Folyovits Residence, Kolozsvár

‘Vigand (Toroczkai. ed.) had been commissioned to carry out a task he couldn't possibly do single-handed: designing a residential house in Kolozsvár/Cluj (and overseeing the construction and manage the finances) for City Clerk János Folyovits. During our cooperation I became convinced that Vigand may be an outstanding artist in the applied arts, but he has no knowledge to speak of when it comes to architecture proper and he is unfit to resolve a larger project, be it but a simple residential building. ... This, however, was no obstacle for our friendship, which continued right until his tragic death (he died in an air raid shelter during the siege of Budapest in World War Two).’ (Kós Károly: Életrajz. Szerk.: Benkő Samu, Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó–Kriterion, Budapest–Bukarest, 1991. pp 110)

Károly Kós and Ede Toroczkai Wigand worked together in the spring and summer of 1910 on the design of a villa for János Folyovits, the town clerk of Kolozsvár (present-day Cluj-Napoca, Romania). The building was completed in the same year as a part of a garden suburb development for city officials.

This villa is situated well above the street level, formerly in a picturesque garden, and a special feature of its asymmetrically composed main façade was the ground floor terrace enclosed by carved stone columns with an integrated upper story balcony above it. In the words of Anthony Gall, “the apparent size and resolved architectural handling of the exterior disguises what is in fact a rather modest and awkward plan arranged around a narrow central staircase.”

The original villa is now subdivided into several apartments. The colonnade of the projecting porch on the main facade was later walled in, and the upper balcony no longer resembles the original.