Small Country House with Studio (Kós' Parents' House)

The Small Country House (the original design was later built in 1910 for Kós’s parents) belongs to the genre of artist’s houses with studios and can be traced back to precedents such as Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s studio residence in Finland (1895) or William Morris’s Red House. The project represents an artistic reinterpretation of the simple rural dwelling, clearly defining the placement of the kitchen garden, flower garden, courtyards, and ancillary buildings as integral components of an essentially picturesque composition.

The underlying tectonic principle of the design is the simple and explicit juxtaposition of a tower and an independent gabled roof form. These elements reappear later in the design of Varjúvár; however, in the present case their tectonic and functional aspects are not fully aligned. The tower room on the upper level is removed from the main staircase and can only be accessed via a small corridor running above the entrance porch. A similar relationship appears in the parallel project Manor House on a Hillside (08–2), suggesting that the separation of the tower room was a deliberate design decision rather than an incidental arrangement.

On the ground floor, the dining room and living room are arranged around the core formed by the oak staircase, allowing the architect to create small fireplace alcoves. Among the interior views drawn by the architect are not only the ground-floor hall but also all three rooms of the upper level. Kós fully designed the interior and the furniture of the house, weaving scenes from ancient Hungarian mythology into the overall concept.

When redesigning the house to suit his parents’ needs, the architect made numerous modifications: the staircase was reversed, and both the overhead lighting of the studio and the form of the studio’s original ceiling differ from those of the initial design.

The realized building emerged from a reworking of the sketch design titled Small Manor House:

“…I had several alternative concepts for a family house, which I had worked out already in the autumn—thinking of ourselves. Simply for amusement: two large rooms (a hall and a so-called studio) and three small ones, with service spaces, in a mansard arrangement. I have now taken out those sketches again. Then, together with my mother, we kept turning them over, reshaping them, and above all reducing them (‘the cellar under the house can be omitted; it can be built more cheaply and practically at the back in the hillside,’ I suggested. ‘I have no need for a maid’s room,’ my mother said), until we finally agreed: ‘This will be just right.’”

— Kós, 1991, p. 80.

In details such as the stained-glass windows (see the triptych sketch) and the furniture, the completed house retained the atmosphere of the architect’s original sketches. During his residence in Cluj, Kós occupied the “bedroom” located at the rear of the attic level.

The designs were exhibited in the Hungarian section of the Vienna Architectural Congress. Two of the exhibited sheets (a perspective view and an interior view) were published, accompanied by the following commentary:

“Even today, much can be learned from the distinguished English. They never appear dull, are almost always very refined, and their reserved character finds expression in their buildings as well. In this issue, they are represented by C. F. A. Voysey. The Hungarians are intelligent and diligent. They grasp intentions excellently, though at times they are insufficiently critical and may therefore appear tasteless here and there. In general, however, very fine works could also be seen from them. Kós, one of them, appears in this issue with two designs that testify to good sensibility.”

Österreichische Illustrierte Zeitung, 17 February 1908, p. 106, with two illustrations.