The Vago Brothers. Hungarian Architecture

We were in Oradea, Romania in 2009, when we first saw this little modernist gem. It is the Darvas-LaRoche House and it was designed by two brothers, Joseph and Laszlo Vago in 1910-1911.  Though Joseph and Laszlo Vago were born in Oradea, then part of Hungary, the Darvas LaRoche House is more Vienese than Hungarian.  Except for the statue (which itself is definitely not Hungarian) the building has no figural aspects.

The studs are meant to suggest rivets rather than embroidery knots.  

The Vago brothers also designed another house in Oradea, this one decorated with incised naturalistic figures and playful tiles.

When we went for one of our first walks in Budapest, we stumbled on one of the most famous buildings of the Vago Brothers, the toy shop,Arkad-Bazaar (1908-1909), on Dohany Utca on the edge of the Jewish District.

The Vago Brothers also designed the building (1907) for the Hungarian book printers and typefounders organization on what is now Gutenberg Ter. The building was meant to include apartments, shops and offices.

It has many of their characteristic features.

While the outside of the building is somewhat dilapidated, the inside is said to have been restored.  (Though getting inside these buildings is a major challenge.)

Later on a walk on Népszínház Utca, armed with a page pointing out many notable buildings, we came across one un-noted building that we immediately recognized as by the Vagos.

It is a wonderful feeling and a special kind of "knowing" to become familiar enough with an architect's style to be able to recognize their buildings.  (Admittedly the Vagos' style is unique.)  

The Vago brothers went on to buildm separately and together, other buildings in Budapest, including working on the famous Gresham Palace, now a fabulous Four Seasons hotel.  Many of their buildings, unlike the marvelously restored Gresham Palace, are quite dilapidated.  They collaborated until 1911.  Laszlo Vago (1875-1933) worked with other architects on city planning projects.  Jozsef Vago went on to work with Odon Lechner.  He also designed the beautiful Schiffer villa in Budapest,  A Marxist socialist, he emigrated to Switzerland and Italy.  He tried later to return to Budapest, but by then anti-semitic laws made working as an architect impossible.  He then emigrated to France and worked in urban planning.  

The "Eyes" of Sibiu

One of the oddest characteristic of houses in Sibiu are attic windows that look like eyes staring at you.

"This was one of their towns. Sibiu which they called Hermannstadt, and standing in its lovely square I thought —well, I thought of nothing appropriate, one never does when sightseeing, only it was a most lovely square, and what so took me were the elongated eye-shaped openings in the roofs of the houses. It was as if the heavy dark red tiles had parted to produce a wink. And this fancy can be substantiated, for (a) the openings were the exact shape of eyes, this lay beyond argument ; (b) in the centre of each was a window resembling a retina ; (c) a pigeon, with the thoroughness one recognizes as German, would frequently perch in the window and, glancing this way and that, act the part of a pupil. The pigeons sometimes overdid their parts to be sure, for they would perch in pairs and so generate a squint. One recognized the tendency to over-emphasis. But the broad lines of the scheme were admirable, and, watched by these amiable flickering eyes the great square slumbered in the sun."  E. M. Forster.

Saxon Fortified Churches. Sibiu Romania.

Biertan.  Fortified Church.  Romania

We were in Sibiu Romania visiting dear friends.  On one of our days there, we went out to see some of the fortified Saxon churches in the area.

Saxons began settling in Transylvania in the 12th century, primarily to defend the southeastern border of the Kingdom of Hungary against a range of invaders, and eventually many Transylvanian churches were fortified by massive walls.  Between the 13th and 16th centuries, about 300 villages were defended by fortified churches, and about 150 exist (in some state) today. Of the fortified churches, Biertan is one of the most famous.

Biertan is among the last such churches built in southern Transylvania (1486-1524) and its late Gothic verticality is remarkable.  (The Blue Guide to Romania describes it as looking like a rocket ship.) 

 Biertan includes nine towers and three sets of fortresses (built successively against a series of invaders culminating in the 17th century with the Ottoman Empire).  

We also visited Axente Sevur (which, unlike Biertan was open for visitors).  Axente Sevur (originally called Frua) was settled by people from Brabant and Flanders, later called Saxons.  The church dates from 1323 and is in the Gothic style.

Scale model of Axente Sevur fortified church.

The tower

 Climbing the tower



View of interior

We then went to Agarbicu, built in the 14th century in Gothic style and later fortified.

And Seica Mare, begun in 1300, with its amazingly tall tower.



These churches are an amazing sight.  Built with the best technology of the time, they seem to have arrived, almost by magic, into a medieval village life that feels much older.  Shorn of the context of the cultures that developed this architecture, these churches are like skyscrapers that somehow landed in the Middle Ages.  

The Rainbow Village. On the Train to Sibiu Romania.

The Brangwens had lived for generations on the Marsh Farm, in the meadows where the Erewash twisted sluggishly through alder trees, separating Derbyshire from Nottinghamshire. Two miles away, a church-tower stood on a hill, the houses of the little country town climbing assiduously up to it. Whenever one of the Brangwens in the fields lifted his head from his work, he saw the church-tower at Ilkeston in the empty sky. So that as he turned again to the horizontal land, he was aware of something standing above him and beyond him in the distance. . . .

But heaven and earth was teeming around them, and how should this cease? They felt the rush of the sap in spring, they knew the wave which cannot halt, but every year throws forward the seed to begetting, and, falling back, leaves the young-born on the earth. They knew the intercourse between heaven and earth, sunshine drawn into the breast and bowels, the rain sucked up in the daytime, nakedness that comes under the wind in autumn, showing the birds' nests no longer worth hiding. Their life and interrelations were such; feeling the pulse and body of the soil, that opened to their furrow for the grain, and became smooth and supple after their ploughing, and clung to their feet with a weight that pulled like desire, . . .  But the women looked out from the heated, blind intercourse of farm-life, to the spoken world beyond. They were aware of the lips and the mind of the world speaking and giving utterance, they heard the sound in the distance, and they strained to listen

D.H. Lawrence.   The Rainbow.

We are off to Sibiu, Romania for 4 days and I'll blog when we return.