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had a dense atmosphere, peaceful, a bit American, I can photos I saw in an album. Yes, there was a radical way of
say again wisely in hindsight. Furniture with a lacquered thinking in Debrecen in the twenties, which fundamentally
black finish and rounded-off corners. An artistic stove subverted the customary relationship between structure and
with orange and ink-blue tiles. Even the built-in bathroom decoration and focused on the structure of decoration. It
cabinet was ORIGINAL here. In fact, the overall picture overturned the hierarchy that had prevailed for centuries
must have been mixed after the disruption of war and and through that fulfilled its mission, allowing all the
over the decades since then. However, in places I had ornaments to fall off the walls in the Bauhaus. According
the feeling that I had stumbled upon the former home to Marcel Ferencz, this is how Art Deco became the
of an applied artist from Hamburg or Brooklyn, and upon ancestor of today’s architectural aspirations known as
the educational trail of modernist spatial formation, I cutting edge.
would say with the knowledge I have now. But at that
time I was not really aware of the meaning of the words Back then my knowledge must have been rather limited.
‘Brooklyn’ or ‘educational trail’, and I had no experience With my eyes open to the world, I saw the pre-war Hangya
whatsoever of West Germany or America. I was probably apartment block with its motley and faded umbrellas and
more or less aware of the history of the 20th century: Tibor Mikolás’ Centrum department store from the sixties
and here it was, breathing and very much present. After equally ugly; I hadn’t yet realised what was good about
so many linoleum-covered floors, polished surfaces and them. Yet, looking at the house on Hatvan Street, I must
modular furniture units in housing estate interiors and have sensed something. Lord God, we have something
studio-size flats on the outskirts, I had found something that is contemporary. Which, in its day, was really in sync
different here. with the best aspirations in the world. What is world-class
in Debrecen? Our schools, of course. The cultivation of
The gravitational force of this sinking Atlantis was the natural sciences since Professor Hatvani. Medical
extremely strong. studies come to mind immediately. And nuclear research,
for example. And agriculture. It’s customary to add poetry
I hardly dared speak, even though it wasn’t silent. That’s too but, as we know, the best of it is untranslated, starting
his desk. Look at this folder, it’s his portfolio. Oh, the with the wonderful Csokonai. The world will never know
Stadium, yes. Is OTI the same as SZTK? Here he is in that... but let’s leave it at that.
Hajdúszoboszló with Kuci Dávidházy... He also designed
the Mező Villa. Is it still standing at all? But tell me, When talking about the treasures of Debrecen, we should
which one was it exactly? never forget our 20th-century architecture. Ladies and
gentlemen, let us finally face the fact that Classicism,
This cabinet was also his. It was borrowed in the war, but which supposedly defines the image of Debrecen, left
I managed to get it back from the neighbours. only lonely islands, mostly modified and simplified to cut
I wrote something about Sajó, which was published, albeit costs, lesser versions of large-scale plans: such is the Great
redacted, in the daily Napló a few years later. That’s the Church, our beloved building, yet unfinished without its
way things change. The Holocaust had to be crossed out. dome, forced onto Gothic foundations despite its original
Back then I didn’t know what it was all about and why rotundness (its designer, Mihály Péchy, would have asked
I liked it. Before then I hadn’t heard the magical term for a little ‘more majesty’ for the house of God...). Such
Art Deco. Or even if I’d heard it, I had no idea that this is the legendary Reformed College, yet awkward with its
or that house fascinated me with the same sensuality narrow, therefore airless staircase and wooden stairs; such
and boldness of design as the Chrysler Building in the is the charming and modest Vigadó in the Big Forest. The

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