Prakfalvi Endre: Architecture of Dictatorship. The Architecture of Budapest between 1945 and 1959 - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

self the goal of starting “on the pages of our journal, the fight for the integration of our architecture into the universal culture of Socialism". (The opening issue of the periodical carried an article greeting Rákosi on his sixtieth birthday.)

In the background of such declarations, it was now only in the form of allusions that Modernism was kept alive, surviving as it did in the apartment buildings in Hősök ligete or Heroes’ Grove (László Wagner, István Zilahy, 1949-50), the Party Centre and block of flats, the latter being today’s József Attila Theatre, in Váci út (Zoltán Vidos, László Tarján, 1950), an apartment block of 160 flats in Szent Imre tér, Csepel (Zoltán Kosa, 1950) and another 150 flats in Zsombolyai utca, district XI (Ervin Schőmer). A fire department was built in Martinovics tér in 1950 (Gyula Kéri), a workers' hostel in Dombóvári út (György Tőkés), and an office block at No. 3 Múzeum körút (Ernő Cserba).

Two noteworthy public buildings erected at the turn of the forties and fifties are the office building at No. 5 Erzsébet tér, district V (Bertalan Árkay) and the Csepel post office (21-22 Szent Imre tér; István Nyíri, Vilmos Félix, 1949-50. In 1956 it was decorated with a mural by István Szőnyi). Nyiri, in collaboration with Ferenc Brandi, designed the Institute of Civil Engineering and Design (later called (JVATERV) at No. 1 Molotov (today Vigadó) tér, whose building now houses a bank. Its original modern character, aside from the three, asymmetrically placed central balconies on the street front, was easily adjustable to the post-modern tastes of the nineties in Hungary.

Of the schools built in the period, those at No. 153-155 Jász utca, district XIII (Vilmos Tárnok, 1949), and at No. 15-17 Kilián György (today Nővér) utca (currently Németh László Secondary School, Lajos Kozma, 1949) should be mentioned, to which the red-brick building of the University of Technology at No. 2 Stoczek utca (István Janáky and Zoltán Farkasdy, 1949-50) can be added.

In October 1950, the new Pioneer and Juvenile Department Store opened (9 Kossuth Lajos utca, district V; Gábor Forgó). This, too, is a piece of reconstruction work and the architectural turn-around is already observable in the shaping of its fagade, with its deep-channelled, although in cross section oval, columns, and its arcade-vaults connecting the window apertures.

As remarked above, several completed buildings, above

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