Sztálinváros / Dunaújváros. Planning and Building the first Hungarian "Socialist city"

SZTÁLINVÁROS / DUNAÚJVÁROS A CITY FOR STALIN PLANNING AND BUILDING THE FIRST HUNGARIAN “SOCIALIST CITY”

MATHIEU DRANGUET

ARCHITECTURAL RESEARCH FOR EXCHANGE STUDENTS (2020-2021/1) Course Coordinator & Chief Lecturer: Ágnes Gyetvai Balogh Consultant: Zsuzsanna Emília Kiss Student: Mathieu Dranguet / YL98QB BUDAPEST UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND ECONOMICS – FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE – DECEMBER 2020

INDEX ABSTRACT 2

INTRODUCTION: DUNAPENTELE, A SITE FOR THE LARGEST METALLURGICAL PLANT AND THE FIRST SOCIALIST CITY IN HUNGARY 3 ARCHITECTURE AND TOWN PLANNING IN HUNGARY AT THE TURN OF THE 1950’S: THE ‘GREAT ARCHITECTURAL DEBATE’ AND SOCIALIST REALISM 4 TIBOR WEINER (1906-1965): FROM THE BAUHAUS TO SZTÁLINVÁROS 7 SZTÁLINVÁROS RISES FROM THE EARTH: MAIN FEATURES OF THE SOCIALIST REALIST PERIOD 10 TOWARDS MASS HOUSING AND STANDARDIZATION: FROM SZTÁLINVÁROS TO DUNAÚJVÁROS 19 CONCLUSION 24 FIGURES 27 BIBLIOGRAPHY 28

ABSTRACT This article aims to understand the principles and main stages of the planning of Dunaújváros (Féjer county), former Sztálinváros, the first ‘Socialist city’ in Hungary whose construction was decided at the end of 1949 to accommodate the largest Iron works in the country. Tibor Weiner, the chief architect, left his mark on the new town built away from the old village (Dunapentele).

Socialist realism trend imposed by Stalinist power was dominant in the first half of the 1950’s, and we will examine how this style influenced – with some contradictions – the roads’ layout and the architecture of the first districts and buildings. “Destalinization” and the Krushchevian turn started in 1954 led the Socialist camp in a new direction. From then on, the emphasis will be on mass housing and new construction methods, an ideological and technical turning point that will determine the current physiognomy of the city.

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INTRODUCTION: DUNAPENTELE, A SITE FOR THE LARGEST METALLURGICAL PLANT AND THE FIRST SOCIALIST CITY IN HUNGARY In 1948, to pursue a program of “building socialism”, the Hungarian state prepares a five-year plan driven to transform Hungary into “a country of iron, steel and machines”. The soviet military believed that another world war was conceivable in a very near future, and to feed their demand for armaments, Hungarian industry had to be radically expanded. Planification of a new and large steelwork was therefore envisaged.

It should be noted, however, that in other historical circumstances, the establishment of such metallurgical factories had already been considered. Besides István Széchenyi who already had got this idea (abandoned due to the lack of iron ore nearby) in the 19th century, another factory project was planned in Győr in the first half of the 1940’s in order to expand national metallurgical capabilities.

In the immediate post-war period and in the new political context of the Cold War, the project takes on a whole new dimension. The first chosen site is the town of Mohács in the south of the country, next to the Yugoslav border. But deteriorating relations between the two states following Tito's split with Stalin (1948) quickly made this location unsuitable for such a strategic site. Nevertheless, finding a location on the banks of the Danube remained a logistical imperative1.

On December 28, 1949, the Cabinet in Budapest appointed Dunapentele as the final site of Dunai Vasmű Metallurgical Combine. As a priority objective, the construction of the new city back then started very quickly. The first preparatory works started in spring, 1950, the first buildings of the city center to come emerged from the ground on May 2nd, and on October 10th, the construction of the factory was launched2. In a few months, this rural and mainly agricultural village for centuries radically changed in appearance, as the working and living conditions of the people.

Fig. 2 - Map of Hungary ca. 1949 showing the locations of Mohács and Dunapentele. Source: Pittaway, M. (2005), Historical Archaeology, 39(3), p. 76.

1

Pittaway, M. (2005). Creating and Domesticating Hungary's Socialist Industrial Landscape: From Dunapentele to Sztálinváros, 1950-1958. Historical Archaeology, 39(3), p. 75-76.

2 Matussné Lendvai, M. & Pongrácz, Z. (2000), Dunaújváros története képeslapokon. Dunaújváros: Andics, J. & Kocsa, L. (private publication), p. 28.

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ARCHITECTURE AND TOWN PLANNING IN HUNGARY AT THE ‘GREAT ARCHITECTURAL DEBATE’ AND SOCIALIST REALISM

TURN OF THE

1950’S:

THE

After the Second World War, as the one-party regimes took hold in the Eastern People's Democracies in the late 1940s under the dominance of the Soviet Union, the keywords in urban planning and architecture are as follows: renewing processes, separating from the West, centralized power and society, industrialization and urbanization. In Hungary, like in most of the socialist bloc, the context is that of a deep political, economic and social rupture until 1989, however with different approaches which led to different architectural and urban aims: the Rákosi-system from 1948-49 to 1956, and the Kádár-system from 1956 to the end of the 1980’s3.

Fig. 3 - Budapest International Fair (1949), a mock-up of the Soviet Palace planned for Moscow in the Soviet pavilion. Source: Fortepan / Pál Berkó (79472).

During this period in Hungary, there were two determinative debates in the field of architecture and urban planning: the ‘Great Architectural Debate’ (1951) and later the so-called ‘TulipDebate’ (1975-1976), related to the mass housing project. The birth of Sztálinváros took place in the context of the first one (which was not really a debate) that officially propelled the country right into Socialist realism.

Between April 17 and 24, 1951, the office of the Central Committee of the Party responsible for cultural policy organized in the Party headquarters a ‘debate on the present situation of our architecture’ (the official title given to the conference), now known as the ‘Great Debate’4.

Originally, it was in fact a political trap set for Maté Major (1904-1986). Major was a former Hungarian CIAM member (between 1933 and 1938) turned Marxist academician. Figure of the ‘Avant-garde’ in the interwar period, he wrote several important monographs about modern architects which had a very important impact in Central Europe and in the socialist countries during the Cold War. Member of the Hungarian Communist Party when it still was an illegal

3

Jász, B. (2018). Living and Liveable Utopia: Socialist Realism in Eastern Central-European City Planning. In C. Henriques (Ed.), UCity. Utopias and Dystopias, TICYUrb · Proceedings of the Third International Conference of Young Urban Researchers, Vol. VI, p. 51.

4 Moravánszky, Á. (2019). The Specificity of Architecture: Architectural Debates and Critical Theory in Hungary, 1945–1989. Architectural Histories, 7(1): 4, p. 2.

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organization in the 1930’s, he was to play a central role in the Communist transformation of architectural culture after 1945, as an influent professor at the Technical University Budapest and a member of several Hungarian organizations and institutions. This particularly influential position did not prevent him from openly criticizing the ‘formalism’ of socialist realism at the end of the 1940’s although it was clear, to this date, that architectural reconstruction in Hungary would follow this way. This is how József Révai, the minister of culture and the main ideologist of the Party, came to elaborate this ‘debate’ whose aim was, ultimately, to close any ideological contestation and questioning. Major defended the cause of modernity while influent theorists like Imre Perényi (who studied architecture in USSR) or Georg Lukács argued for Socialist realism and had to demonstrate the falsehood of Major’s arguments. Other well-known architects and historians, such as Tibor Weiner (who was already at that time the chief architect of Sztálinváros), were invited to participate5.

This ‘conference’, which only formalized a doctrine over an already established reality, highlighted the main characteristics of Socialist realism in the field of architecture and town planning.

Huet (1998) identifies 4 major criteria (all arts included)6: – It must be understood by workers as the new society is based on the class of workers – It has to be realistic and to reject the modernism and the ‘Avant-garde’ abstraction – It has to be revolutionary – It must have its main topic from scenes of everyday life of everyday people, because everybody is equal in an utopian society.

Therefore, architects had to work out a new form language, both at levels of urban design and individual buildings, with an utopian character in order to build an illusion capable of hiding the reality and to make believe in a new one. The bright future was also described as if it already existed7. Huet (1998) argues that this is the reason why Socialist realism is not a style only but also a building method with architectural form-language. And to achieve the desired goals, this architecture combined gigantism and neoclassical elements8.

Trying to create a new society with well identified elements from the past may seem paradoxical: Socialist realism uses the main characteristics of the Hungarian classicism which was the main architectural style in the first half of the 19th Century, based on ancient Roman architecture (porticoes, colonnades, tympanums). However, the use of neoclassicism as a major reference is not specific to Hungary. It can be explained by going back to the origins of the Stalinist model, right after the First World War, when this style was encouraged by the State to counter the ‘Avant-garde’ and abstract art. Jász (2018) argues that the main goal of the original Stalinist model of Socialist Realism was to express the power of the state, and to do so, it used 5

Moravánszky, Á. (2019), Ibid, p. 3.

Huet, B. (1998). Formalism-Realism. In K. M. Hays (ed.), Architecture Theory since 1968, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

7 Jász, B. (2018), Ibid, p. 53.

8 Huet, B. (1998), Ibid, p. 254.

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the baroque style which always was the demonstration of the power of state in History. Stalin started the same tendency, which resulted to the ‘Stalin Baroque’9. After its appearance in the USSR (basic level) and later in some large cities renovated in the interwar period such as Warsaw (second level), post-war Socialist realism therefore constitutes a third era of Soviettype urban design which spreads throughout the socialist bloc10.

During the 1951 ‘debate’, Major's arguments on technological development in construction and on the fact that the aesthetics of architecture are all the more interesting as they derive from its scientific resolution, were quickly swept aside in favor of the usual accusations of collusion with the decadent western “bourgeoisie”. Révai cleverly conceded that he was not advocating copying forms from the past or Soviet models: rather it was the task of the architects to find out how to use these precedents and even how to avoid the mistakes made by Soviet architects at the start of their pioneering work11. End of debate.

However, this period was very short: in Eastern Central-Europe, Socialist realism only lasted a few years from 1950 until the death of Stalin (1953) and the famous speech of Khrushchev about “industrial methods, improving the quality and reducing the cost of construction” on the 31st December 1954, which constituted the Socialist realism’s final act12.

Fig. 4 - “Our five-year plan: a peace plan”, publication by the Ministry of Culture (1951). The cover of this edition shows the first residential district and the 1st May street already built in Sztálinváros. The Iron Works are shown in the background (in reality, the factory is to the south of the city and not to the north as this drawing suggests). The socialist city rises from the earth, as a metaphor for the new society under construction.

Source: dunaujvarosmesel.hu.

9

Jász, B. (2018), Ibid, p. 54.

The fourth and last period was the age of precast house block systems, which have been widely utilized around Europe [Prakfalvi, E. (1999). Architecture of Dictatorship: The Architecture of Budapest Between 1945 and 1959.

Budapest: The Mayor of Budapest, p. 56].

11 Moravánszky, Á. (2019), Ibid, p. 3.

12 This speech by Nikita Khrushchev was given to the All-Union Conference of Builders, Architects and Workers in the Building Materials Industry in December 1954.

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TIBOR WEINER (1906-1965): FROM THE BAUHAUS TO SZTÁLINVÁROS13 Tibor Weiner was the chief designer of the city and left his mark on Sztálinváros’ town planning and architecture from 1950 until his death on July 8, 1965. Understanding the development of the socialist city requires to go back on the main steps of his intellectual and professional background.

Fig. 5 (left) - Tibor Weiner. Source: József Attila Library, Dunaújváros.

Fig. 6 (right) - Weiner (in the center) with former students and colleagues at Chile’s Los Cerrillos Airport, 1948.

Source: József Attila Library, Dunaújváros.

Weiner was born in Budapest on the October 29th, 1906 to a large-scale Jewish family. He completed his elementary and high school studies in Budapest. In 1924, he was admitted to the Faculty of Architecture of the Budapest University of Technology, a career choice that caused many tensions with his family and his father, who was a factory manager. Very early, he sympathized with the left-wing ideas, which was decisive later in his life, getting closer to the members of the KMP (Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja), the Party of Communists in Hungary, in the middle of the 1920’s. Before he even graduated, he did an internship at with the architects Ligeti and Molnár between 1928 and 1929, where he mainly worked on residential buildings’ design14.

13

For this chapter, I have compiled information from several sources: Talesnik, D. Moving Away to the Other End of the World - Reflections on the Letters Between Tibor Weiner and Hannes Meyer from the DAM Archive. http://www.bauhaus-imaginista.org/articles/4180/moving-away-to-the-other-end-of-the-world 20.10.2020 ; Végh, Á. (2015). A szocialista város központja Sztálinváros tükrében (Sztálinváros főterének és közvetlen környezetének története 1950 és '65 között). Unpublished thesis dissertation, Moholy-Nagy Művészeti Egyetem Design- és Művészetelmélet BA, Budapest ; Weiner, T. (1951). Sztálinváros, szocialista város. A városépítés módszere. Építés-építészet, III. Évfolyam, 11-12 szám, 589-598.

14 Molnár, Ligeti but also Pál Virágh, József Fischer, György Rácz and some others were among the young architects, members of CIAM or/and CIRPAC (Comité International pour la Réalisation des Problèmes d’Architecture Contemporaine) who imported Progressive Modern architecture and the principles of the Bauhaus in Hungary, in the late 1920’s and 1930’s.

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Fig. 7 - Delej villa (Budapest, Mihály utca), Pál Ligeti & Farkas Molnár (Architects), 1929.

From September 1929, Weiner integrated the Bauhaus School in Dessau at the invitation of Hannes Meyer, the swiss architect who succeeded Walter Gropius in 1928. It was then the beginning of a long friendship and of intense epistolary exchanges which had a very strong influence on the young architect, seventeen years younger. Weiner’s approach was influenced by the young socialists of the Bauhaus. Convinced of the necessary transformation of society, he took an active part in the school’s theoretical and practical sessions and at the same time worked in Meyer’s studio15. In addition to the school’s program, he began to engage in a very exciting subject working with his fellow student and best friend, Philipp Tolziner in the winter and spring 1930. The topic was nothing more than the question of ‘Housing in Socialism’. This topic was already sensitive in the Bauhaus at the time, and the completed plans were finally presented before the start of the summer break at the institution where they received a favorable reception by the head of the architectural staff. The project did not have a follow-up but the ideas developed in these plans can be seen as the ideological foundations of Weiner’s later work, in particular Sztálinváros, since most of the major principles he will apply in his townplanning practice were already stated there (See figure 8 below).

Fig. 8 - Communal housing for factory workers of the socialist state (1930) by Philipp Tolziner and Tibor Weiner, Sheet no. 2 (Bauhaus Universität Weimar). Source: The ACDHT Journal, n°2, 2017.

Meanwhile, due to the deteriorating political situation, Hannes Meyer was removed from the post of principal, he began negotiating job opportunities with the Soviet Union, and the negotiations were soon followed by a trip to Moscow in February 1931 with a group of Bauhaus students and lecturers led by Meyer. Tibor Weiner was part of this trip to USSR, another important step for him.

15

Végh (2015, Ibid) notes that his attachment to the Bauhaus finds symbolic illustration in the lamp, fixed to his worktable, which followed him throughout his life, like a “little piece of Bauhaus”: from Germany to Moscow, in Paris, in Chile and then back to Budapest and Dunaújváros.

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In Soviet Union, the group formed an independent design brigade in the spirit of the socialist working method (it took the name “Red Front”), and intensively worked on the planning of educational institutions. During this period, architect Tibor Weiner was the designer of a vocational school for construction and a silk industry in Baku. He also designed a college for commerce in Tashkent. In the 1931-32 academic year, he worked as an assistant teacher at the Moscow College of Architecture.

Fig. 9 - Natja Catalan, Tibor Weiner, Philipp Tolziner, Konrad Püschel, Margarete Mengel, Lilya Polgar, Anton Urban, members of the “Hannes Meyer architectural group” in Moscow (mid-1930’s).

Source: https://thecharnelhouse.org/.

Professional recognition was then very fast and he was invited to participate in important competitions like that of the Moscow Soviet House. At this time, he was also involved in drawing up master plans for a new socialist city in Orsk. This work was obviously foundational as it gave him the opportunity to confront the design of an entire city. On this project, as well as on others for competitions he led with his friend Tolziner, he worked on more and more complex plans, for which he carried out preliminary studies and even sociological field surveys.

After the great trials of 1936, the situation became more complicated, foreigners were going to be expelled from the country and Tibor Weiner therefore left the Soviet Union in November 1937.

Unable to return to Hungary because of his links with communism, he decided to go to Paris.

There, his situation was much less comfortable and he tried in vain to emigrate to Australia and the United States16. In addition to the one he married in France, he met in the French capital the poet Pablo Neruda who became a good friend. The new left-wing Chilean government then welcomed many intellectuals in order to bring new impetus in many areas, including architecture. But Chile’s receptivity to Weiner’s visa petition was most likely connected to the earthquake that had struck the southern part of the country earlier in the year, creating a demand for construction professionals. Weiner and his wife Judith settled in Santiago in summer 1939, soon after Meyer had emigrated to Mexico, in Latin America also (this parallel is interesting).

The Chilean experience was the third major step in Weiner’s career until his return into Hungary in 1948, but this step did not have the same repercussions as his German and Soviet experiences, 16

At this time, Weiner and Meyer who had worked together for many years in the USSR began a correspondence.

In Weiner’s early letters to Meyer, the young Hungarian not only discussed his own prospects but also shared information useful to Meyer, who was in Switzerland and facing a similar crossroad. Weiner mentioned that America was the most promising destination, that there was a Bauhaus scene in Chicago, and that he had encountered a brochure about the Hungarian László Moholy-Nagy’s academic endeavors there (Talesnik, Ibid).

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even if he has kept a certain notoriety with important responsibilities. He was an invited professor at the University of Chile. From a letter to Meyer, we learn that his class was an introduction to architecture, with both a theoretical and a practical component introducing architecture to students through a sequence of exercises that studied human scale and analyses of variables that condition people in buildings (functions, circulation, visual relationships, etc.)17. Weiner and his family (by then he and his wife had had two daughters) left Chile in March 1948 due to growing hostility displayed there to members of the Communist Party.

“We have heard of the great work that you, as an architect, accomplish to the best of your home country…”, wrote Meyer to Weiner in June 1951, referring to the master plan designed for Sztálinváros a few months sooner18. It is clear that the Hungarian architect’s professional and intellectual experiences would allow him to lead, therefore, the most ambitious project of his career, which was also the most ambitious urban planning project from Hungary to the time.

Fig. 10 - One of the first models according to the initial plans of Sztálinváros published in Építés-építészet (‘Construction Architecture’). Source: Építés-építészet, 1951, III. Évfolyam, 11-12 szám, p. 589.

SZTÁLINVÁROS

RISES FROM THE EARTH: MAIN FEATURES OF THE

SOCIALIST REALIST

PERIOD

From the spring of 1950, a considerable human and financial effort was made in order to build the city as quickly as possible and to achieve the set objectives in the five-year plan. The figures of the investments give a clear picture of the size of the construction: in 1950 HUF 40 million, in 1951 HUF 600 million, in 1952 HUF 1.2 billion and in 1953 HUF 1.4 billion were spent on building the city and the Iron Works. On November 10, 1950 a party resolution organized the mass dispatch of workers from all parts of the country and instructed the press to popularize the construction19.

17

February 8, 1948. Hannes Meyer Papers, Inv.-Nr.: 164-103-034 (11), DAM Archiv (Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt am Main).

18 Hannes Meyer (Lugano) to Tibor Weiner (Budapest), June 11, 1951. Hannes Meyer Papers, Inv.-Nr.: 164-103034 (12), DAM Archiv (Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt am Main).

19 Matussné Lendvai, M. & Pongrácz, Z. (2000), Ibid, p. 28-29.

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The starting point of the city’s system was the specific location of the Danube Ironworks to the south. From there, a main axis (in the North-South direction) was intended to connect the entrance of the factory to the City center. On this main axis (then called ‘Sztálin út’, now Vasmű út), at the junction point of the road connecting the old village (coming from the north) and the road connecting the railway station (in the East-West direction), a main square was formed.

The new city is to the north, the industrial part to the south (separated from the city center by a forest strip) but the two areas form one unit thanks to the North-South axis, supposed to offer the most beautiful perspective.

Fig. 11 - A model of the main square and its immediate surroundings (early plan, 1951).

Source: Építés-építészet, 1951, III. Évfolyam, 1112 szám, p. 589.

“The main square, (…) a large, paved, vegetation-free square (…), bordered on three sides by the Council House, the Palace of Culture and the Party Headquarters, is a demonstration end point for the parade routes, whether we consider the everyday traffic parade or the movements of the socialist holidays” wrote Weiner20, specifying that he also wished to allow this space to be transformed in the future. The tower of the Council House - around 70 meters high according to the project - was to mark a visible and symbolic landmark at the junction of the N-S and EW axes (with a view that opened from the city plateau towards an infinite perspective on the great landscape of the plain). The Palace of Culture was included in the plans in various forms and locations until the late 1950’s.

Likewise, there were several very different projects for the Council House, although the tower as a landmark existed from the beginning (See figure 12: the first Council House project looking like a church, crowned with the Red star).

Fig. 12 - First project for the Council House.

Source: Építés-építészet, 1951, III. Évfolyam, 11-12 szám, p. 596 (article by Tibor Weiner).

20

Weiner, T. (1951). Sztálinváros, szocialista város. A városépítés módszere. Építés-építészet, III. Évfolyam, 1112 szám, p. 591.

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Fig. 13 - The city center and the first residential district ca.

1953 (on this date, the plan has already evolved several times).

Source: Pittaway, M. (2005), Ibid, p. 81.

The figure 13 locates the main central buildings and the first residential area that we will discuss below.

The construction of the first street, in a NorthSouthly direction, called 1st May street after Labour Day, began on May 2nd, 1950. Weiner planned 4storey buildings there on the basis of national-type plans in the spirit of classical modernism. In term of design, these buildings are modern, but the window frames and a number of ornamental elements show a dressing closely following socialist ideals. They were nicknamed “Buffalo” or “Cube”, names that became known even by the inhabitants21 who were called upon to cultivate the large flowerbeds laid out between the street and the sidewalks (See figure 16).

Fig. 14 - May 1st street (Május 1. utca) under construction in 1950. The archives show the very traditional construction technique in bricks and emphasize the presence of working women.

Source: Fortepan / Sándor Bauer (126929, 126937, 126936).

Fig. 15 (left) - May 1st Street, opposite the first water tower (1953). Source: Fortepan / Sattler Katalin (171105).

Fig. 16 (right) - May 1st Street, opposite the restaurant and department store (1952). Source: Képzőművészeti Alap Budapest XVII.-122.

1st May street runs into a small square on the North. The human scale of that square reflected ideas born before the period striving for monumentality. It was there that two important buildings were built in 1952-53, fully integrated into the residential area: the “Béké” (Peace) 21

Matussné Lendvai, M. & Pongrácz, Z. (2000), Ibid, p. 73.

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restaurant and the Bartók Culture club (now Béla Bartók Theatre and House of Arts of Dunaújváros). A grocery and shops were also located in the restaurant building, which was soon after decorated with mosaics: a composition of Kalocsa flowers (reference to Hungarian folklore) made by Szilárd Iván framed the entrance of the restaurant, whereas Socialist realistic mosaics appeared on the main front of the building, above the portals of the store (allegorical artworks of Szilárd Iván, György Hegyi, András Rác, Jenő Percz and Eszter Mattioni), inspired by the construction of the first Socialist city22.

Fig. 17 (above) - Restaurant/grocery building and the Bartók Culture club, 1950’s.

Source: Képzőművészeti Alap Kiadóvállalata Budapest (Fine Arts Fund Publishing Company Budapest) XVII.-77/594.

Fig. 18 - Department store, details of the 5 mosaics above the portals, Béla Bartók (November 7) Square.

Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

We find on these first buildings clearly identifiable characteristics of Socialist realism, colonnades, tympanums and ornamentation, along with bas-reliefs, also on the later Pál Vasvári Primary School (József Schall and István Zilahy, Arch. VÁTI - see figure 20 below), the Dózsa Film Theater (György Szrogh, Arch. VÁTI) and the Hospital (András Ivánka, Arch.), which began to be built just before the Great Architectural Debate but were completed during the years of transition. Therefore, the imprints of this transitional period can be seen on them, some expressing an implicit critique of Socialist realism.

22

Matussné Lendvai, M. & Pongrácz, Z. (2000), Ibid, p. 76.

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Fig. 19 - Béla Bartók Theatre and House of Arts Dunaújváros (as it is today), main facade.

Architect: István Zilahy. Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 20 - Pál Vasvári School, Petőfi Park. The facade appearance has not changed since construction.

Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Among the first buildings of the city center, the Dózsa Film Theater (on Dózsa György tér), is one of the most interesting, maybe one of the most successful of the period also. With its impressive and monumental appearance, it reflects the power of its function in socialist society and the importance of cinematic propaganda in the 1950’s. The location of the building is also very lucky, which is surrounded by buildings as a ‘Cour d’honneur’, thus creating perhaps the most charming and cozy square in the city23. It seems that György Szrogh tried to combine functionalism of modern architecture and the dictated style with abstract columns, rasterized facade, impressive entrance and huge glass windows. The hospital and central medical surgery, built in 1952 by András Ivánka (one of the first hospitals built in Hungary after the WW2) on the main avenue, is the best example of this contradiction. The entrance is a rotunda with nice reliefs and classical architecture elements but the rear building is a modern and functional one.

With this unexpected entrance like an outgrowth emanating from the L-shaped main building, the contradiction between ‘modernist’ functionality and classic ornamentation of Socialist realism is obvious. An ‘antique’ frieze simply posed on the modern building’s attic creates a confrontation of styles and we can make the hypothesis of a certain resistance of the modernity – or of an overcoming of realism – already visible at that time. The clinic, that was inaugurated in April 1952, would become the cityʼs second largest employer after the steel works24.

23

Barka, G., Fehérvári, Z., Prakfalvi, E. (2007). Dunaújvárosi épitészeti kalauz 1950-1960. Dunaújváros: Megyei Jogú Város Önkormányzata, p. 25-26.

24 Pittaway, M. (2005), Ibid, p. 81.

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Fig. 21 - First elevation drawing for the Dózsa Theater. The upper part (which corresponds to the stage cage) is almost invisible from the front in reality, the design reinforcing the visibility of the tympanum - a predominant element in Socialist Realist architecture. Source: Építés-építészet, 1951, III. Évfolyam, 11-12 szám, p. 615.

From left to right: Fig. 22 - The Theater in 1954. Source: 1954 Fortepan / Tibor Tóth (185577).

Fig. 23 - The Theater has been cleverly set back from the avenue, in a Baroque ‘Cour d’honneur’ type composition.

On the other side of the avenue, the hospital designed by András Ivánka. Google Maps satellite view.

Fig. 24 - The Theater today. Photo: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

From left to right: Fig. 25 - Hospital, ground floor plan. Source: Építés-építészet, 1951, III. Évfolyam, 11-12 szám, p. 612.

Fig. 26 - The entrance rotunda. Photo: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 27 - The strict composition of the main building’s facade and the decorative frieze which discreetly recalls neoclassicism. Source: dunaujvarosmesel.hu.

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Fig. 28 (left & center) - The rotunda (outside / inside). Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 29 (right) - An interesting interior was created at the junction of the cylindrical volume and the rectangular main building. András Ivánka used this residual space very creatively, with openings bringing a lot of light where the stairs come up, and with various works of fine art, especially wall reliefs of workers building socialism.

Source: retropolisz.com.

In 1953, the Architectural Council and its chairman, Dezső Trautmann, issued several critics of the plans drawn up to date by Tibor Weiner, in particular for the main square. This led to an important reorganization of the square, in particular the clock tower which would later become the office building that exists today. By this date, the construction of the housing blocks along Stalin avenue - the main North-South axis - was well advanced.

From 1951, the plans of Tibor Weiner and his team provided for a rectilinear alignment of the blocks on the West side, while the buildings on the East side were set back which allowed parks and green strips development (See figure 30). This made the perspective more impressive and monumental. Five-storied apartment blocks flanked the street south of the city center. Those closest to the main square were the most elaborated, with rasterized facades by pilasters, down arcades (ground floor) and railings on the top in pure neoclassical ‘szocreál’ style.

Fig. 30 (above) - 1951 plan (zoom) showing Stalin road and the different alignment of apartment blocks between the West side (red line) and the East side. Source: Barka, G., Fehérvári, Z., Prakfalvi, E. (2007), Ibid / Mathieu Dranguet.

Fig. 31 (left) - Sztálin út, drawing, 1951. Source: Építés-építészet, 1951, III. Évfolyam, 11-12 szám, p. 595.

Fig. 32 (right) - Sztálin út (now Vasmű út), 1956. Source: Fortepan / UVATERV (2495).

16

More to the south, an impressive apartment block was designed in 1952-53 by Tibor Weiner, Béla Bakos and József Tiefenbeck on Gagarin square (See figure 33 below, also visible on figure 30 above). Today, the ‘Kis Vasmű út’, a service road bordered by tall trees, separates the residences from the main avenue, creating a central and pleasant park. The monumentality of the facade on the road side, pierced by large arches leading to the quiet Gagarin Square behind the lanes, contrasts with the small shared gardens and a more human scale architecture on the rear. The great length of the block is cleverly attenuated by an offset of the buildings, leaving passages and interesting longitudinal views from an architectural point of view.

Fig. 33 - Socialist Realist apartment block on Gagarin Square 15 (red line). Google Maps satellite view.

Fig. 34 - Gagarin tér 15 (1953): monumental front facades, passages and shared gardens in the rear.

Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

This leads us to bring out the importance of parks and green spaces which have been particularly developed since the beginning of the planning process. In a Socialist city not only the buildings had to reflect the new order, but also their surroundings, parks and street furniture, as urban 17

green spaces played a major role in Soviet urban planning theories. This aspect could be the subject of a full study in Dunaújváros. A hierarchy, still clearly visible today, can be highlighted in the planning of these green spaces, from the ‘micro-parks’ surrounding residential buildings – and creating shared courtyards and playgrounds – to the large green belts (in this case, the zone close to the Danube and the forest separating the city itself from the industrial area, especially important in industrial cities since it helps to purify the air). A ‘cultural park’, modeled on the Gorky Park in Moscow, was planned on the banks of the Danube, in the axis of the main square. This long discussed project has never been realized in its initial shape25.

Fig. 35 (left) - Sztálinváros, map showing the new town (center), the green belt separating the town from the factory and the inner green spaces. Far north, the old town (1959). Source: v3.arkitera.com.

Fig. 36 (right) - Sztálinváros, Cultural Park detailed development plan (1953), unrealized. Source: Archive MOL XXVI-D-8-f, box 88, file 710 (City center planning)26.

Fig. 37 (left & center) - Wooded parks and shared gardens between apartment buildings (Petőfi park, Dunaújváros). Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 38 (right) - A constant search for the relationship with the landscape through breakthroughs and framings, here, towards the river and the plain (Zoltán utca 3, Dunaújváros). Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

25 26

Végh (2015), Ibid, p. 14.

Végh (2015), Ibid, p. 14.

18

TOWARDS MASS HOUSING AND STANDARDIZATION: FROM SZTÁLINVÁROS TO DUNAÚJVÁROS Political events of the mid-1950’s put a stop to Sztálinváros’ dazzling growth. Following Stalin’s death (March 5, 1953) and then Khrushchev’s election as first secretary (September), many plans were abandoned or modified. The first five-year plan had almost come to an end, the allocated budgets were reduced considerably and a central decision by the new government headed by Imre Nagy marked a major halt to the city’s development.

In the field of town planning and architecture, as we have specified above, the end of Socialist realism era took place on December 31, 1954. On that day, Khrushchev held his famous speech to the Congress of Soviet Builders in Moscow. There was a housing shortage in the Soviet Union, thus to solve the demand for cheap housing was the most urgent problem. Building with bricks was very expensive and slow, thus the new way of architecture was thought to be the precast house block system27. This new paradigm was to dramatically change physiognomy and the planning of Sztálinváros, which was renamed ‘Dunaújváros’, “the city on the Danube” by decision of the Presidium of the Hungarian People’s Republic in 1961. In this last part, we will quickly examine the main implementation stages of these new techniques on the city’s apartment blocks from the end of the 1950’s to the 1970’s.

Fig. 39 - Friendship Road and the Friendship (Barátság) District, first Tibor Weiner’s “modern” real housing estate in Dunaújváros, as seen from the Nurse Hotel, 1962. Source: Fortepan / Lechner Nonprofit Kft. Documentation Center - VÁTI (31311).

After the Revolution, the investments restricted since 1953 got an upswing again. Other – primarily light industrial – works settled and the population of the city dynamically increased (See figure 40 below). The town was originally planned for 20,000-25,000 people and this rebound in attractiveness in the second half of the 1950’s created significant needs28. Weiner realized that prefabrication could be a solution to meet this challenge.

By constructing the socialist experimental housing estates in the second half of the 1950’s, architects focused on solving real problems with living conditions instead of serving propaganda. The main issues were as follows: [1] housing shortage that led to overcrowding,

27

Jász, B. (2018). Hidden Modernism: Architecture Theory of the Socialist Realist Gap. Periodica Polytechnica Architecture, 49(1), p. 95.

28 Matussné Lendvai, M. & Pongrácz, Z. (2000), Ibid, p. 30.

19

Fig. 40 - Dunaújváros population since 1950. The graph shows that according to early planning, the maximum housing capacity was reached in a few years, while the population continued to increase rapidly until the early 1980’s. Source: Hungarian Central Statistical Office (www.ksh.hu).

[2] need for multifunctional rooms instead of rooms with separate functions, [3] two or more generations had to live together in the same flat29. There were therefore both quantitative and qualitative stakes. At least we note one study trip in German Democratic Republic between 1955 and 1958 during which Hungarian architects and Urban planners were able to experience the advantages of new construction methods30.

The ‘FE’ experimental buildings (1957-1961) Tibor Weiner began the technical design of Hungary’s first experimental multi-storey (15apartment) panel building in 1957. The plans were started together with Gyula Sebestyén – and József Balla as an associate – at VÁTI (Institute of Urban Planning and Design) and construction then began with on-site pre-fabrication at the end of 1958. The building, the socalled “FE-1”, was handed over in 1960. Located behind Lenin square (now Széchenyi István Park), it was the first Hungarian large-panel residential building and can be considered as the basis for later panel buildings (“Panelház”). The structure remains clearly visible on the FE-1, which is less the case with buildings FE-2 and 3 which followed, right next to it. The fact that Weiner placed these experimental buildings (with room wall-sized panels) right next to the city center and the main square suggests that he wanted to demonstrate the advancement of panel technology and illustrate what the future may be.

Fig. 41 - “FE-1” experimental building (foreground), Lenin square (now Széchenyi István Park). Basement, ground floor + 4 storeys. The panels’ structure and size are still clearly readable on the facades. Photo: Google Maps.

29 30

Jász, B. (2018), Ibid, p. 95. https://retropolisz.com/2018/04/13/dunaujvaros-ii-moderntol-modernig-a-szocrealon-at/.

20

Fig. 42 (left) - “FE-1”, main facade. Note the interesting game of the window openings proportion, the projecting staircase with glass bricks and the flat-roofed stairwell entrance with a neck rotated 45°. Photo: Google Maps.

Fig. 43 (right) - The “FE-2” and “FE-3” have the same floor plan. Photo: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

These buildings were designed for eighty people, and 1 two-room and 2 three-room flats were built on each floor. The average floor area of the flats is 56.89m2, which is larger than the average floor area of the panel houses built later. For the first time also, pre-assembled sanitary blocks were installed. On the other hand, the kitchens remained built using conventional methods: the built-in kitchen systems will only appear in large-panel residential buildings later on31.

Only two other “FE” blocks were built (1959), the FE-9 and 10, in the continuity of the main square towards the Danube. This series of residential buildings made it possible to quickly implement and improve panel manufacturing and assembly techniques, opening the way for a second phase from 1962.

FE-1 FE-2 & 3

FE-10

Main square

Fig. 44 (left) - Location map of the “FE” buildings. Google Maps satellite view / Mathieu Dranguet.

Fig. 45 (right) - FE-10 (very different scale) ; note the particular attention to the stairwells’ shape and openings.

Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

31

Végh, Á. (2017). Weiner Tibor munkássága az avant-garde moderntől az iparosított építészetig. Unpublished thesis dissertation, Moholy-Nagy Művészeti Egyetem Design- és Művészetelmélet BA, Budapest, p. 21-23.

21

The ‘MOT’-type residential buildings Fig. 46 (left) - MOT.I.58-9/62. Plans by Tibor Weiner & József Balla (Dunaújváros Design Office). MOT = “Magyar Országos Típusterv” (Hungarian National Type Plan).

Source: www.epiteszforum.hu.

Fig. 47 (below) - ‘MOT’-type residential buildings in the Dózsa district, Dunaújváros. Google Maps satellite view.

The design and construction of this new type of residential buildings began in 1963-1964 in the Dózsa district. A first version (MOT.I.58-9/62, see figure 46 above) had 3 sections, a basement, the ground floor + 4 floors, 30 flats. A second version (MOT.I.58-10/62) had also 3 sections, an utility tunnel in the basement, ground floor + 4 floors, but with 42 flats32. József Balla (under Weiner’s control), used for the first time ever in Hungary a pre-assembled element containing a bathroom and kitchen unit. This greatly accelerated the installation work on the building and the technical work on the area, as electrical installation, pipe installation, cladding and arrangement of furniture, had already been carried out in the factory. The manufacturing and assembly techniques of the concrete panels implemented with this series were first used in Dunaújváros and later spread nationwide (Székesfehérvár, Szeged, Siófok, Százhalombatta, Veszprém, Komló, Tolna, Kaposvár or Budapest). A propaganda film about the construction and interior design of one of these buildings was even produced in 1965, which was intended for Hungarian and international audience33.

Fig. 48 - Concrete panels on a construction site in Dunaújváros (1965).

32 33

Magyar Építőipar (Hungarian Construction), 1974, vol. 23, 1-12, p. 541.

Végh, Á. (2017), Ibid, p. 28-29.

22

Fig. 49 - Construction site at 2 Váci Mihály utca (Roman district), 1973. Source: Fortepan / Erzsébet Vizsnyiczai (130699).

Fig. 50 (left) - 10-story blocks on Vasmű út as seen from the mouth of the Aranyvölgyi út, 1973.

Source: Fortepan / Zoltán Lencse (61377).

Fig. 51 (right) - Same block of flats today. Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

At the turn of the 1960’s and 1970’s, technical literature (such as ‘Magyar Építőipar’) praised the increasingly important fluidity of construction sites. The city became a major manufacturing center: in 1974, the production of large panels began, and a decade later, more than 13,500 families across the country got apartments in the “Panelházak” designed and manufactured in Dunaújváros. At that time, several peripheral districts were developing at very high speed with blocks of 10 floors, the plans were declined with little variation, which led to a great uniformity.

It is obvious that the feeling that one has while walking within these blocks is totally different from that which one can have in the parcs and inner public spaces designed in the 1950’s.

Kádár’s vision of architecture at this time was no longer seen as a way to shape society. He felt that the worker needed nothing more than to come home to his own apartment after work, spend his free time there and relax before the next day. A certain ‘absolute’ of the 1950’s was therefore abandoned in favor of a more pragmatic vision in which the private sphere was recognized.

This aspect, which would deserve a detailed examination, is clearly visible in Dunaújváros, maybe more than everywhere else in Hungary.

23

Fig. 52 - “Comrade Rákosi in Stalin City”, Béla Bánk, 195334

CONCLUSION This work traces a journey through time, but also through the space of the city Dunaújváros.

Indeed, it was during a methodical perambulation over several days that I wanted to measure by myself the urban and architectural approach which presided over the planning of the first Socialist city in Hungary. I therefore envisioned this work as a field survey, informed by bibliographic work, archives and ‘in situ’ analyzes.

The work carried out by Tibor Weiner and his team in a few years remains impressive in the early 1950’s difficult political and economic conditions. The scale of the project has remained unprecedented, by its size but also by its ideological scope.

Hardly anything has been demolished since 1950 in Dunaújváros, so the urban fabric has evolved in an additive way. The city is often considered as an “open-air museum of communism”. For my part, I see it as a tremendous opportunity for the scholars and the public to “read”, in one unique place, the evolution of urban and architectural conceptions in Hungary for 70 years. Planned during the most rigid Stalinist period, the city experienced an interesting time of transition, bringing out still unseen technical processes before entering fully into industrialization of the 1960’s – a phenomenon amplified in the 1970’s and the 1980’s. The evolution of plans and typologies shows not only technical evolutions but also the one of leaders’s priorities, going towards mass housing, standardization and recognition of the private sphere, after the short Socialist realism period.

The figure 54 (see below) shows the different building periods in a colour range and the industrial areas in grey. The oldest remaining buildings in Óváros (old village) are detached 34

Source: http://dunaujvarosmesel.hu/2020/11/06/a-minisztertanacs-hozzajarult/.

24

houses with private gardens. The earliest period of planned housing is characterized by I-, Lor U- shaped blocks of flats with a maximum of four storeys. While the first buildings were made with bricks and traditional building methods, the building construction during the 1960’s and 1970’s was dominated by up to 10-storey pre-fabricated concrete slab-buildings intended to address the shortage in housing. The last major social housing development was built during the 1980’s. Lenart (2013) shows that building activities after 1989 were dominated by privately built single-family houses with regular gridiron patterns of land plots, and some shopping centres and new factories at the city’s outskirts added a larger scale of building footprints to Dunaújváros35. Besides the different building typologies, open and public spaces also exhibit characteristics tied to their history, as we discussed in this paper.

In order to go further, a comparative study with the other “First Socialist cities” built immediately after the war should be carried out. These cities are Nowa Huta in Poland, Dimitrovgrad in Bulgaria and Eisenhüttenstadt in East Germany (Stalinstadt from 1953 to 1961). Following the work carried out by Jérôme Bazin in Eisenhüttenstadt36, it would be useful to further investigate the exchanges that took place between Sztálinváros and these pioneer cities in order to understand how it perceived itself and how it was perceived by others, what were the differences and the common points. The Dunaferr archives seem promising – even though they are not easily accessible. This work has not yet been carried out and presents a stimulating challenge for research about the city of Dunaújváros.

Finally, I would like to thank Ágnes Gyetvai Balogh, Course Coordinator and Chief Lecturer, and Zsuzsanna Emília Kiss (Department of History of Architecture and Monument Preservation BMEEPET) for monitoring this research, Fabien Bellat and Jérôme Bazin for their encouragements, the József Attila Library and Intercisa Museum Dunaújváros archivists as well as Kamilia Sghaier for her support and proofreading of this work.

Fig. 53 - At the end of Kossuth Lajos Street (Dunasor district) stands József Somogyi’s statue (1979), with the infinite, fertile plain in the background. Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

35

Lenart, C. (2013). The urban transformations of post-socialist Dunaújváros. The Journal of Space Syntax, 4, p.

204.

36 Bazin, J. (2017). Regards d’une ville nouvelle socialiste sur ses consœurs. Histoire urbaine, 50(3), 113-126.

25

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26

FIGURES Fig. 1 (cover) - Vasmű út, Socialist Realist building. Source: Fortepan / VÁTI (31236).

Fig. 2 (p. 3) - Map of Hungary ca. 1949 showing the locations of Mohács and Dunapentele.

Source: Pittaway, M. (2005), Historical Archaeology, 39(3), p. 76.

Fig. 3 (p. 4) - Budapest International Fair (1949), a mock-up of the Soviet Palace planned for Moscow in the Soviet pavilion. Source: Fortepan / Pál Berkó (79472).

Fig. 4 (p. 6) - “Our five-year plan: a peace plan”, publication by the Ministry of Culture (1951).

Source: dunaujvarosmesel.hu.

Fig. 5 (p. 7) - Tibor Weiner. Source: József Attila Library, Dunaújváros.

Fig. 6 (p. 7) - Weiner (in the center) with former students and colleagues at Chile’s Los Cerrillos Airport, 1948.

Source: József Attila Library, Dunaújváros.

Fig. 7 (p. 8) - Delej villa (Budapest, Mihály utca), Pál Ligeti & Farkas Molnár (Architects), 1929.

Fig. 8 (p. 8) - Communal housing for factory workers of the socialist state (1930) by Philipp Tolziner and Tibor Weiner, Sheet no. 2 (Bauhaus Universität Weimar). Source: The ACDHT Journal, n°2, 2017.

Fig. 9 (p. 9) - Natja Catalan, Tibor Weiner, Philipp Tolziner, Konrad Püschel, Margarete Mengel, Lilya Polgar, Anton Urban, members of the “Hannes Meyer architectural group” in Moscow (mid-1930’s).

Source: https://thecharnelhouse.org/.

Fig. 10 (p. 10) - One of the first models according to the initial plans of Sztálinváros published in Építés-építészet (‘Construction Architecture’). Source: Építés-építészet, 1951, III. Évfolyam, 11-12 szám, p. 589.

Fig. 11 (p. 11) - A model of the main square and its immediate surroundings (early plan, 1951).

Source: Építés-építészet, 1951, III. Évfolyam, 11-12 szám, p. 589.

Fig. 12 (p. 11) - First project for the Council House.

Source: Építés-építészet, 1951, III. Évfolyam, 11-12 szám, p. 596.

Fig. 13 (p. 12) - The city center and the first residential district ca. 1953. Source: Pittaway, M. (2005), Ibid, p. 81.

Fig. 14 (p. 12) - May 1st street (Május 1. utca) under construction in 1950.

Source: Fortepan / Sándor Bauer (126929, 126937, 126936).

Fig. 15 (p. 12) - May 1st Street, opposite the first water tower (1953). Source: Fortepan / Sattler Katalin (171105).

Fig. 16 (p. 12) - May 1st Street, opposite the restaurant and department store (1952).

Source: Képzőművészeti Alap Budapest XVII.-122.

Fig. 17 (p. 13) - Restaurant/grocery building and the Bartók Culture club, 1950’s.

Source: Képzőművészeti Alap Kiadóvállalata Budapest (Fine Arts Fund Publishing Company Budapest) XVII.77/594.

Fig. 18 (p. 13) - Department store, details of the 5 mosaics above the portals, Béla Bartók (November 7) Square.

Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 19 (p. 14) - Béla Bartók Theatre and House of Arts Dunaújváros (as it is today), main facade. Architect: István Zilahy. Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 20 (p. 14) - Pál Vasvári School, Petőfi Park. Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 21 (p. 15) - First elevation drawing for the Dózsa Theater.

Source: Építés-építészet, 1951, III. Évfolyam, 11-12 szám, p. 615.

Fig. 22 (p. 15) - The Theater in 1954. Source: 1954 Fortepan / Tibor Tóth (185577).

Fig. 23 (p. 15) - The Theater has been cleverly set back from the avenue, in a Baroque ‘Cour d’honneur’ type composition. On the other side of the avenue, the hospital designed by András Ivánka. Google Maps satellite view.

Fig. 24 (p. 15) - The Theater today. Photo: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 25 (p. 15) - Hospital, ground floor plan. Source: Építés-építészet, 1951, III. Évfolyam, 11-12 szám, p. 612.

Fig. 26 (p. 15) - The entrance rotunda. Photo: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 27 (p. 15) - The strict composition of the main building’s facade and the decorative frieze which discreetly recalls neoclassicism. Source: dunaujvarosmesel.hu.

Fig. 28 (p. 16) - The rotunda (outside / inside). Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 29 (p. 16) - An interesting interior was created at the junction of the cylindrical volume and the rectangular main building. András Ivánka used this residual space very creatively, with openings bringing a lot of light where the stairs come up, and with various works of fine art, especially wall reliefs of workers building socialism.

Source: retropolisz.com.

Fig. 30 (p. 16) - 1951 plan (zoom) showing Stalin road and the different alignment of apartment blocks between the West side (red line) and the East side.

Source: Barka, G., Fehérvári, Z., Prakfalvi, E. (2007), Ibid / Mathieu Dranguet.

Fig. 31 (p. 16) - Sztálin út, drawing, 1951. Source: Építés-építészet, 1951, III. Évfolyam, 11-12 szám, p. 595.

Fig. 32 (p. 16) - Sztálin út (now Vasmű út), 1956. Source: Fortepan / UVATERV (2495).

Fig. 33 (p. 17) - Socialist Realist apartment block on Gagarin Square 15 (red line). Google Maps satellite view.

27

Fig. 34 (p. 17) - Gagarin tér 15 (1953): monumental front facades, passages and shared gardens in the rear.

Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 35 (p. 18) - Sztálinváros, map showing the new town (center), the green belt separating the town from the factory and the inner green spaces. Far north, the old town (1959). Source: v3.arkitera.com.

Fig. 36 (p. 18) - Sztálinváros, Cultural Park detailed development plan (1953), unrealized. Source: Archive MOL XXVI-D-8-f, box 88, file 710 (City center planning).

Fig. 37 (p. 18) - Wooded parks and shared gardens between apartment buildings (Petőfi park, Dunaújváros).

Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 38 (p. 18) - A constant search for the relationship with the landscape through breakthroughs and framings, here, towards the river and the plain (Zoltán utca 3, Dunaújváros). Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 39 (p. 19) - Friendship Road and the Friendship (Barátság) District, first Tibor Weiner’s “modern” real housing estate in Dunaújváros, as seen from the Nurse Hotel, 1962.

Source: Fortepan / Lechner Nonprofit Kft. Documentation Center - VÁTI (31311).

Fig. 40 (p. 20) - Dunaújváros population since 1950. Source: Hungarian Central Statistical Office (www.ksh.hu).

Fig. 41 (p. 20) - “FE-1” experimental building (foreground), Lenin square (now Széchenyi István Park). Basement, ground floor + 4 storeys. The panels’ structure and size are still clearly readable on the facades.

Photo: Google Maps.

Fig. 42 (p. 21) - “FE-1”, main facade. Photo: Google Maps.

Fig. 43 (p. 21) - The “FE-2” and “FE-3” have the same floor plan. Photo: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 44 (p. 21) - Location map of the “FE” buildings. Google Maps satellite view / Mathieu Dranguet.

Fig. 45 (p. 21) - FE-10 (very different scale). Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 46 (p. 22) - MOT.I.58-9/62. Plans by Tibor Weiner & József Balla (Dunaújváros Design Office).

MOT = “Magyar Országos Típusterv” (Hungarian National Type Plan). Source: www.epiteszforum.hu.

Fig. 47 (p. 22) - ‘MOT’-type residential buildings in the Dózsa district, Dunaújváros. Google Maps satellite view.

Fig. 48 (p. 22) - Concrete panels on a construction site in Dunaújváros (1965).

Fig. 49 (p. 23) - Construction site at 2 Váci Mihály utca (Roman district), 1973.

Source: Fortepan / Erzsébet Vizsnyiczai (130699).

Fig. 50 (p. 23) - 10-story blocks on Vasmű út as seen from the mouth of the Aranyvölgyi út, 1973.

Source: Fortepan / Zoltán Lencse (61377).

Fig. 51 (p. 23) - Same block of flats today. Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 52 (p. 24) - “Comrade Rákosi in Stalin City”, Béla Bánk, 1953.

Source: http://dunaujvarosmesel.hu/2020/11/06/a-minisztertanacs-hozzajarult/.

Fig. 53 (p. 25) - József Somogyi’s statue (1979) at the end of Kossuth Lajos Street (Dunasor district).

Photos: Mathieu Dranguet (Oct. 2020).

Fig. 54 (p. 26) - Overview of Dunaújváros showing different building periods.

Source: Lenart, C. (2013), Ibid, p. 205.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Monographs Barka, G., Fehérvári, Z., Prakfalvi, E. (2007). Dunaújvárosi épitészeti kalauz 1950-1960. Dunaújváros: Megyei Jogú Város Önkormányzata.

Huet, B. (1998). Formalism-Realism. In K. M. Hays (Ed.), Architecture Theory since 1968, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Matussné Lendvai, M. & Pongrácz, Z. (2000), Dunaújváros története képeslapokon. Dunaújváros: Andics, J. & Kocsa, L. (private publication).

Prakfalvi, E. (1999). Architecture of Dictatorship: The Architecture of Budapest Between 1945 and 1959.

Budapest: The Mayor of Budapest.

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Scientific periodicals Balla, J. (1974). Panelos építés Dunaújvárosban. Magyar Építőipar (Hungarian construction), vol. 23, 1-12, 539542. <https://adtplus.arcanum.hu/hu/collection/MagyarEpitoipar/> 08.11.2020.

Bazin, J. (2017). Regards d’une ville nouvelle socialiste sur ses consœurs. Histoire urbaine, 50(3), 113-126. <https://doi.org/10.3917/rhu.050.0113> 08.10.2020.

Jász, B. (2018). Hidden Modernism: Architecture Theory of the Socialist Realist Gap. Periodica Polytechnica Architecture, 49(1), 92-97. <https://doi.org/10.3311/PPar.12168> 18.10.2020.

Jász, B. (2018). Living and Liveable Utopia: Socialist Realism in Eastern Central-European City Planning. In C. Henriques (Ed.), UCity. Utopias and Dystopias, TICYUrb · Proceedings of the Third International Conference of Young Urban Researchers, Vol. VI. <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333199839_Living_and_Liveable_Utopia_Socialist_Realism_in_Eas tern_Central-European_City_Planning> 24.10.2020.

Lenart, C. (2013). The urban transformations of post-socialist Dunaújváros. The Journal of Space Syntax, 4, 197220. <https://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/PubDat_235810.pdf> 12.11.2020.

Molnar, V. (2010). In Search of the Ideal Socialist Home in Post-Stalinist Hungary: Prefabricated Mass Housing or Do-It-Yourself Family Home?, Journal of Design History, 23(1), 61-81. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/25653159> 29.11.2020.

Moravánszky, Á. (2019). The Specificity of Architecture: Architectural Debates and Critical Theory in Hungary, 1945-1989. Architectural Histories, 7(1): 4, 1-12. <https://doi.org/10.5334/ah.315> 16.10.2020.

Pittaway, M. (2005). Creating and Domesticating Hungary’s Socialist Industrial Landscape: From Dunapentele to Sztálinváros, 1950-1958. Historical Archaeology, 39(3), 75-93. <https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03376695> 18.11.2020.

Talesnik, D. Moving Away to the Other End of the World - Reflections on the Letters Between Tibor Weiner and Hannes Meyer from the DAM Archive. <http://www.bauhaus-imaginista.org/articles/4180/moving-away-to-the-other-end-of-the-world> 20.10.2020.

Weiner, T. (1951). Sztálinváros, szocialista város. A városépítés módszere. Építés-építészet, III. Évfolyam, 1112 szám, 589-598. <https://adtplus.arcanum.hu/hu/collection/BME_EpitesEpiteszet/> 15.10.2020.

University Thesis Végh, Á. (2015). A szocialista város központja Sztálinváros tükrében (Sztálinváros főterének és közvetlen környezetének története 1950 és '65 között). Unpublished thesis dissertation, Moholy-Nagy Művészeti Egyetem Design- és Művészetelmélet BA, Budapest.

Végh, Á. (2017). Weiner Tibor munkássága az avant-garde moderntől az iparosított építészetig. Unpublished thesis dissertation, Moholy-Nagy Művészeti Egyetem Design- és Művészetelmélet BA, Budapest.

Internet sources http://dunaujvarosmesel.hu/2019/10/11/weiner-tibor-a-varosepites-modszere/ https://epiteszforum.hu/weiner-a-mintaepitesz https://fortepan.hu http://www.jakd.hu/ https://retropolisz.com/2018/04/13/dunaujvaros-ii-moderntol-modernig-a-szocrealon-at/ https://retropolisz.com/2018/02/17/dunaujvaros-moderntol-modernig-a-szocrealon-at-i/ http://sztalinvaros.htomi77.hu/sztalinvaros.php https://thecharnelhouse.org/

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Archives Képzőművészeti Alap Kiadóvállalata Budapest (Fine Arts Fund Publishing Company Budapest) XVII.-77/594.

Letter, February 8, 1948. Hannes Meyer Papers, Inv.-Nr.: 164-103-034 (11), DAM Archiv (Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt am Main).

Hannes Meyer (Lugano) to Tibor Weiner (Budapest), June 11, 1951. Hannes Meyer Papers, Inv.-Nr.: 164-103034 (12), DAM Archiv (Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt

BUDAPEST UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND ECONOMICS – FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE – DECEMBER 2020

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