A small village born of ruins in the middle of the city

“There is something of a listed building character in the life of the residents” Interview with Tamás Dragonits, former architect of the Castle district

Tamás Dragonits is 92 and he is still active today. In 2014 he published his book Eyewitnessing about all he knows of the history of Budapest’s Castle District. And he knows a lot. That is not only because he has lived there since 1954, but also since he was one of the most important figures in its post-war reconstruction.

How did you become an architect?

At 18 I hadn’t a clue what to do – I was interested in many things. I was not an easy child, I had changed schools several times before I finished the grammar school. First my father enrolled me in the Reichsdeutsche Schule, but when I was slapped in the face by the PE teacher I waited for a suitable moment and kicked him from behind. I had an incredible sense of justice. Naturally there was a scandal and the headmaster asked my father in and offered not to dismiss me immediately if I was taken elsewhere at the end of the school year. Thus I went to the Julianna Calvinist Primary School, which functioned with Dutch support. There I adapted more successfully. I studied well, though was naughty. My parents took me to an ability test. I come from a well-off family. As the director of the Gasworks my father earned well and regarded appropriate education as important. At the age of 10 the ability test showed I could actually study anything. If not excellently, but at quite a good level. A military career was the only one not recommended, because I was negligent and had no respect for authority. Nevertheless I applied for the military school in Sopron, nicknamed the Zögerei. The entrance exam was hard. It was difficult to get in. I managed my entrance exam well and in vain did my father say he had already enrolled me in the Piarist Grammar School in Pest. He intended the entrance for the Sopron school as a test, but I decided for Sopron. I soon regretted it, but I spent three years there and I was considered a good student. Then I totally got fed up with the atmosphere, left and took my final secondary exams at the Benedictine Grammar School in Pest. That is where I began saying I didn’t know where to go. My father had an uncle, Mátyás Szvetlik, who worked for Ybl. His architectural designs included the housing estate for the workers of the Diósgyőr Iron Works and the church. He was well-off. I thought that was what I needed and went to the University of Technology where “Let the head work first followed by the creative hands” was written at the entrance of the architects’ corridor. I liked that. At that time you could enrol without any entrance exam and those who were not good enough in the first year failed. There were 300 of us starting and only 100 enrolled in the second year. I could have never become an architect if it had depended on maths. With regard to maths it’s enough for an architect to feel what can be dynamically realized. Calculations are for the structural engineers, but of course that’s only an excuse.

There was great freedom in university as compared to secondary school. In the beginning I mostly attended the ‘Gellért Department’ but at one point I was told that the ancient architectural drawing should have been submitted. I got scared and I did it quite nicely and quickly. I was told not to worry since John, the caretaker at the department would take in the late drawings for 5 pengős and for 10 would get you a ‘good’ grade, but a grade of ‘excellent’ could not be bought from him. It was the end of October so I did not have the opportunity to know the staff. When I came across an elderly man in a worn white gown in the foyer I gave him the drawing and the money. He looked at me and asked if I knew who he was. “John, the caretaker,” I answered. “No, I’m Pista, the senior lecturer.” I can thank this unpleasant incident for my skills in architectural history and my career in monument protection because I worked hard for all the exams. Later István Pázmándi, the Pista of the story, and I became colleagues in Közti and he always smiled when he looked at me.

You were in the year whose students were taken to Germany towards the end of the war. How did it happen? Could students choose?

The students of the final two years were summoned in the foyer and a representative of the government turned up. He told us that a large part of the county was in ruins and we would be needed for reconstruction after the war. Therefore we would be taken away from the siege to continue our studies in Breslau. After the final victory we would return home and reconstruct the country. Those who did not appear at the Eastern Railway Station would be hacked to pieces. We, both lecturers and students, received compulsory drafts. The same took place at the Medical University. We had to be present at 7 a.m. on 8 December and it was about midnight when we left by rail. Our studies in Breslau lasted about a month then we began fleeing the front. Several books and a documentary have come out about the story. A group of third year architecture students were in Denmark at the end of the war. I myself went to Sweden where I cleaned the cowshed as a labourer on the farm of the Swedish road construction company’s director and learnt Swedish. Then I worked in an architects’ studio in Umea near the polar circle for half a year. There I earned enough to return on 15 March 1947.

Why didn’t you stay in Sweden?

It cannot be that you are homesick and live elsewhere. All my colleagues who did so struggled with the problem sooner or later. I first had the news about my family members being alive in August 1946 and that was a pulling force. On my return I graduated but my idea of establishing a construction company was out-of-date. Private enterprises ceased and I got a job in the Municipal Architects’ Office (Főti, later Buváti). I worked in the group involved with restoring damaged buildings. The façade of the EMKE building was restored partly to my design. It was a great experience. In order to survey the tenement block at the corner of Rákóczi Road and the Great Boulevard I climbed up on the tin dome in shoes with rubber soles without any safety rope, which just shows that youth involves a temporary physical strength and can be survived with a little luck.
A year later a department specially to restore listed buildings was set up in Főti. We moved up to Úri Street on Castle Hill, to the basement of the building where later the Monuments Inspectorate worked. In January 1951 we were moved to the Közti office in Dísz Square. It was headed by István Janáky Snr., who besides his work on Castle Hill was also involved in designing the buildings of the Technical University in Miskolc and other new buildings. The structure of his studio corresponded to these tasks. Architects working on the restoration of listed buildings as well as on new constructions worked there. The development plan project of the Castle District was done in cooperation between Közti and Váti. Work began in 1951, first with surveys followed by a map-like drawing joining the ground plans. Meanwhile, the aims were outlined in discussions during which the development plan was formed by 1954. Lajos Metzner, an architect from Transylvania, became a quiet but strong-willed key figure in determining the aims, and he practically made himself the chief planning engineer of the Castle District and later had a major role after the actual work began. I thought I was very lucky being present at the discussions and I could also contribute, besides being sent to the pub when the brandy ran out.

What condition was the Castle District in at the time?

After the war Sándor Márai wrote in his diary that ten years would be needed to restore the Castle District. In the end it took 55 years before the last remains of buildings were renovated. Removal of the rubble lasted from 1945 to 1947. It was taken away on a track constructed in Úri Street, Bástya Promenade, Palota Road and Mikó Street. Enormously valuable things could be under the ground there. It would perhaps be worth conducting excavations. In the entirely damaged former Esterházy Palace (where the school and a residential block designed by Zoltán Gulyás now stand) the Castle Administration set up a storeroom for materials that could be rescued from the debris and could still be used. There were doors, windows, bathtubs, pipes, tiles, and so on. Those who agreed to make a property habitable could take freely. That also entitled the person to tenancy. In 1953 a friend and I took on reconstruction of a flat and have lived there ever since. We originally renovated a co-tenancy flat, which we then divided because financial funding was not provided for building, but was for partitioning.

You’ve mentioned the discussions. What goals did they set in terms of the Castle District renovation and to what extend did the Party leadership interfere?

The city was continuously built and also decayed during history, but we had to decide what goals to follow with the renovation. We stipulated the integrated view and scale as the most important principles, for which the one-storey row of Baroque houses built after the Ottoman occupation seemed most appropriate. We tried to adjust the large buildings constructed later to this scale, which was easy because they were badly damaged. However, the principle could not be consistently enforced. The inserted larger buildings were constructed mostly in the second half of the 19th century, partly as offices and partly as apartments for the office employees. They were often built on plots gained by knocking down buildings of medieval origin. The new appearance of buildings due to post-war partial demolition, such as the former Ministry of Finance in Szentháromság Square, presented advantages, like the change in the scale of the square and Matthias Church becoming more emphatic. Reconstructing the storeys that is often mentioned these days would be explicitly disadvantageous. It is easy to see when you compare pre-war pictures with present day photographs. Returning to our goals, we wanted a liveable district which was actually a city in the city, where services and shops could all be found to provide for the residents, besides being architecturally uniform, and its residents could comfortably live in the district which is geographically separated from the city centre, yet easily accessed by transport. The political leadership did not interfere. Architects discussed it among themselves and in the end they arrived at this concept. The idea of a museum city, a type of open-air museum of listed buildings, was also raised at the time. That was rather the approach in the case of Prague Castle. Yet I often heard from foreigners that here in the Castle District they felt closer to the local population. There is something of a listed building character in the life of the residents. They are strong local patriots, but still lead their everyday lives.

Was the aim for those who lived here not having to go into the city?

There were two years in my life when I did not go. I had my work here, my job, and I also lived here. I went to the city for the theatre and concerts at most.

Tell us more about Lajos Metzner. Why did he become the central figure of the reconstruction?

I have just given the handle of his umbrella to the local authority so that they would have something from him. I liked him a lot, but unfortunately we could work together for only two and a half years. When we met he was nearing 70. Due to his strictness, many referred to him behind his back as the “blessed, bad person”, but we, his close colleagues, respected his expertise and perseverance. He kept an eye on the tiniest detail in order to ensure that the appearance would recall the past. He checked everything personally. He could draw very well and had enormous professional expertise. Actually, he appointed himself the ‘chief planning engineer of the Castle’ without any official approval and he ensured that each building plan in the Castle District required his authorisation. When he became ill and was taken to hospital I replaced him as the person who had to sign everything, the ‘chief engineer’. It was such a great authority that when there was an earthquake in 1956 a neighbour came over to me at dawn saying: “Comrade Chief Engineer, please stop the earthquake.” The Municipal Council took over the Castle District in 1957. In my office they wanted me to transfer to the reconstruction of the palace, but I didn’t accept it on the grounds I did not want to take part in the conversions and demolitions.

To what extent do you think you could implement in practice what you planned on paper?

The development plan of the Castle District, which we finished finally by 1954, was a huge job. It not only included the renovation of the buildings, but transport, public utilities, street furniture, paving and even the plants. A silhouette plan was also made. For that we used whatever we found, old maps, archival notes, artistic depictions, the first volume of the series Protected Buildings of Budapest and, of course, our own on-site surveys. The printers were ready with the documentation by 1956. At the outbreak of the revolution it was piled up in the staircase of KÖZTI and was entirely destroyed. Although it remained in our heads, that was one of the reasons why the plan was not really effective when the Municipal Council took over the matters of the Castle District with a completely different approach. From 1957 the civilian district dreamt up by us seemed to have been completely forgotten. At the same time the Castle District was not politically important. Work depended on the architects and those who carried out the job. Top politicians did not cast an eagle eye for a long time. It was a village in the middle of a city. They were more interested in the new industrial towns. The Royal Palace is of course a different matter, since that has always had symbolic significance. Buildings were merely preserved in the Castle District for quite some time. I proposed that if there was not enough money for everything, then at least the façades should be renewed. So a façade reconstruction project was underway, which also allowed us to improve the cityscape faster. Before the war far-sighted people took photographs of the façades, even applying a 2-metre-long measuring rod to the buildings, thus scales could also be seen. However, it was rather difficult to get hold of those photos. We did a lot of wall surveys with the permission of the Monument Protection Inspectorate. We could not get information about the past of a building in any other way. In many instances that was the only possibility when there was no archival plan of architecture (such has only existed since the 1700s). We learnt of a few characteristic materials used during earlier constructions in the Castle District, such as Sóskút local soft limestone, used to make most bases. We also insisted on soft limestone bases. We regarded such details as very important. We generally tried to keep the old and insisted on keeping or rebuilding it from original materials.

What relations did you have with the monument protection people?

At university we used to learn that Historicism was worthless and Art Nouveau was disgustingly tasteless. Some time went by before we realized the indefensibility of that. The 1949 Constitution included a passage about monument protection, yet there was great chaos. Le me list a few organisations involved in monument protection. The constant changes hindered actual work on monument protection because of the differences in their approach and authority. In chronological order: National Centre of Museums and Protected Buildings of the Public Works Council, National Office for Monument Protection, National Committee of Listed Buildings, Architectural Council and finally the Castle Administration set up under the auspices of The Ministry of Construction and Urban Development, which was transformed into the National Monument Protection Chief Inspectorate in 1958. With regard to monument protection, the Castle District is a special area. There was intensive debate about whether buildings copying the old or modern structures should be built on the vacant plots. After the capital took over the district, great Hungarian architects came forward in the 1960s. They thought they had to make their mark here. The problem was that buildings which could have been easily saved were demolished only in order to make space for new ones. There were successful and less successful newly erected buildings. For example, the Hilton hotel designed by Béla Pintér is an excellent design, despite the fact that two storeys had to be added to the original plan on higher instructions, which was obviously a wrong decision. I think that the Castle District can accept any building which honestly reflects on its age, even if it is a weak design But if you begin to decorate new buildings with old motifs and if you do not design the street façades as main ones, for example by designing pantry windows on them, they will become alien and disturbing. And making copies of ruined buildings may make the authenticity of the remaining listed buildings doubtful.

You’ve mentioned that in 1957 they wanted to transfer you to the department inKözti dealing with the palace renovation and you refused. Yet you were still involved with the Castle District in Váti.

When I was in charge of Váti’s monument protection office from 1958 my colleagues and I worked with listed buildings all over Hungary. I did not break away from the Castle District entirely, but from then on I only participated in concrete commissions. Later, after my retirement, I was one of the architects submitting the plans for possible loft conversions in the Castle District, which contained altogether 11 possible loft conversions, yet the critical report of the plan stated that loft conversions should be banned. Today the approach is not so rigid, which I think is right. In the 1970s I struggled much for changing public utility wires and pipes in the Castle District and for using lime based paints and plaster without cement, instead of artificial paints when colouring the facades. I continued to live in the Castle District. I participated in the work of all sorts of committees. In my self-published book I thought it important to give information about the history or the renovation process of each building whose renovation I had something to do with.

You have received the title honorary doctor of Gothenburg University. How did your contact with Sweden remain?

In the 1950s of course you could not maintain contacts with the West. In 1972 the director of the Swedish Architecture Institute with a delegation involved in town planning visited Budapest and I as someone who spoke Swedish was asked to receive them and to travel around the country. Later we returned the visit. Working contacts were formed, so we visited each other’s institutes with alternating groups once or twice a year. We mutually and thoroughly informed each other about the answered and unanswered issues of our monument protection. The Swedish colleagues learnt about the work covering the whole country done by our monument protection office of 75 people. Due to that, I was invited to give lectures about Hungarian monument protection at Gothenburg’s Chalmers Technical University. I received the diploma of honorary doctor from them in 1988.

You have been awarded several prizes in Hungary, too.

I was awarded professional and state prizes, including the Ybl Prize and the civilian Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic. What is really unsettling is when you receive a prize named after a friend, as I did. I received the prize named after László Gerő, with whom I was good friends.

What do you think about the present situation of monument protection?

I am afraid my opinion is not grounded enough since I am no longer in the midst of the profession. Yet let me mention a change in attitude. Today buildings would like to be seen as if they were just constructed, while we would have liked to show the passing of time on them. We didn’t think that every patina was dirt to be removed because, for example, a medieval stone is medieval only if the trace of the medieval master is on it. If you recarve the surface it becomes contemporary, even if you keep the forms. You can go up on worn wooden steps as long as they do not become dangerous. Otherwise the survey of goals and possibilities and their precise consideration are most important.