Bird House (Budapest Zoo and Botanic Gardens)

The Bird House is the central element of the pavilion group designed for the Zoo. If the Zoo is understood as a transposition of the rural landscape of Kalotaszeg—encompassing traditions of both vernacular and medieval architecture—then the Bird House, situated near the Great Lake, clearly assumes the role of a church, functioning as the spiritual center of the community. With the exception of the steep tower of the Pheasant House, no other building reflects the traditions of vernacular church architecture as strongly. In particular, the four-turreted tower recalls the characteristic solution of the Reformed churches of Kalotaszeg.

The emphatic entrance and the narrow windows above it reference Romanesque architecture, which Kós regarded as the foundation of Hungarian architecture. The large open aviaries evoke the structural logic of a Gothic apse. The immaterial openness of the steel cage structures contrasts with the dominant presence of the central tower. The interior space of the tower resembles an earlier small church design by Dezső Zrumeczky. The realized large steel dome and the tower ensemble represent a more innovative, formally refined, and sophisticated solution than that shown in the initial sketch designs. The top lighting of the entrance hall, made possible by the double structure of the timber tower, is a defining feature of the interior space and anticipates the great domed hall of the Hungarian Pavilion at the Turin Exhibition of 1911.

The timber structure is characterized by artistically carved and painted rafter and beam ends. During later renovations and alterations, the originally open timber framework was infilled, and the external and internal animal enclosures were merged. The interior was enriched with characteristic Kós details: hand-crafted door handles and hinges, bird-themed carvings and mosaic inlays, and stained-glass windows designed for the upper lighting. Also distinctive were the partially destroyed segmented beams of the main interior space, whose elements were originally connected by black-painted, ornamented steel plates, now lost.

The building underwent a comprehensive renovation in the 1980s, during which the cages—originally enclosed only with wire mesh—were walled in, and parts of the interior timber structure were replaced with glued laminated timber beams. In the late 1990s, one stained-glass window was realized based on Kós’s designs, and further reconstructions of additional windows are planned (executed by Mária Horváth). The roof skylighting was also restored at this time (1999). The building underwent another renovation in 2010–2011.