Urbanizzazione Thanak, Appunti di Storia dell'Europa

Scarica Urbanizzazione Thanak e più Appunti in PDF di Storia dell'Europa solo su Docsity! Chapter One URBANIZATION AND CIVILIZATION: VIENNA AND BUDAPEST IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY URBANIZATION AND TIE SHAPING OH CITY CENTERS The existence of a link between modern urbanization and the processes of cm- bourgeoisement, the rise of the middle class, can be taken as self-cvident. Ir hardly needs proving that the expansion of the production of goods and devel- opment of capitalist production were the underlying requirement and main stimulus for modern urbanization, and that the resulting urban development differed in kind from medieval development. Modern urbanization, with its complete openness, dynamic expansion, and fast acceleration, differed indeed from the slow growth or frequent stagnation of medieval and early modern times, when towns were still surrounded by walls, privileges, and other con- straints. So one requirement before urbanization could begin, in the mid- to late cighteenth century, was for the walls, privileges, and restrictions to come down and for the common lands of the town ta be parceled aut as building land, Another was for citizens to acquire civil rights. A third was for the fune- tions of a capitalist economy and bourgeois administration and culture to be- gin a steady process of development. A nineteenth-century metropolis was no longer just an artisan settlement and a marketplace, It was an administrative, legislative, and cultural center, tending increasingly to fashion a way of life and cast of mind that served as the pattern for society as a whole.! With the process of embourgeoisement, modern cities gained a new fune- tional structure and economic and social topography. Corresponding with the pace and depth of embourgeoisement, there was a steady division of job from home, public from private life, The business center and office area became sep- arare from the shopping, trade, and industrial areas. These in turn became in- ercasingly divorced from the residential areas,? which for their part took ona variety of social complexions, and provided socially and visually an accurate topographical guide to the character, consistency, and culture of the city or quarter. This separation of the manufacturing, commercial, administrative, and cultural zoncs from the residential arcas presupposes a developed infra- structure and a high degrec of mobility. There were no walls or dikes, however, to make a sharp dividing line be- twecn a preindustrial town and a modern city. There was normally a continu- ity, in fortunato cases an integral once, between the two types and periods—-- 4 CHAPTFER ONE which again is a selfevident, casily verificd statement. Vienna, the rich, privi- feged burgher town of the Middle Ages, developed continuously in the seven- tcenth and cighteenth conturies from a protector of the Hungarian border cas- tles and bastion of the power of the Habsburgs into a resplendent Baroque capital.* The development of Buda and Pest became stunted at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and paralyzed by the subsequent Ottoman occupation. They rose again out of the dust and mins to form a commercial burgher town, and to a lesser extent an administrative center, through a great process of reconseruction în the cighteenth century. The growth was remark- able even in the preparatory stages: an estimated population af 20,000 became 50,000 by the time of che Josephine census in 1787, and 60,000 by the turn of the next century. The physical expansion and planned “embellishment” of the city began. AII this was provincial and meager, however, by comparison with the imperial capital. Vienna’s preurbanization period began as soon as the Turkish siege was broken in 1683, so that its population reached 100,000 in 1700. With 233,000 inhabitants in 1800, it ranked as Europe's third largest city after London (one million) and Paris (over half a million), with which it could vie in terms of its power, refincment, urban character, and cultural creative force.5 Pest-Buda's 60,000 or so inhabitants, on che other hand, lived in almost as many buildings as Vienna's 233,000 citizens: 5,600 as opposed to 6,600.5 Its public buildings, educational institutions, and university were provincial in character, freshly founded or still only dreams in the minds of ardent patriots. The central importance of Vienna was beyond dispute. There were strong walls around the old city with real fortificd bastions and a moat, a 500-yard military parade area or glacis without buildings in front of it, and even a wide masonry wall thirteen feet high to protect the suburbs-—the Linienwall, along the line of today?s outer ring road, the Giirtel. Curiously, chis had been built not against the Turks, but in 1704 against the forays and incursions of the Hun- garian insurrectionist “kuruc” forces” If some worthy counselor of Maria Theresa had cxtrapolated the trend of development from che initial signs of urbanization in his time, he would have logically predicted that Vienna would enjoy a place in the front rank of Bu- rope; while Pest, on the edge of the Hungarian plains, would have secondary status, as the cconomic and cultural center of an agricultural province. The course of history often belies such logic, even with a process such as urbaniza- tion, strongly determined by material factors. In the cvent, the relative rates and intensities of development in Vienna and Pest-Buda were reversed in the first period of urbanization, which extended from the French wars to the revo- lution of 1848. Pest and Buda began to pick up only inthe second half of the cighteenth cen- tury, during Maria Theresa” reign. Even then they were small provincia] towns by comparison with the Baroque splendor of the imperial capital, and cven when compared with Pressburg, proud venue of the Hungarian Diets, or UKBANIZALIUN AND CIVILIZALION 4 closed, expensive, and structurally complex, or Baroque dwelling houses, which were difficult to enlarge. Neoclassical architecture rejected the notion of finely balanced units superimposed on one another, in favor of an ensemble of parts equal in rank and repcatable at will. A Classical facade could be symmet- rical in every direction simply by continuing the axes of the windows; it could be extended and expanded in any direction.'!5 Thus Classicism came to pro- vide the dominant architectural type for the massive apartment blocks and public buildings of Central Europe. But in outward appearance and antecedents, blocks of apartment houses and public buildings were derived from two different lines of development. Different types were constituted by the upper-class mansion blocks and by the apartment buildings for the masses. The former displayed inside and ont the ornate signs of their origin as an expansion of the medieval burgher*s house ot the Baroque mansion translated into Neoclassical terms. Meanwhile the “courts” of mass housing, such as Wurm-udvar, Marokko-udvar, Orczy- udvar, and so on, harked back to monastic architecture, especially monastic farm buildings. From the latter there developed in Austria during che rise of ur- banization what was known as the Grosswohnhof (grcat residential court). This became a prototype for army barracks and for working-class renements during the post-1867 period of the Dual Monarchy, and produced a rather poi- gnant affinity between them.16 Apartment blocks differed from burghers” houses in the size of the dwellings and their arrangement. The flats, in line with their new functions, were small in scale, with an average of threc to six rooms of much reduced size. But they were more intimate and less disturbed by noise from work or outside life than the dwellings of earlier periods. Ifthere were a more clegant reception room at all, it would not be a sumptuous one. Visitors were normally reccived in the afternoon. Full-scale soirées were ruled out by the size of the rooms and the difficulties of illuminating them with candles or rush lights. There is not a large body of materials or research to draw upon for informa- tion on living habits during the first phase of urbanization in Budapest. A pen- eral type can be reconstructed clearly enough, however, from contemporary descriptions and from some cxemplary works of Viennese art history. A rented apartment, sheltering behind a Classical facade and furnished in Biedermeier style, would be eminently convenient and comfortable.!7 There steadily devel- oped a division of functions among the rooms, beginning with the bedroom, which was filled with a double bed and symmetrical furnishings. Mlustrations from early in thc ninetcenth century still commonly show a fowr-poster ora di- van in the parlor, but from the 18405 onward; more depietions of separate bed- rooms are found. The separate drawing room known as the “ladies” room” also appeared, but in general the dining room and drawing room were not sep- arate in the middle-class homes of the period. A ffluent families had a separate nursery as well, although this tended to be a miniature of an adult’s room, with a little bed and a great many mixed pieces of furniture. 8 CHAPTER ONF The most cogent and lasting legacy of the Biedermeier life style is its furni ture and fittings. In fact che furniture style also-sprang from Classicism. As Gcorg Himmelheber says, “Its anthology of forms was ultimately created by Antiquity” Surfaces are flat, and decorativo clements are developed vut of geometrica] shapes; iis more comfortable in cvery way than che rigid forms of the Empire style, having elegant curves and upholstered seats, couches, and armchairs. It also differed from the previous and subsequent styles, respec- tively, by being no longer artist-designed and not yet mass-produced, Crafts- men made those pieces of furniture by hand, for bourgeoi families of the same social standing as themselves.!? The favored suite in this style consists of a couch and armehairs, or chairs arranged about a round ot oval table, suggest ing the intimacy of a family or group of friends. A typical piece of comfortable furniture in the period was a rocking chair with a footstool; a glass cabinet or shelved stand would be used for display. Classicism and Central Furopean Biedermeier, however, should not be rep- resented as a trend by which the way of life in the period can be judged. After all, the appearance of the home was still influenced by inherited Baroque furni- ture, Baroque stoves, and Romantic pictur Apart from chat, it is inappropri- ate to make a judgment in terms of art history or cultural history. The early period of urbanization was imbucd with a spirit of modernization and em- bourgeoisement, from town planning down to furnishings. This was the common denominator between the values of traditional Belviros guildsmen, capitalists from Lipétvàros, and petty bourgcois artisans or traders from Te- rézvAros, even magnates moving up to the capital, or professionals or officials of noble family already resident there, ‘To this can be added the circumstance thatthe urbanization did not occur under the benign protection ofan absolute ruler. To a degree such rule was the target of this conscious course of urban de- velopment, which formed part of the process of acquiring nationhood, It was led by the liberal opposition nobility and supported by the upper middle class, one might say with the deliberate intention of foundinga capital city. CHANGES IN VIENNA’ $ URBANIZATION IN IE Min-NINETEEN'H CENTURY Urbanization in Vienna differed radically from the process in Budapest and in most big European cities. Something of this is apparent from the fact.that che population, in an era of dynamic change, did not more than deuble, and even this increase occurred in the city’ unincorporated suburbs, The population of the old city stagnated at a time when provision ofthe new economic, adminis- trative, and educational functions was expressly being concentrated or rather crammedin there. The aristocracy and high-ranking bureancrats drawn to the imperia city had squeezed out the traditional petty bourgeoisic, so that the ar- tican district became the Adelsviertel (noble quarter). But as the Ade]sviertel URBA NIZATION AND CIVILIZATION 9 then turned into che Regicrungsviertel (government quarter) in the ninetcenth century, space and patronage were also claimed amongrhe Baroque palaces of the imperial high authorities by members of the financial aristocracy and the elite ofrhe capitalist and professional upper middle classes—-the Besitzbiirger- tum and the Bildungsbirgertum,!? So the old city had to perform the new ur- ban functions for another sixty to seventy years, largely because the surviving town walls and the glacis before them, coupled with criteria of rank and re- pure, drew a sharp dividing line between the city and the burghers of the sub- urbs, who were “beyond the pale.” Questions of power had much to do with chis strange stagnation, Unlike other big cities in Europe, Vienna kept its inner walls and outer walls (Lirien- wall) until 1857. This was not due to any chreat from the Turks, which had quite receded, nor since the time of Maria ‘L'heresa to any fcar of a Hungarian uprising. The walls symbolized power and dignity, and were scen increasingly under Metternich as a means of keeping the turbulent working people of the suburbs at bay. The salient feature of this phase in Vienna’s urbanization, then, is that its expansion ran up against batriers. There was no development of a modern business center. The urbanizing transport connections and integral social links between the city and the suburbs that now belonged to it failed to emerge. What little industry arrived in Vienna went to the outskirts, and the infrastructure failed to develop, Crowning all this was che way the ruling impe rial elite more or less deliberately distanced itself from modernization and modern urbanization. What corresponded in the middle-class suburbs to the rank and pomp of the princely and aristocratic inner city was a Biedermeier life style and frame of mind chat imbued private tastes and public life. The effect was a lasting one only in private life, where the Biedermeier domestic style spread throughout che empire. The Ringstrasse ‘l'he year 1848 brought resounding evidence that no Metternich, no walls and towers, and no imporial will could bc proof against the people of Vienna, now that it had grown'into a big city. It was neither expedient nor feasible to curb modern urbanization, A new era in Vicrma*s history opened with the patent of 1857, which ordered the demolition of the walls and introduced planned urban development, Afterthe walls had come down, development took off rapidly, as if che city were determined to make up for lost time. The suburbs were merged into the old city, and in 1890, the outer suburbs (Vororte) were incorporated as well. During this founding period (Grinderzeit) ot sudden development, Vi- enna’ population grew from 470,000 to 800,000 in the three decades to 1890, or 1,342,000, including the outer suburbs. A lasting achievement was the con- struction of a range of communal utilitics. The city was supplied with mains of 12 CHAPTLER ONE partof the old town walls. It shields the residence of the court, the imperial no- bility and burcaucracy, and the imperial haute bourgeoisic from the quarters of the lower-middle, middle, and working classes. This feature of urban devel- opment was fo have serious social and political consequences. However great che artistic and educational merits of the institutions gathered along ît, the Ring from the outsct was a scene of display, servingless to perform modern ut- ban functions than to express a sense of historical auchenticity, grcatness, and dignity. li was a rendition of power in urban architectural terms. What its im- posing squares, monumental public buildings, and palatial blocks of apart- ments lack are the attributes of a town: a human scale, a communal binding force, and a sense of home.?3 BUDAPEST IN THE FOUNDING YEARS The urbanization of Budapest did not lag bchind Vienna’ in any way, during the decades of the founding period, as the figures make clear. The population of the capital cose from 270,000 to 880,000 between 1869 and 1910, or to 1.1 million, including the suburbs. Meanwhile the number of buildings rose from 9,300 to 17,000, and the number of dwellings from 50,000 to 170,000. Around the time of the 1867 Ausgleich or Compromise witch Aus- tria, a good three-quarters of the buildings were single-storied; only 6 percent had three stories and 2 percent four or more. In 1914, on the other hand, only half were still single-storied, 35 percent had two or three storics, and 15 per- cent had four, five, or more stories.?* This is a significant outwatd and upward growth, even though Budapest houses were still on average one to one anda half stories lower than those of Vienna. The essential change was that the ur- banization, having been concentrated on Lipétviros, shifted east toward Terézviros and Erzsébetvros. Its boundarics at the end of the second phase in che 18908 reached the Nagykértt (Grand Boulevard), while its axis was formed by the great avenue of the Sugirdit (Radial Road), now Andrassy dt. ‘The main consideration behind the design and exccution of the Sugaritwas that it should be imposing, a broad, spacious promenade expressive of Buda- pest's status as a great city25 Even its elegant shops and the department store and cafés added later were determinants of class and character, for the archi- tecture of the ciy—the prevalence in Hungary of Renaissance Revivalism— and for its history as well. The Nagykòrdt, started in 1871, took a good quar- terof a century to build due to the enormous economic difficulties met. It per- formed functions of commerce and transportation from the outset, (indeed the city architect, Ferenc Ritter, had plans in 1862 for a navigable waterway rather than a boulevard.)? By 1896, celebrated as the millennium of the Hun- garians’ arrival in the Carpathian Basin, the two and three-quarter-mile Nagykordt was open for its full length from Boràros tér to Margaret Bridge, binding the inner and outer districts of the city together.” Although it bore URBANIZATION AND CIVILIZATION 13 4, The Opera House, Vienna, designed by Eduard van der Null and August von Siccardshburg, 1861-1869 5. l'he Opera House, Budapest, designed by Miklos Ybl, 1875-1884 14 CIIAPTER ONE some resemblance in its outward appearance and transportation functions to Vicnna's “divisive” Ring, Pest* grand boulevard had a combining and leveling nature, binding together the inner arca and the rapidly integrating outer areas. Jt differod from the Ring inasmuch as the radial streets all crossed the Nagy- kériie and continued otrward to Zuglò, KGbAnya, Kispest, and other ncigh- boring places. The Pest Nagykérdt can hardly be called imposing. Apart from the National Theater and the fater Vigszinhéz (Gaiety Theater), it was hardly adorned with any fine public buildings. Instead it was crammed wich a railway terminus and numerous road junctions and intersections, Its buildings, thrce to five stories high (most had the average number of four), were by no means resplendent like the palaces along the Ring. They were plain apartment houses denscly occupicd by shops, workshops, and crowded dwellings. Thesc twa main arterics of the capital were strongly influenced by the fact that the government and the Council for Public Works had promoted their construction and had imposed their own notions of urban development on their appearance. That was also why Neo-Renaissance came to predominate among the revival styles characteristic of the Grilnderzeit. Revivalist Historicism is a ubiquitous stylistic trend, lending to the city an cxacting, spectacular, varied appearance that emanates a traditional respect for the past and a desire to impress. It has often been called the architecture of an upstart haute bourgeoisie unable to create a style of its own, aspiring to dis- play mastery over the past as well as the present, and hiding its inward paucity and pretense behind outward pomp and pageant.* But an explanation of this kind, laced with social psychology, is too sinfplistic and superficial. It can hardly apply to Hungary or its eastern neighbors, where the forces promoting the revival scyles remained for a long time the same aristocracy and liberal no- bility that had stood behind Classicism, As for the upper middie classes of the Westin this period, chey were far from being so parvenu and unenltivated as to need to barrow stylistic ideas from the waning nobility. In reconsidering this question, there are a number of theoretical, aesthetic, technical, and social factors to allow for, First and foremost, the whole nine- tecnth century is marked by an overall historical revivalism, ranging from Herder Romanticism and Sir Walter Scott's tales to positivist science, bial- ogy and Darwinism. Fven historians were not immune, The grcat architects of the period, erudite professionally and in their knowledge of history, shared Ranke's view that all periods are equidistant from God. They abandoned the simplicity of Classicism in favor of adopting what was best in every tradition.2? Their idcal was not slavish reconstitution or imitation, but a combinative re- viva], a re-creation. Let us add that the new, up-to-date building materials and technologies were not yet ready for use in the middle of the last century. AL though pcople were becoming conversant with and using iron and glass, they stuck for several rcasons to tradirion— columns, arches, and thick dividing walls. The obstacles to choosing the functionally most suitable structure and materials. and to lighting upon a new union of function, structure, and form URBANIZA TION AND CIVTLIZATION 17 The planners and “founders” of the Sugàrdt, the actual house-owners, and finally che tenants differed widely in social status, The most they might have had in common was a loose adherence to middle-class, liberal values. As for the buildings, it was mainly the facade that was imposing and ornamental, rather than the contents, The design and taste reflected the liberal nobility, while che cxccution was more in line with the interests and requirements ofthe new bourgeoisie. ‘l'his duality of grandeur'and funetionalism was not a pecu- liarity of Budapest. It was a Central European characteristic, more conspicu- ously present than usual in the contrast between a revival facade and a hum- bler courtyard behind it. The houses themselves divided functionally into three parts. The ground floor would be taken up with shops, or more rarely offices and cafés, and with stock rooms on the courtyard side or in the basement. The second part can be called the “service” sector. It contained the premises that could not be incorporated funetionaliy into the flats: coal cellars in the basement and drying area and lumber rooms in the attic, with a laundry and ironing room, usually on the ground floor. With each flat went a proportionate coal cellar and attic area, and use of the communal laundry. The assignment and up- keep of these premises were among the manifold duties of the concierge, for whom there wonld be a ane-room-and-kitchen flat on the courtyard side of the ground floor. In larger blocks of mansion flats, where the concierge could assume the rank of a senior porter, his assistant, the “vice,” would also be provided with a meager room. Also part of the service sector of the building were the usually ornate front staircase (paved in marble or reconstituted stone in many houses on the Sugartt), the plainer back or servants’ staircase with one or a pair of servants’ toilets on each floor, and the square paved courtyard. The third functional part of the building, the residential section, was differ- entiated in social terms. The largestin arca and highest in status was the grand apartment on the second floor, sumetimes occupied by the landlord and some- timos by a wcalthier bourgeois, noble, or even aristocratic family. The third floor was largely rhe same as the second, the distincrion in status being marked mainly in symbolie differences—simpler windows, no balcony, smaller recep- tion rooms—so that this was still a floor on which the more well-to-do middle class lived. The fourth floor differed substantially, usually being divided into smaller flats, including some that looked out on the courtyard and lacked a servant’s room and bathroom. In larger houses there were small room-and- kitchen or two-room flats on the ground floor, and in the Nagykérdt flats of a similar kind were found on the top floor as well, specifically for the petty bourgeoisie and lower middle and working classes. Pest apartment buildings possessed a social hierarchy. There was a contin- uum from the second to rhe fourth or fifth floors—from rhe haute bourgeoisie to the lower middle class—and another from the front to the back of the 18 CHAPTER ONE housc—from the upper middle class to the petty bourgeois craftsmen and right down to the “vice,” a member of the servant class. Let us took at a few examples. The ground floor of the palatial tenement huilding at No. 5 in Sugardt had eight shops on the ground floor with five adjacent stock rooms, a one-room- and-kitchen flat for the concierge (250 sq. ft.), a small two-room courtyard flat (231 sq. ft.) and a communallaundry, The house had two courtyards scparated by the srair well, with areas of 1,400 and 585 sq. ft., respectively. ‘The grand apartment on the second floor had seven rooms with two vestibules and the usual offices (2,340 sq. ft.), whilc the equivalent on the third floor had seven rooms with only one vestibule and a smaller dining room. Next to the grand apartment on each floor was another smart, four-room apartment (1,440 sq. ft.). On the fourth floor, however, the 3,800 sq. ft. of living space werc divided into three flats instead of two: rwo more gentecl flats with four full-size and one half-size room, and one with two full-size and three half-size rooms (900 sq, ft.). So there were altogether eight flats in the building. Two were let to haute bourgeois families, four ro well-to-do middle-class families, one to a more modestly endowed middle-class family, and one, opening onto the court- yard, next to the servants’ toilets, to a working-class family.55 The house is imposing and dignificd outside. The fagade is reminiscent of Renaissance style in its spatial proportions, but has rhe windows on all three upper floors arched in a Baroque fashion. It resembles its Vicnnese counterpart in outward appearance and proportions and above all in the mentality embod- ed, although it lags behind in size and grandeur.* The differences in social level become even clearer in the blocks in the Nagykòrdt, According to a con- temporary account of the original arrangement of No. 35 in Erzsebet kòrut, che grand apartments on the second and third floors had only six and seven rooms, respectively. The second floor had two other flats—one with three rooms and a servant’s room, and the other with two rooms—and so did che third floor—one flat with two rooms and a servant’s room, and another sim- pler two-room flat facing the courtyard. The fourth floor became poorer, For more modest middle-class occupancy, there were four-room and threc-room flats, but the two-room flat on the courtyard side was laid our with petty- bourgeois requirements in mind. The ground floor was occupied by four shops, each with a scparate room for the shop assistant, a room-and-kitchen flat for the concierge, and finally a laundry.î” So only five of the seventcen flats in this genteel house with a respectable fa- gade, right in the middle of he Pest Nagykérbt, can be described as of middle- class standard, of which only two had six to seven rooms, while the remaining ten flats must have been occupied by petty baurgeois, shopkeepers, artisans, public servants, and in some cases workers. Atthe opposite pole, letus look at a large haute bourgeois villa in the outer- most section of the SugArit, belonging to Manfréd Weiss, the grcat industrial isr3*The iwo-storied villa was builtin the 18905, with an archingloggia in front URBANIZATION AND CIVILIZATION 19 anda veranda behind. The villa, of course, had no “commercial” section, but its “service” section was extensive, including a separate wine cellar and tap- room in the basement, a kitchen, a servant’s room, and small faundry, ironing, and mangling rooms, There was a separate little house for the upper servants: the concierge, the gardener, and later an the chauffeur. The street side of the ground floor was taken up by three smart rooms: a salon, a music room, and a receptionroom, covcringa total of 1,170 sq. ft. Adjacentto these was a 540-sq.- ft. dining room, from which opened a conservatoty or winter garden, while at the back there were a drawing room, bedroom, nursery, schoolroom, bath- room, and cwa toîlets. ‘The street side of the second floor contained further re- ception rooms, bedrooms, and living rooms, while the separate back part con- tained the rooms and conveniences for the indoor servants. So the owner had twelve living and reception rooms with vatied and ornate conveniences, whereas the servants had three rooms in the house and three small Alats. When we measure the urbanization of Budapest by European standards, the most couspicnous feature is its feverish speed, expressive of an almost patho- logical determination to catch up. There was, however, much that was superfi- cialaboutit, which appears in some of the skimping, meager solutions used for the problems of urbanization. One sign of this is the high density of building. Construction in che inner areas was nor in a grid of blocks divided by side streets, but in rows of contiguous houses interrapted relatively infrequendly by cross streets, which would have raised the cost of construction. The city has no emphatic center, few spacious squares, and relatively little green open space, at leastin the seven inner districts of Pest, where the proportion ofopen space isa tiny 1,3 percentofthe built-up area.?? Apart from the Varosliget (City Park) and Népliget (Peoples Park), which were on the edge of the city ar the time, the bleak stones of Pest were unrelieved by more than a few pockets of green or smallsquares, except for the trees lining the Nagykérdit and Ùll6i tt. In cerms of parks and gardens, Pest was far behind the major European capirals. Their place was taken not only by crowded housing, but by workshops, warchouscs, and factories, which were moved further out time and again over the decades, but were still encompassed anew by the rapidly growing city. Pest was a city of factories, not gardens: the workshop of Hungary?s bourgcois development. While the pearl of the Hungarian capital, Margaret Island, remained closed to the general public until recent times, the Pracer and Augarten in Vienna had already been opened by Joseph II, who also planted out the glacis before the town walls with limes and false acacias as a promenade area for recreation.4 The foundations of Vienna” great garden cult were laid by the vast Baroque gardens of the Schénbrunn, Belvedere, Esterhàzy, Schénborn, Schwarzenberg, and Arenberg palaces. Parks and gardens were maintained by che magnates, and during the period of urban development by the city fathers, New ones were added when the Ring was built: the Volksgarten (People's Garden) be- twcen Ballhausplatz and the Burgtheater, the Burggarten before the Hofburg, 22 CHAPTER ONE frent and the back courtyard flats, which had to open onto the corridor be- cause they were inaccessible from the stair well. ‘This open-corridor pattern of building had far-reaching social conse- quences. The bousgcois principles of strict privacy and as full a segregation from the “lower orders” as possible applied less fully in Budapest than in other big cities of Western or Central Europe. As mentioned before, there were petty bourgcois families in the courtyard flats and working-class families atthe back of the building, living in che same block as the well-to-do and able to observe their privace life. A central role in such open-corridor buildings was played by the all-secing, all-hearing concierge. On the positive side, Pest renement build- ings contained a more socially interactive community than was usual in their equivalents in Western European capicals. The Arrangement of a Ilome Before entering, so to speak, a bourgeois home în Budapest, itis worth consid- ering one or two figures. The largest flats in the Sugarùt and Nagykérht houses examined had eleven or twelve rooms and an area of 2,200 or even 2,700 sq. ft. The average middle- dasshome, however, had three or four rooms and an area of 900 to 1,340 sq. ft. The height of the second- and third-floor rooms în the Sugarùt rcached almost fiftecn feet, which was reduced to twelve feet on the foutth floor. The figures were similar for buildings in the Nagykérdt, The heights of buildings and of stories werc laid down in the building regulations and in certificates of plan- ning permission. The houses in the inner parts of the city appear to be very varied. Eclecti- cism gave rise to much stylistic variation in facades, but on the stairs and still more in the flats themselves thero was a high degree of uniformity in terms of layout and appointments. The arrangement of a middie-class home was do- termined by the routine of daily life. Sleeping, cating, daytime activity, and personal hygienc were functionally and spatially separated in middle-class homes. The simplest and most modest arrangement was a flat with three main rooms: a bedroom, a parlor, and a dining room, with the usual adjunets of a hall, a kitchen (see Figure 9), a pantry, and possibly a bathroom and toilet. These auxiliary rooms open off the hall, off the middle of the three main rooms (from which the other two are rcached), or from any of the three rooms. The chrec-room flat was a standard attribute of middic-class life in Central European cities. Geographical differences tended to be apparent in the pro- portion of them to flats with four or more rooms, By this yardstick, each status group in Budapest had an average of one room fewer than its equivalent in Vi- enna and Munich. In a three-room flat, a child would sleep on a divan in the parents” bedroom whilc small, and later on.in the parlor. T'he modest receiving and rare entertaining in the home would take place in the dining room or par- lor. fidi for the occasion. URBANIZATION AND CIVILIZATION 23 9. 'Fhe kitchen of a modest petty-bourgeois home. Budapest, end of the nineteenth century This simple type of dwelling could be developed in two directions. If the family grew and prospered, there would be a further division of functions and segregation of private life in che flat, with the addition of a nursery, a room for the wife, and a study for the husband. This reflected the middle-class needs of autonomous individuals for privacy and a scparate “living space.” One inno- vation in the period that deserves arrention was the introduction of a nursery for the children, adapted to the requirements of their age group and their qual- itative differences from adults, and equipped with white or colored furniture, pictures, toys, and space for play. The nursery was a reflection of new middle- class principles of child raising. In more well-to-do middIc-class families, the sexes would be segregated at puberty into separate rooms for girls and boys. The other line of development was a tendency for the grander rooms used for recciving visitors to proliferate. The dining room was joined by a drawing room, and among the haute bourgeoisic by a morning room, a reception hall, amusic room, anda library, After the turn ofthe nineteenth and twenticth cen- turies, the majority of the middle class had a bathroom with hot running water anda toilet. Class distinctions were reflccted not only in the number and size of rooms, but also in the auxiliary rooms and the number of servants kept. Any decent 24 CHAPTER ONE middlc-class family kept at least one servant, a maid of all work, who in the ba- sie type of flat with three rooms and a Kitchen would sicep in the kitchen on a folding iron bed, Most genteel flats had a small servant's room leading off che kitchen, sometimes unheated and unlit. More well-to-do families kept two servants, a parlor maid and a cook, with the former conveying status when guests were received and the latrer assisting in che running of the household. Also part of the middle-class houschold was a washerwoman casualiy em- ployed for the heavy washing, a hairdresser (friser) who would come every two or three days and, among the upper strata, a governess (Friulein or gou- vernante), who would live with the children and cat with che family. As with the cicy and the building, there was a threcfold division on fune- tional lines in the arrangement of the flat. Bonrgeois homes observed a strict division betwcen the private, reception, and “service” spheres in spatial and personal terms. This segregation was accomplished architecturaliy by a long vestibule without windows, shaped like an Lor a T, from which opened all the rooms, or at least allthe groups representing the spheres. There was a clearline between the living rooms and the group consisting of kitchen, pantry, and ser- vant’s room, and in two-story dwellings, between the ground-floor reception sphere and che private sphere upstairs. But there were usually only the virtual boundaries af unwritten house rules between the private sphere of daily life, primarily the bedroom, and the more elevated and protceted salon or drawing room, opened on more formal occasions. Middle-class citizens tricd to give themselves a private life cut off from the outside world, This desire for privacy and cult of the individual led to the development of single-function rooms, even though it seldom applied in a pure form, and then mainly among the up- per classes. The degree to which respect for private life also affected the reception sphere can be seen in the formal, almost muscumlike quality of che salon and the rar- ity of the occasions on which it was used. The residents of middle-class dwell- ings resorted to outside help in performing public functions: cafés, clubs, and commercial catering and entertainment places. A middle-class home was too cramped and secluded to be a scene of daily social contact, let alone of after- noon social occasions. This role was adopted increasingly by the cafés, where rhere were fresh cakes and newspapers and tables for billiards and cards. Gen- tlemen frequented clubs, known as casinos, which appropriately combined the pleasures of socializing with the need to keep up political relations. The times had passed when people made music, held dances, and played in aristo- cratic and bourgeois mansions. Such functiuns were steadily assumed by the- aters, dance halls, and concert halls. How Homes Were Furnished There are several kinds of source material from which to reconstruct how flats were appointed: sensitive but not wholly accurate reminiscences and literary URBANIZATION AND CIVILIZATION 27 the bedroom, This symmetry was broken by the dressing mirror (and perhaps it was to compensate for this that there was a symmetry in the three glasses ar- ranged as a triptych), and in the opposite corner by the tile stove in warm- colored tones. ‘l'he intimacy and privacy of the bedroom lentit a kind of festive mystery that gained an almost ritual character from the ornamental elements in the structure, Above the beds hung pictures of saints, devotional objects, and family portraits and photographs, as expressions of intimate piety. In fam- ilies that were not religious, and wished to demonstrate the fact, the place of the devotional pictures was taken by stereotypes of intimate eroticism—oil- painted or cheaply printed reproductions of nudes, odalisques, and piquant scenes from mythology. The bedroom also contained the family valuables that were not for display: che jewelry, gold, and money. Many inventories list among the bedroom items a jewelry casket or a larger strong box or safe. The appointments and structure of the bedroom were so pronounced that they influenced the common people and survived two world wars. Only with the chronic housing shortage after the Second World War and radical changes in the way of life did the traditional pattern break down. THE DINING ROOM "The other more or fess unifunctional and structurally stable element in the home was the dining room, which normally opened off the hall, so that access from the kitchen could be as direct as possible. "l'he furniture consisted of solid hardwoud picces stained dark, with the table in the center. The usc of a long rectangular dining table was inherited from the great houscholds of earlier centuries. The size decreased in this period as the family itself shrank to four to six members, Many households had extending tables, and there was a trend toward oval or round tables, which made for a better use of space. Thc dining chairs were more solid than comfortable, with cushions rather than upholstery. Also part of the dining suite would be two sideboards, one large and one smaller (referred to by various names in different periods, regions, and styles), The larger sideboard, kuown gencrally as a “Kredenz” in the south German, Austrian, and Hungarian regions, consisted of two parts: a lower part with double doors and two drawers, and an upper part with the middle open. It was made of fine wood, and in the period of revival styles it would be carved and have pillars. The top of the lower part tended to be French-polished or covered with a marble slab. The upper part contained the porcelain and stoneware (in- cluding cups, jugs, and drinking glasses) and the lower part thc plates, table- cloths, and silver cutlery. Vases and a fruit bowl would be arranged on the mar- ble. The smaller sideboard, known as the buffet or “Antichte,” could also be in two parts, with a serving counter below and a glass casc for glassware above, but it could also be in one, in which case it was normally referred to and used as a.server, Apart from a stove not placed centrally and a none-too-bright 28 CHAPTER ONE 10, Middle-class salon of the Pscherer-Verchély family in 1900 lamp, the dining room would also have a mirror and a long-case or wall clock. Tn a sense foreign to the room, but occasionally to be found there, was a divan, a sofa, or possibly a small table or an armchair. The furniture of the dining room was suggestive of order, restraint, disci- pline, and ritual, matching well the rules of the house and the ceremoniousness of eating. It was typical of the middle-class way of life to eat together three times a day. Poorer families would not heat the dining room in winter, eating in the hall or che drawing room instead. For the upper strata, the dining room was also the place where guests were entertained in a more lavish fashion on a larger scale, when the doors would he thrown open to the salon and the mas- ter’s sitting room, to give che scale of a banqueting hall of old. THE SALON The heart of the salon was provided by a suite of drawing-room furniture, which was usually arranged asymmetricaliy and diagonally, wich a table lamp or standard lamp. Here too there would be a sideboard, a console table, and a console mirror, A salon differed from a simpler parlor mainly in possessing a few important items for display (sce Figure 10). A characteristic item was the glass case (vitrize), a graceful, four-legged cabinecwich glass sides and shelves, where che family would place a display de- signed to represent itself; decorations and medals, family heirlooms, objets d’art, and curios (see Figure 11). Also ubiquitous was a chandelier to give light URBANIZATION AND CIVILIZATION 29 11. The glass case in the same salon and sparkle to the whole room. It would usually be of the Venetian type fa- vored in Central Europe, If the family was not musical, che piano would also be placed in the salon as a decorative piece. {lt would normally stand in the music room, or among the less well-to-do, in the parlor.) Also associated closely wich the salon were the appropriate clothes. For an evening occasion, the parlor maid would wear a simple black dress with a white apron and cap, the male members of the family would don dark evening wear, and the ladies” dress would be transformed as well. Daytime female at- tire in the nineteenth century was notable for completely covering the body with long skirts, long sleeves, and tops buttoned up to the neck. Ladies would be covered from head to foot in a looser, more comfortable fashion in the day- time or while working, and be laced in more tightly for the street or afternoon calls. But when the evening parties came, the ladies suddenly sported bare arms, shoulders, and backs. 32 CHAPTER ONE It was against chis display-oriented culture and morality that younger intel lectuals atthe turn of the century rebelled, rejecting profit-oriented liberal val- ues in favor of aestheticism, artistic revival, and a total reform of life suyle. SFZESSION ARCHITECTURE AND YOUTHEUI. REBELLION Several explanations have been suggested for the change of architectural epoch and che parhfinding that began with the Sezession, the Viennese school of Art Nouveau. Both the bourgeoisie's weariness and decadence and the freshness, vigor, and brash joic de vivre of che new style have been put forward, It has been ascribed to a new attitude to life on the part of che alienated intelligent- sia, and to the creativity of an intelligentsia freed from the bands of “style ar- chitecture.” Such epoch-making changes, however, are always generated by several more specifically definable motivating factors. Without venturing to establish a causal relationship of any kind, ler me mention the social and tech- nical requirements of modern urbanization as certainly being among the un- derlying factors. The technical innovation began among architects familiar with the poten- tial architectural applications of steel structures, reinforced concrete, and glass, who wanted to relcase the opportunities presented by the new materials from the prison in which the revival styles had immured them. The new trend, as demonstrated by its well-known symbol, the Fiffcl Tower in Paris, emphasized structure and function. It found a formal idiom in American sky- seraper construction and the ongoing development apparent in the building of family houses in Britain. More and more, traditional architects also began to feel wcighed down by revival architecture, although they managed to incorpo- rate the new materials into the old forms. Their protest was partly artistic and aesthetic in motive: thcy really did feel that che stylistic ideas of great periods in history were empty and obsolete, and made conscious efforts to alter tastes and rhe system of aesthetic values. A contribution to the change in tastes was also made by the acsthetie de- mand for harmonious assimilation into the environment and the ideologica] demand for use to be made of local and national tradition. It started in En- gland in the final third of the ninetcenth century, primarily in the form of hous- ing and family houses chat remained formally within the bounds of Histori- cism, but created a model for a provincial, simple, intimate house, drawing mainly on the creative imagination of Philip Webb and Norman Shaw. Influ- enced by Morris and Ruskin, however, English architects rejected iron, con- crete, and everything machinelike.” The new building techniques gained ground in bold, advancing America, where a now acsthetic outlook combined with the commercial spirit to engender the experiments that led to the devel- opment of new types of iron and steel structures, above all the skyscrapers. So the impetus behind this second architectural departure was economic, social, and idcological. It elicited a favorable response in society and among URBANIZATION AND CIVILIZATION 33 architects in Central Europe, where those with the breadth of vision to thinkin terms of townscape increasingly turned away from the empty stercotypes and insincere, superficial solutions of Historicism. The motives and proposals of these pioncers were very diverse, as the Ringstrasse Debate at the turn of the century went to show. Camillo Sitte considered the Ring to be bleak and inhuman, and a breach of urban tradition. His target was not Historicism as such, but the employment of it in contemporary architecture in a utilitarian, rational way that was divorced from the community. A city, he declared, was not a honsingestare, but a work of art: “A city must be built so that its citizens feel safe and happy. Urban architecture is not a technical question, but an aesthetic one in the loftiest sense.” Opposing him was Ludwig Baumann, who supported the principle of plasticity of spatial cifect and spectacular monumentality. The most influential critic of the architecture of the Ring was Otro Wagner, whose point of departure was likewise social. His basis for comparison, how- ever, was no longer a conservative, backward-looking cultural critique, but thatofa forward-looking person engaged with the new demands of the turn of the century, To suit modern mankind, everything newly created in architec- ture, he wrote, “must match the new forms and new demands, . . . Display us as a better, democratic, self-aware, idea] being, and embady both the colossal technical and scientific advances obtained and the practical streak running through modern mankind—thar is self-evident!”’ This makes rwo assump- tions that double as attributes: “Maximum comfort and maximum purity.*?? Wagner ends by summing up che underlying principle of modern architecture in the following sentence; “An architect should develop the form out of the construction,” which is ciosely akin to the thesis of Louis Sullivan, who raised American cenginccoring architecture to the status of an art: “Form follows fune- tion, and that is a law.”80 Wagner laid down his basic principles as a theorist and applied them as an architect. He would choose his material to suit the purpose of the building, and the structure was tied to both of these. From these premises the form was derived, not automatically but in an artistic configuration. Notably progres- sive was the way Wagner combined social commitment with artistic exacrion. Torhe certainly traced the changes of style back to the great social transforma- tions,! althougli he was well aware chat it was the master builder, not ‘soci ety” as such, who designed the dwelling place and environment: “in every case of urban development, there is one primary question: the floor must bc given to art and the artist, therchy displacing the engineer’s antipathy to acsthetics and the ‘vampire-like power of speculation.? '*82 The critique made of the Historicism of the Grinderzeit and the ideal put forward hy the new architecture found enthusiastic adherents and disciples among the second and third generation of the successful haute bourgcoisie— young people no longer brought upintrade, but in the best universities, acade- mies, and artistic workshops. The sons of this well-to-do middle class of the w È MHAPTER ONE 12. Part of the Majolilka House (left) and the adjacent apartment building, Linker Wienzeile 40, both designed by Otto Wagner in 1899-1900 fin-de-siécle were educated, susceptible to new ideas, and sensitive to social and moral issues. They turned in disillusionment and revulsion against the hy- pocrisy of bourgeois morality. The crisis and desire for change arose out of a strong reciprocal reaction betwccn the established order and the younger gen- eration. The revolt of the young was naturally born bf and fed by che structural crisis of capitalism and the ideological and value-rclated crisis of liberalism, although the latter was exacerbated in turn by the strongly anticapitalist cul- tural criticism and not infrcquently the socialist criticism aimed at the milicu of their parents by young people disenchanted with the bourgeois family and morality. The revolt of the younger generation extended to all aspects of work and way of life and thinking. Except in the casc of the revolutionary socialists, it fonnd expression in great reform movements aimine to change life as a whole. URBANIZATION AND CIVILIZA TION 37 14. Atelier of the Malonyai Villa, designed by Béla Lajta. Budapest, 1905 pieces of attistry and craftsmanship, or their Gesamtkunstwerke to beautify their environment. Only from che wealchy, art-loving haute bourgeoisie and the prosperous artistic intelligentsia was there a demand or appreciation forit. The Sezession brought relief to the interiors of the revival period with their hefry, oversized carved furniture, curtains, and hangings. Sezession furniture was simpler and more graceful and functional, But a more radical change in in- terior design and furnishings came only toward the end of the 19008, along with the transition to modern architecture, affecting both Vienna and Buda- pest, primarily in the construction of villas, Both in the practice af architecture and the life’s work of certain practitioners (such as Otto Wagner, Josef Hoff- mann, Adolf Loos, or Béla Lajta) there ensued a cleansing, continuous transi- tion from the mature Sezession into the pre-modern, in which the simplified, proportioned surfaces and furms scally were adapted to fanetion and struc- ture, while ornamentation became simple or was replaced altogether by cool 38 CHAPTER ONE rationalism in the architectural treatment of space. This shift lasted for a short while in some cases, but was permanent in the case of forerunners of the Bau- haus movement, The main purpose really became the performance of fune- tion, in the context of the grcat principles of an overall reform oflife stylc: spa- cious, comfortable, clean, and sunny flats, not just for the top ten thousand but forthe lower-middle and working classes as well. This produces a duality in the architecture of the carly years of rhe century. On the one hand, there are luxury Sezession and “pre-modern” villas for the haute bourgeoisie and che scientific and artistic intelligentsia. On the other, there arc comfortable, homelike tenement blocks and flats and later family houses and housing estates for the common man. From England to the eastern rim of the continent there resounded among artists and artisans, Utopians and realistic social policy makers, a call for the building of smaller flats, fur design inspired by popular craftsmanship and intended for popular use, for cheap, tasteful furniture, and for an affordable life style, Ebenezer Howard's book Garden Cities of Tomorrow had appeared in 1898. The building of Letch- worth began five years later, and the movement soon spread to German soil. Darmstadt's Mathildenhéhen, builtin the carly years of the century, was still'a villa districtof artists homes and luxury houses for the haute bourgeoisie, but in 1908, the Deutsche Werkstitte announced plans for a garden city for the middle and working classes in Hellerau, near Dresden. Hellerau set out to re- alize the noblest aims of the movement for life-style reform: to circumvent the crowded, unhealthy life in big cities and speculation in building land and hous- ing; by putting up small, cozy, comfortable, tastefully appointed homes. For Hellerau was atonce functional and painstakingly and tastefully designed and executed, a kind of socialized Gesamtkunstwerk, one might say. Tessenow worked there, and so did Le Corbusier for a while. There, in the garden city's modern theater in 1913, Paul Claudcl's verse play The Annuncia- tion (L'Annonce faite è Marie) was first performed, together with Kafka, Rilke, Werfel, and Buber—quict renovators and rebellious innovators alike, A Transformation uf Housing in Hungary Finally, let us take a brief look at the transformation of architecture and hous- ing arrangemonts in Hungary. The aim is not to provide either a historical overview or an artistic assessment, since both have been done comprehen- sively and with great crudition in the compendium Magyar miivészet 1890- 1919 edited by Lajos Németh.8* The question instead is how the new architec- ture fitted in with the global change of epoch and the development of cduca- tion and cultivation in Hungary. Itis worth emphasizing first of allthat the development in Hungary almost caught up with the change of cra in Europe, following it in its multiplicity and URBANIZATION AND CIVILIZATION 39 its architectural and social principles and solutions by only a few years. A spe- cial feature in eastern Central Europe is the conscious cultivation of local and national tradition. ‘l'he period’ emphatic scarch for a style, according to Magyar nivészet, “appeared most plainly in architecture, where it became in- terwoven with the problem arca of national character.” “National art held a central place in public thinking” about artin the period, “asa goal chosen... by che widest variety of schools of thought and form.”7° It was stated categori- cally that “the architectural theory of the time can only be studied in conjune- tion with the interpretations of national art.” Thesc aspirations should nut be seen solely as the effects of the period’s enhanced nationalism, even thongh this certainly helped to inspire the investi- gation (and frequent exaggeration) of the national character. For the roots of the matter run deeper. A whole century before, in the age of Romanticism, the smaller nations of the castern Central European region had already been prompted by instinets of self-preservation to rescarch kcenly into their na- tional attributes, as the foundation on which to justify their existence and identify themselves. It can be considered fortunate that the Sezession, having exhausted the veins of Historicism, turned to indigenous art, in the work of the pioneer don Lechner, although Lechner did not garher the material for his folk characteristics from his own experience or collect them himself, and in fact used folk motifs as ornamentation that was still not subordinate to funetion (see Figure 15). Instead he adopted the stock of forms and the so- lutions of the Europcan Sczession in his treatment of exteriors and internal space (such as his Post-Office Savings Bank and the Sipcki Villa).?! Perhaps this is not even a shortcoming, Perhaps the art critic Lajos Filep was right to say, “In seeking the national, he arrived at the international... in seeking the specific, at the universal, and in seeking the ancestral, at the modern and immediate,”72 The great masters of the main architectural schools that derived from Lechner or independently of him at the beginning of the new era discerned the national quality they sought in the realm of the popular ot folk. (For a folk character predominates even in the applied art of the Godéllo school, which revived medieval tradition.) Apart from borrowing motifs of folk decoration, the mature Sezession in Hungary tried integrating functional elements and techniques of rustic architecture its plans, structures, and technologies.” This drive toward innovation was not specific to architecture. It had a more general significance in Hungarian culture. The liberal, rational scale of values— empty and exhausted by the turn of the century and to be equated in Hunga- ry%s case with the tradition of the nobility, that is, Romanticism, National Re- alism, and Historicism— could not be ousted simply by the formal idiom of che global artistic upheaval. Nor did the folklore already cxplored, with its commonplace, pastoral popular character, offer a fertile soil for renewal, as its 42 CHAPTER ONE 17. ‘The Schiffer Villa, designed by Jézsef Vigo. Budapest, 1912 Austrian premodern buildings of the time, Yet the synthesis remains essen- tially original.7* Especially pertinent to the subject under discussion is the Schiffer Villa, a two-story house built in 1910-1912, on the watershed butwcen two eras, worlds, and architectural styles (sce Figure 17). The external surfaces are dlcan, severe, and devoid of ornamentation, so that the structure emerges in the form. As a recent study put it, “The arrangement of the internal areas of the building is reflected in che consistent asymmetry of the facades.”7 The lower floor coincides with the reception area. Almost a third of the 4,300 sq. ft. of floor area is taken up by an imposing hall, which extends up into the story above. "This is flanked by an L shape consisting of a spacious dining room, a large salon (650 sq. ft.), a smaller salon, and an art gallery and library known as the study (600 sq. ft.). The stained-glass window covering a complete wall of the hall and the panel covering the space over the entrance are the work of Karoly Kernstok, and Vilmos Fémes Beck did che marble pool and flower trough. Decoratian for the other rooms was done by Rippl-Rénai, Ivanyi- Griinwald, Istvin Csék, and'Kisfaludi Strobl, AIl the furniture, wallpapers, URBANIZATION AND CIVILIZATION 43 andotheritems of furnishing are carefully designed works of art. The arrange- ment and appointments of the upper story are functional. One wing contains the master’s and mistress’s bedrooms, with a breakfast room and sitting room next to them, and next co these che nursery. Whereas the 4,300 sq. ft. of the ground floor-are divided into five large reception areas, the upper story of 3,000 sq. ft. contains cight main rooms with auxiliary premises. So each room had an arca of about 300 sq. ft., making them homelike and human in scale, and chis feeling was supported by spacious windows and furniture in keeping with each room’s purpose.” The Schiffer Villa’s combination of the livable, the usabile, and the decora- tive, along with its marriage of engineering skills and artistic creativity, gave rise ro a model for a dwelling in which funetionalism and display could once again complement cach other harmoniousty. "l'he Schiffer Villa, the Rézsavélgyi Emporium, a good many of the pavilions at Budapest Zoo, and the center of the Wekerle Estate were all works of art that would stand their ground in any great European city. But the other side of the coin is that such buildings as the Schiffer Villa, or Sezession villas and stores, banks, and homes designed by Lajca in general, were so few and rare. Was it because of the country?s poverty? Werc there too few enterprising and rich boutgeois? Were the state and the city too mean with their money? Could the backwardness of the country have left too litele time for the new architecture to reach fruition, so that it flowered, anly to be engulfed immediately by the war, followed by penury, crisis, and jerry-building? In fact it was not a shortage of enterprise or capital that caused Hungary and its capital to fall behind the more prosperous countries in the field of ur- banization, and che lag was not cven very striking before the Great War, The backwardness was apparent less, I think, on che creative side than in the recep- tion—the public, the level of taste in society. Hungary at the beginning of the century was at a stage wherc the revalt af the younger generation (and con- comitant movement for reforming the life style) was just breaking out, and then only among the educated bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia, and the con- scious working class. Elsewhere it was incubating and stimulating artistic re- newals. Although the great movements for renewal during the change of era in- fluenecd Hungary as well, the social basis was too weak, and somewhat too isolated, for the country to join the mainstream of them. Hungarian urban architecture and residential design enjoyed, without be- ing able to utilize them fully, rwo fruitful decades in which architects, freed from the rigid dogmas of Historicism, were still not entangled by the economic constraints of mass construction or the abstract rationalism decreed by mod- ern architecture.