Ferkai András: Housing Estates - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2005)

Housing Estates after 1945

■ Two-axii apartment building (Tibor Cóordáő, 1959)

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moment. Although reprisals following the defeated Revolution were still underway, the newly created Kádár regime was interested in consolidating its power and for that purpose it genuinely intended to improve the living conditions of the people. Breaking with the practice of the Rákosi era, when the unrealistic plans of the regime could only be fulfilled through reducing the floor space and comfort of the flats built, the Ministry now set out to work out standard designs for truly well-functioning flats. The worthy challenge and the broadening of their horizons to Europe gave wings to the country's architects. The time of experimentation and creativity was largely coterminous with the time that saw the designing and construction of the estate. Designers, it seems, can indeed work wonders. Within the floor spaces specified, they created the largest possible and sufficiently differentiated living space where the connection of one room to another is not simply adequate but even beautiful. In Olga Mináry’s cubic house, the living and dining rooms and the kitchen, which can all be opened together, lend the 52.46 square-metre flat a sense of spaciousness. In József Körner’s two- storey chain-house, the floor space of the 52.7 square-metre flat is organised, in the manner of a living-lobby as it were, around the dining-room; the connection of the latter is reminiscent of the spatial arrangement based on the junction

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