Szatmári Gizella: Signs of Remembrance - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2005)

királynő, then Gorkij and today Városligeti fasor, or Avenue represents a happy union of two philosophies, combining as it does a reinforced-concrete dome - the first of its kind in Hungary - with the use, on the gateway, of decorative colour tiles made in the Zsolnay factory. The ornamentation of the interior is of a clearly Hungarian, folkloric style: motifs of a Hungarian harness (!) appear on the chandelier, for example. Árkay followed Ödön Lech- ner's heritage in that he always made a special point of employing a Hungarian idiom of decoration. The interior of the chapel belonging to Rákóczi Secondary School built in 1925 glitters in red, blue and gold. At the request of those commissioning him, Árkay was to employ elements of a historicist effect. The entrance thus reminiscent of a Romanesque portal is framed by tulip motifs. Also featuring folkloric ornamentation, the Polish Church of Kőbánya (1927), the cultural complex in Rákosszentmihály, and the Greek Orthodox Church of a Byzantine appearance in Vágóhíd utca were all built to Árkay's plans.

His church in the industrial quarter of the city of Győr met with the greatest success: it was awarded the Greguss Prize by the Kisfaludy Society. Designs for its stained-glass windows (by Lili Sztehló) had won the Grand Prix of the Monza World Fair in 1928. The faqade and the adjoining arcades of the basalt- covered building are reminiscent of mediaeval Italian churches; the interior is articulated by reinforced-concrete arches. According to Virgil Bierbauer, Árkay "was the first in ecclesiastic architecture to break with the domestic habit of'imitation".

Particularly important are his drafts of urban planning made in 1917 for the Budapest City Hall and city centre: the most attractive and still-relevant feature of these is the provision they make for plentiful greenery. His prize-winning competitive plan for a Madách Avenue (1930) would have opened up Budapest in an east-to-west direction. Of that parts of the gateway were built, and those only after Árkay’s death (1932).

The All-Round Handyman of Transylvania

That distinctive title was given to Károly Kós — the architect, writer, graphic artist, literary and arts organiser, newspaper editor, politician and who knows what else. He was led by the same idea in all of his voluntary and elected

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