Disseminating the Regional within the Global. Representing Regionalist Ideas and the Global Scale of the Modern Movement in the Hungarian Journal ‘Tér és Forma’

Abstract

The pursuit of a national style has engaged Hungarian architects ever since the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and such tendencies prevailed even in the interwar period when the Modern Movement emerged. A magazine editor represented an alternative standpoint rejecting style architecture, formalism and historicism and, using his voice and platform, propagated the Modern Movement in accordance with his regionalist views. This was the architect Virgil Bierbauer (1893–1956), who edited the journal Tér és Forma (Space and Form), the leading architectural periodical of interwar Hungary between 1928 and 1942. Bierbauer did not only deny historicism but also the notion of a unifying international style as he insisted on regional solutions based on the local climate and building materials. While he was a firm advocate of the Modern Movement, he provided a broad panorama of contemporary architecture from a global scale focusing on the local relevance of his selection in Tér és Forma. He was also deeply interested in vernacular architecture. He eagerly observed rural buildings during his travels within Hungary and abroad and he dedicated articles and complete journal issues to this subject. Bierbauer also insisted on the elevation of this topic into the international discourse in the framework of CIAM-Ost, the Eastern European organization for the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne. In my paper, I focus on the common grounds Bierbauer found between modern and vernacular architecture and how it was presented in the journal Tér és Forma. In my case studies, vernacular architecture represents functionalism, simplicity and dedication to life, which Bierbauer – similarly to many of his contemporaries – compared to modern architecture. I trace both Hungarian and international examples to articulate Bierbauer’s interpretations. In addition to Tér és Forma as a source material, I use Bierbauer’s correspondence, travel reports, original manuscripts and photographs held at the Hungarian Museum of Architecture.