English

The tent-roofed cube house is the most characteristic countryside building type of 20th century Hungary. Everybody is familiar with it, since there are ten thousands of similar houses throughout our towns.

After the advance of the Communist Regime in Hungary, from the 1950’s one of the most important goals of the authority that defined itself as „workers' and peasants' goverment” was to provide homes for as many, and as soon as possible. The consecutive five-year plans increased the pace of house building throughout the country. As a result, by 1965 230 thousand appartments were constructed, providing new homes to almost a million people. Most of these were in condominiums or building estates.

In parellel with this, after 1945 there was an instant boom in privately funded family house building. About 30 thousand self financed houses were built each year, which constituted 60-65% of the total number of new appartments.

This proprotion was discouraged both by the state and the architects, despite the fact that it improved the statistics and looked well in our accounts towards the Soviet Union. Why was this? The state would have liked to see its residents living in cities and condominiums – self funded constructions however, retained the traditional town structure that is known today as the village. At the same time, the majority of architects made complaints about the architecture and quality of these houses. A series of identical, tent-roofed cube houses rose in our villages, supressing the century long tradition of organically developed peasant houses and overwriting the typical village scene of the period. The problem exceeded village borders: the „unwanted elements” appeared in larger cities and the suburbs of Budapest. This practically ruined the goals defined by the regime: a ruralization of the suburbs was happening, instead of the urbanization of the villages.

Who planned these houses?

„Build a home for your family!” - said the call of the 1963 colour brochure of the Artisans' Association of Baranya county. The Associations architects planned houses almost free of charge, based on ballpen sketches on chequered paper and the verbal guidelines of the procurer („the porch should be like my neighbours'”, „this stone should be more prominent than the other”). 1:100 ratio plans were drawn for the licensing, which the constructors had no problem using. In the lack of overseeing and technical supervision the procurer had the chance to request changes on the spot. This was especially the case when it turned out that the state construction company ran short of the specific windows described in the layout.

Here it is important to note that the peasant houses we now consider as part of our national heritage were built in a rather similar way. At that time the only question was whether the house should have two or three windows. Therefore, we can say that our tent-roof cube houses have much more in common with the peasant houses and the mentality of the villagers and craftsmen - thus our own past - ,than we might think. The method was the same, only the shape changed, as did the people.

The bathroom and toilet were basics, later the living room or „tv room” took the place of the so called „clean room” - the needs of „modern” man, no matter if living in villages or cities. All these were difficult to conciliate with the classical three-part (kitchen-room-pantry) structure of our peasant houses. Customs have changed radically after 1945, forcing our folk architecture to surrender, not being able to keep up with the pace.

However, the question still remains: if the method allowed freedom for the procurer, how is it that all the buildings have the same tent-roof and cubic shape? The answer: it is the result of pure logic.

Our town regulations still strictly prescribe which part of the plot can built on. This varies by town or village, but generally the house is placed on the center of the area, leaving a relatively large back yard behind the house. As the architectural regulations concerning the constructable part of plots became more strict, 9x9 and 10x10 meter layouts became commonly accepted. More importantly, the plans used vastly were those that were unlikely to be refused by the authorities. The tent-roof is only a step ahead: it is the most economical solution to cover a cube-shaped house.

There was no standard plan afterall?

As a response to the growing problem, the Chamber of Architects began to prepare standardized plans. In 1967, the Ministry of Architecture invited entries for a competition addressing those „Constructing self-funded family houses based on standardized plans”. The obvious idea behind the initiative was to replace the tent-roofed cube houses deforming our villages with a more aesthetic building type. Mostly those plans were honoured on the competition that were based on cell-like structures, the adjacent cells forming a 70 or 100 square meter family house, condominium or terrace-house. By using the cell structure a kind of architectural variety could be retained, still leaving space for the ideas of the procurer. No matter how much these plans represented architectural quality and economy, they could not compete in price with cube houses built on sheer material cost, thus did not gain popularity.

This is how the tent-roofed cube house became a contradiction in terms. An architectural element representing individual will, unconciously contradicting authority of the regime, still resulting in „standard” shape, a mass product of socialist utopia, condemned by many - same then as today.

Translated by Zsófia Pataky.