Ferkai András: Shopfronts - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1996)

Modern portal characteristic of the 1960s and 1970s: a refrigerator showroom at 2 Sütő utca, V

District V, or the Lehel Refrigerator showroom at 2 Sütő utca in District V, designed by László Hornicsek in 1972). In the meantime, most state-owned shops started to go to seed. There was no money for careful reconstruction and the tinkering of the so-called TMK brigades (“gangs of socialist workers responsible for preventive maintenance”) was appalling. By way of concealing the pathetic and unsophisticated surroundings, shopfronts were painted in garish colours and the shop windows were “decorated” with stickers. The period of the “High Hungarian Shambles" determined the aesthetics of the early days of private enterprise as well. The premises of state franchise holders, the small privately owned outlets proliferating in doorways, and the pavilions and shacks blocking traffic on the pavements provided, if possible, even more primitive conditions for trade than state-run shops had. The dreariness and boredom of one sector found a counterpart in the chaotic Disneyland of garish and shabby kiosks in the other. This duality characterised the late Kádár era (János Kádár was Hungary’s communist leader from 1956 to 1988 - trans.) before the political system changed in Hungary.

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