a typically modern, 1930s design, cohesive but cold" says Dennis Sharp of the building. And indeed, this house is a far cry from the ornamental design of the Burchard-Bélaváry Villa or the domestic comfort of the Ha- lápy House. With its composition of abstract geometric shapes — comprising a prism and a cylinder —, its reinforced-concrete structure and walls, it is a "residential machine” designed in full compliance with the principles of functionality and economy.

József Fischer (1901-95) was a founding member of CIRPAC, the Hungarian chapter of the most radically modern group CIAM (Congrés Internationaux de I'Architecture

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