Panel estates as protected monuments?

Post-1945 architecture in Hungary is endangered, because public opinion does not yet value the buildings of the period. Public taste may change, but by then it could be too late.

An 1964 mock-up of Székkutas, the first "modernly designed socialist village

The Pioneer Department Store, the late office building on Vorosmarty ter, the National Planning Office building, the press palace on Blaha Lujza ter, the Hungatotex building on Kossuth Lajos utca, the Tihany Hotel, the Ganz factory, the Chemolimpex headquuarters on Deak Ferenc utca, the Aurora Szallo in Balatonalmadi - all iconic buildings of the Socialist era that have been demolished or remodelled beyond all recognition, according to Andras Ferkai, a historian of architecture.

The Centre for Contemporary Architecture (KEK) devoted a conference to this issue last week, asking what should become of buildings built after World War II.

Ferkai believes the list of victims shows that any important building of the same period could meet the same fate. "I'm not saying that every one of them should survive, nor that they should be left untouched, but it would be wrong to allow all of them to vanish without a trace," said the professor at the Moholy-Nagy University of the Arts.

There is a vast number of these buildings. There are some 4m buildings in the country, of which at least two thirds were built in the 20th century, meaning as many as 2m could have been built in the second half of the century. Hungary has a poor record on protecting historic monuments. Some 121 buildings are under temporary protection, while 11,139 are fully protected. "Even twice this number would be too little," according to Attila Gyor, who is in charge of the listing of public monuments. Ferkai claims only 14 buildings built after 1945 enjoy this kind of protection. Gyor believes there are more but not enough. His office is often reduced to firefighting: buildings are often only listed when they are in real danger of disappearing. Some 40 buildings were listed last year, while 208 were listed in 2005 by the Ministry of National Heritage. But in 1998, only one single building was listed. On average, about 50 are listed each year, a small number compared to the rest of Europe.

On one thing the architectural profession is unanimous: listing is not a guarantee that a building will survive. "It takes years to list a building, while a demolition order can be issued in a single day," Gyor says. If there is no concerted action, there is no chance of saving a building. There have been cases where local communities and civil society were successful in preserving a building, when it came to the Jewish Quarter in Pest or the market hall on Hunyadi ter, but none of these efforts concerned a recent building. Pal Ritook, a historian at the Hungarian Museum for Architectural History, makes another point: if a building cannot be given a new purpose, it has died, and this is especially the case for the architecture of the second half of the 20th century. For this reason, it would be wrong for the preservationists to drive away the investors.