Communist-era Architecture: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Communist architecture? Many people will conjure an image of a soulless, gray block of neglected buildings topped with a five-pointed red star. Soviet influences did exist, but architecture was far from uniform across the Eastern Bloc. Each country’s housing stock was shaped by many factors, including its level of political independence, exposure to Western countries, and access to capital and building materials.

Communism in Hungary lasted for four decades, from about 1948 to 1989. The start date is hazy because the Party encroached on the democratically elected government – using election fraud and intimidation – as soon as World War II ended in 1945. This Communist period is usually split into two parts. The first one consisted of a brutally repressive totalitarian regime closely aligned with and controlled from Stalinist Moscow. The second one, prompted by the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, was meaningfully softer. Though far from free or democratic, the reign of General Secretary János Kádár (1956-1988) granted more personal liberties and higher living standards. Hungary was regarded as the “happiest barrack” within the Soviet camp.

In the few hopeful years immediately following WWII, socially minded modern architects drew up ambitious urban renewal plans and organized the rebuilding of the war-ravaged country. The worst case was Budapest, where 25 percent of the apartments were destroyed and most bridges, public, and industrial buildings reduced to rubble by Allied bombings. In addition to the restoration works, a few beautiful modern buildings were also erected in the late 1940s, including the bus station on Erzsébet tér (by then Stalin Square) and the headquarters of the construction workers' union on Dózsa György út.

With the Communist takeover came profound changes in architecture as well. In 1948, the Party banned all private practices and thus architects had to join state-run design firms. These were split by specialization; for example, IPARTERV was in charge of industrial projects, while KÖZTI did all public buildings such as universities and sports stadiums. Construction companies were also nationalized so that building materials and workers could be centrally organized. Initially, the quality didn’t suffer since the country’s top architects – István Janáky, Gyula Rimanóczy, and Károly Dávid among others – became lead designers.

But architecture soon became a propaganda tool. The Communist leadership viewed the prevailing modern buildings as too functional and plain, not conveying socialist values and the true needs of the people. According to a Party functionary, the above mentioned bus station on Erzsébet tér was “mimicking the villas of American billionaires in the Wild West.” The powerful Minister of Culture, József Révai, was even more dismissive, calling modern buildings “too expensive and ugly.” It came as no surprise that in 1951 the Soviet-inspired Socialist Realism became the mandatory style of architecture across Hungary. Instead of plain white boxes, the Party wanted joyful worker-heroes and columned porticos to decorate building facades.

With Stalin’s 1953 death and the de-Stalinization effort of Khrushchev, his successor, Socialist Realism ended in architecture. It lasted for only five years, too short a period to have much of an impact in Hungary (there were a few exceptions, such as Dunaújváros, which was built as a model city of Socialist Realism). These idiosyncratic buildings today stand as a reminder of a tragic and bizarre period in history. It was also the case that some architects deftly maneuvered around the Party dogma and produced high-quality buildings behind a mask of Socialist Realism, such as the "R" wing of the University of Technology (1951-1955) by Gyula Rimanóczy.

The 1960s brought positive changes. The Kádár regime infused capitalist features into the economy while retaining generous social programs such as free healthcare and education. Architects gained the freedom to design contemporary buildings inspired by those in the West (in the United States, this was the glorious late-modern era of Marcel Breuer, Eero Saarinen, and Louis Kahn).

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The highlights in Hungary include Lajos Zalaváry’s hauntingly beautiful public baths in Jászberény (1960-1964) and György Szrogh’s sleek Körszálló in Budapest (1964-1967). This was also the height of Brutalist architecture: those striking, monolithic concrete towers currently experiencing a global revival. My favorites are Elemér Zalotay’s observatory in Szombathely (1968) and György Jánossy’s hospital building (1962-1969) in Kazincbarcika (Hungary produced far fewer Brutalist buildings and memorials than neighboring Yugoslavia).

By the late 1960s, the political focus shifted to addressing the country’s critical housing shortage. Up to that point, the Party had created additional supply the easy way: by nationalizing the vast majority of Budapest's apartments, 200,000 units, and further parceling them. The regime also heavily relied on private construction to increase supply, which was ironic since the private ownership of real estate went against the Communist ideology. But the situation became increasingly worse as displaced agricultural workers flocked to cities: between 1949 and 1970, Budapest’s population grew by more than 25 percent and reached two million people.

The solution was a massive buildup of prefab high-rise units. 8-10 story gray blocks assembled from Soviet-designed slabs of reinforced concrete sprung up in all major cities such as Miskolc, Pécs, Győr, and of course Budapest. While the apartments came with central heating and separate bathrooms – amenities previously not available to many people – these lifeless, uniform structures didn’t turn out a success. Units were too small and with inflexible layouts and low ceilings. Barren outdoor spaces did little to cheer up residents.

Between 1960 and 1990, nearly 700,000 such prefab units were built and today about a fifth of Hungary’s population lives in these apartments. Of course, comparable modular buildings existed in Western Europe too but those were built with superior materials and the apartments were usually somewhat bigger and better equipped. It should also be mentioned that this period, mirroring Western Europe, is culpable for the car-centric urban planning that still plagues cities across Hungary.

These mass-produced standardized blocks left little to the imagination of architects. In fact, the last fifteen or so years of the Communist period (1975-90) weren't kind to architecture. The economic slowdown meant stricter budgets, fewer commissions, and a sense of apathy within the design firms. The result? Mediocre office buildings and residential houses. The biggest and most exciting projects consisted of Budapest hotels – with the Kádár regime’s Western orientation came increased tourism – such as today's InterContinental and Marriott on the Danube's bank.

A bright spot toward the end of Communism was the organic movement in Hungary, especially the expressive buildings of Imre Makovecz and his acolytes. Like others in the 1960s, Makovecz was disillusioned by modern buildings and sought a more communal and humane approach to architecture. His eye-catching buildings featured archaic and biomorphic shapes and were made with natural materials, mostly wood. My favorite is the funeral chapel at the Farkasréti Cemetery (1975), in the shape of a human rib cage with the coffin placed in the middle. Makovecz became globally known with his dramatic Hungarian Pavilion for the 1992 World Expo in Seville. (When Frank Gehry visited Budapest in 2006, he wished to meet Makovecz and an impromptu rendezvous was arranged between the two.)

In part for political reasons, Makovecz’s buildings are held in high regard today and some of them rightfully enjoy landmark protection status. Unfortunately, this is hardly true for other worthy architecture from this period. Last year, the local architecture community unsuccessfully protested the demolition of an inventive, glass-and-metal clad building of Csaba Virág from 1979. What makes the case for these socialist modern buildings a difficult sell is their state of disrepair: Second-rate materials, compromised technical solutions, and decades of neglect turned many of these into faded versions of themselves.

Many architects worry that the next victim might be the 1970s late-modern interior of the Hungarian National Gallery in the old royal palace. Unfortunately, the general public has little love for Communist era architecture and mistakenly labels “everything” as Socialist Realism (“szocreál”). There’s no sign that the political leadership wishes to divorce the unpleasant memories of Communism from its cultural outputs, which means that an important slice of Hungary’s architectural legacy will continue to disappear before our eyes.