Calvinist Church, Barót

In its conceptual approach, this design essentially reiterates the earlier Calvinist church in Cluj (1912–1913): the interior space is organized along a longitudinal linear axis, closer in character to Catholic churches, while the bell tower is placed at the corner of the main façade. The entrance appears at the center of the principal façade in an articulated, semicircular form. The gallery, supported by two columns, is located directly above the entrance. The pulpit would have been placed on the closing wall, directly behind the Lord’s Table, at the end of the central nave. The pews were symmetrically divided by the central axis.

Although in his later church designs—such as the one at Siclod [48–3] (1948)—Kós developed alternative, more centralized spatial layouts, the linear plan and the asymmetrically positioned tower remained elements to which he frequently returned throughout his later career.

Excerpt: Károly Kós and Sfântu Gheorghe (Sepsiszentgyörgy)

In a letter dated 28 February 1927, the representatives of the Reformed Church of Baraolt (Barót) invited Károly Kós to undertake the design of a new church. At that time, the congregation did not possess a church in the center of the settlement, and a fundraising campaign was therefore launched to cover the construction costs. They turned to Kós because, as they wrote, “the Reformed community, and in this region the Hungarians in general through our shared political activity, know you well, and asked me to turn to you in this time of need.”

It is not known whether Kós prepared the sketch design promised in his reply, but in April 1927 the congregation formally commissioned him to design the church and invited him to Baraolt for a site visit. In the same letter, László Fábián also mentioned the “people of Nagybacon” in connection with another design task. In June 1927, Kós sent the plans and a cost estimate; the shipment also included drawings for the Nagybacon building. In May 1928, he wrote regarding another site visit, as the plans required modification. The “revised” drawings were sent to Baraolt in June 1928, followed shortly thereafter by the “forgotten” revised cost estimate. More detailed roof-structure drawings were prepared in February 1929. These differ in their details from the earlier versions, allowing us to speak of a third design variant. Several pencil drawings corresponding to this third version have survived in the architect’s family estate. From a letter written to Vilmos Csutak, we know that in June 1929 the church-building permit was in progress. The congregation announced a tender in May 1929, but the submitted bids proved too expensive. After several attempts, and due to the generally difficult financial situation, the church project was finally removed from the agenda in 1931.

An interesting later development is that when Kós attempted to reconstruct the design documentation lost during the devastation of Varjúvár in 1944, the congregation—responding to his request—sent him, as a “gift” in 1956, a set of the church drawings that had remained in Baraolt until that time.

Design Variants

The first sketch design is preserved in the collection of the Hungarian Museum of Architecture. In this version, the main façade lacks a lateral tower; the main tower’s spire rests on four cylindrical columns and has no windows. Based on the sketch, the church appears shorter than in the floor plans, where the main nave is intersected by two vaults. Of the hall thus divided into three sections, one bay is “forgotten” even in the finished perspective drawings (produced for each later design version), although it is clearly visible in the pencil sketch, partly obscured by the tower. This suggests that Kós originally envisioned a much more compact church than functional requirements later dictated.

The first design variant differs most markedly from the later ones in that a pronounced stair tower was planned on the right side of the main façade, and a hall was created in the basement level, made possible by the site’s downward slope away from the street. The stair tower—similarly to the “Rooster Church”—provided appropriate access to the upper gallery, likely at the client’s request. In the 1928 plans, both the basement spaces and the stair tower were omitted. The 1929 drawings elaborate the roof structure in greater detail, which was particularly important because they clearly indicate that the architect envisioned a curved ceiling. In the third variant, the main façade was simplified: only five small windows open above the main entrance, and the slender vertical opening in the tower was omitted, replaced on each side by a pair of smaller windows.

Outcome

Ultimately, none of Kós’s variants was realized. Instead, a design by László Debreczeni was built: a simple prayer hall with a tower. The church visible today was renovated in the 1990s in the spirit of Kós’s architecture, based on plans by Tibor Ervin Hayde.