Commonplace as it is, we must admit: the spirit and the product of Hungarian contemporary architecture carries deep imprints of the country's modern history. The fertile plurality of styles that characterized the first part of the century – producing famous Hungarian Bauhaus, hallmarked by names such as Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy – was cut short by the communist regime taking over power in 1948. After the socialist-realist intermezzo of the fifties, a kind of cautious modernism became the dominant line in Hungarian architecture. This reserve was not solely dictated by politics, but also by meager material means, and a psychotic fear of „the imperialist pest of innovation“. Still, the influence of then-contemporary Scandinavian and English architecture is discernible to this day – the latter becoming a personal experience for quite a few architects through scholarships to the London studio of Ernő Goldfinger.

In spite of all the catchphrases about developing the countryside, Budapest remained the premier star of the socialist era. Next to a few outstanding examples of industrial and agricultural architecture in the country, some overall reconstructions are still determining certain towns: Salgótarján and Szombathely was treated with an unblinking modernism, while Szekszárd and Sárospatak was left to retain more of its original architectural traditions. Some regional workshops of greater towns are functioning to this day: Sándor Dévényi, István Kistelegdi and Zoltán Bachman are active in Pécs, István Ferencz and Csaba Bodonyi in Miskolc, Ferenc Török and Mihály Balázs are worth mentioning in Nyíregyháza. State architectural workshops did not reach smaller settlements: consequently there is a total visual chaos in contemporary Hungarian villages. The resurrection of traditional folk architecture is sparse, but occasional examples are present around the northern shore of Lake Balaton and the western border (Gábor U. Nagy).

The difference between Central-Hungary which is one of the best developed regions of the EU, and the remote regions near the borders is huge. Development is sparse and campaign-like: depends on subsidies from the EU. Most of the smaller towns, micro-regions and regions have no clear concept about their future. However, the installation of leading-architect system has led to a paradigm shift in quite a few places, and architectural tenders are becoming more and more common in the case of public developments outside the capital as well. The greatest city-development concept is about to be realized in Pécs, preparing for the 2010 European Cultural Capital event.

The extreme examples of the plurality of styles reborn after 1989, like neo-Bauhaus, that overwhelmed the design of apartment-houses, have already lost their momentum. The same happened to the organic school, whose heyday passed after Imre Makovecz's EXPO-pavilion at Sevilla, and the city center of Csenger designed by his pupils. Postmodern and high-tech seem to represent a formal convention rather than an intellectual concept in Hungary. The best known representatives of this trend belong to the senior generation, like József Finta, Csaba Virág, Lajos Zalaváry who work exclusively in the capital, except for the architecturally lonesome Ferenc Bán.

The contextualist school, hailed as the „third way“ has come to include most of the important figures of the organic and the technicist school – like one-time Makovecz-pupil Dezső Ekler. Its versatility is really telling: its sources include early modernism as well as the neorationalism of the sixties, its choice of materials is characterized by brick, stone, wood and concrete at the same time. This phenomena is taken for a tendency rather then a style, the source of which is usually identified partly in Frampton's critical regionalism, partly by the master-pupil system favored by the citadel of Hungarian architectural tuition, Műegyetem in Budapest, trickling down to regional workshops. From among the „great teachers“, we must mention the uncompromising György Jánossy, who was active in Scandinavia after the war, the father of Hungarian brick-architecture Károly Jurcsik, the modernist romantic István Janáky, or lately the master of regionalism, one-time pupil of Jánossy, Gábor Turányi.

The need for representativeness evident at public buildings is perfectly illustrated by the thousand year old Benedictine monastery of Pannonhalma, supplemented by a number of modern buildings in the last few years, the art-cinema of Szolnok built in the cheapest possible way, or the school at Csorna realized by Tamás Karácsony in cooperation with minusplus architects collecting a number of young talents. The private investors – especially in the country - are still far from fastidious, but the development of high priority at Balaton, some touristic destinations and bath-towns attract better quality architecture. The investor and the audience steer clear of spectacular, grandiose gestures: successful buildings are sane, realist repertory-plays on the stage provided by the age and the setting.

1) Klein Rudolf – Lampel Éva – Lampel Miklós: Kortárs magyar építészeti kalauz. Vertigo, Budapest, 2001