Primary School and Kindergarten, Városmajor utca, Budapest

“The harmony of the stylistic features of traditional folk architecture and modern art.” (Erdei Gyöngyi: A mintaadó polgármester. Bárczy István beruházási programja (1906–1914). In: Budapesti Negyed III./ 3., 1995. 97–116.)

During the mayorship of István Bárczy, a large-scale school building program took place in the Budapest. Fifty-five schools and 24 nursery schools were built between 1909 and 1912. In addition to architects designing in the Historicist style, commissions were also given to those working in the modern and popular styles. These included Béla Lajta, as well as some of the Fiatalok group such as Dezső Zrumeczky, Károly Kós, and Dénes Györgyi, amongst others. This group transplanted the traditions of Transylvanian vernacular architecture into the big city environment, adjusting it to new building techniques and demands. In many cases, the buildings were further enhanced through outstanding works of fine art and decoration.

Károly Kós and Dénes György together received the commission to design the Városmajor School, which Kós recalls, “After we got out of the Technical University [… ] three years later in 1910 fate brought a joint project to us, the design and construction of the Városmajor Street school complex (school and residential building/nursery school) in the capital. The task was rather complicated, because according to the building program, it was necessary to place a day-care center and places for the boarding-school students in addition to the usual rooms in the school building with separate sections for boys and girls. And in addition, the drawback was that there was a change in elevation of about 10 meters in the 50 meters from the border with the street to the back of the lot on this otherwise spacious lot (ca. 140 meters long on the street and 50 meters deep).” Györgyi, as a beginner, may have been able to learn a great deal from his friend with greater architectural experience, “… he could not have known how great and how varied the investment of intellectual and technical/material knowledge, as well as even physical work and stress was needed between the designer and the architect supervising construction in order to create a building that would fully satisfy its functional goal and purpose on the one hand and reflect this in an artistic form within the conditions defined by building site and its surroundings as well as the limits of technical and material possibilities. […] We were mutually satisfied with one another. Györgyi learned what he needed, and from him I got assistance that was understanding and reliable.” (Kós Károly levele Kubinszky Mihálynak, 1967. jún. 2. Közölve: Sas Péter (szerk.): Kós Károly levelezése. Mundus Magyar Egyetemi Kiadó, Budapest, 2003. 624–629.)

The construction of the Városmajor Street School began in August of 1910, and it was opened on the first of November 1911. It is one of the elementary schools that also included a small nursery school for 60 children. Apartments for the principal, a nursery school teacher, and three other workers were also built. The full construction cost of this three-story elementary school with a mansard roof, 16 classrooms, seven other rooms, the storerooms, a gymnasium, and a staffroom was 552,000 krone.

This freestanding building complex is near the Városmajor Park on an important traffic route leading to the Déli train station and is located on a sloping lot. The carefully selected dimensions and proportions provide an appropriate transition between the park and the more dense urban fabric of a residential area with multi-story buildings. The three building sections located along the street, which differ in size and character, are distinguished by façade surfaces that protrude and recede as well as varied, steeply pitched roof structures. The smallest, single-story nursery school building is connected by a porch to the two-story building containing the apartments, which has a balcony with a protruding carved wooden plank railing. This ends in a stairway tower that bulges out towards the street and is connected to the school building by an arcaded corridor. A stairway leads from this corridor to the playground located on the side facing the park. The building wings perpendicular to the street had separate entrances for the boys and the girls. These are linked by a section parallel to the street with a side corridor and which housed the staff rooms and the library. This transition is emphasized by staircase built and roofed to look like a tower, which is the tallest element of the building complex.

The furnishings were designed by Miklós Menyhért. The relief sculptures depicting Hungarian folk tales on the gables and the drinking fountains in the corridors are the works of Ferenc Sidló, a sculptor from the Gödöllő artists’ colony. The fence along the street and the separate entry gates were later removed. Starting from the end of the 1990s, significant rehabilitation work was performed on the buildings.