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

TO MY WIFE AND DAUGHTERS

It would be a distortion to sever Social Realism, the architecture of the Stalinist 1950s, from the period of architecture which lasted from 1945 to the late fifties. Although the architectural practices of socialist realism are clearly distinguishable from those of the years preceding and following it, there are several considerations, apparent in a broader historical perspective, suggesting a holistic approach to the products of the entire decade-and-a-half of 1945-59. Our picture of the whole era is complex and contradictory, which is reflected in its periodization in terms of art history. The requirements and guidelines quickly issued by the country’s new communist rulers were carried out more slowly and more indirectly in architecture than in the other arts. The modern traditions and practices of the nineteen-twenties and thirties were sentenced to obliteration by the prevailing political powers in the second half of the forties, which was followed by the enforced predominance of the Socialist Realist style and method from 1950-51 onwards. On the other hand, already before 1956 architects began to return to the spirit of modernism in their designs, even as construction projects started in the style of the fifties were being concluded. That is why the end of the architectural period which began after the war can be demarcated before the first massive appearance of housing estates built of prefabricated modules which would dominate the cityscape of the Kádár period nearing its nadir.

First of all, a brief survey will be made, with a firm focus

The Chain Bridge in ruins, 1946

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