The Houses of Debrecen – Preserving Stories
Location: Exhibition hall of the Hajdú-Bihar County Chamber of Architects.
As an architect from Debrecen, Attila Harangi has been researching the architectural heritage of his hometown, the civic residential houses, for more than three years.
At his master’s degree at the University of Debrecen, Attila chose to preserve the civic residential houses of the historic city center as his diploma thesis. How can historic one-story dwellings survive in the transforming urban fabric? In June 2019, he prepared a plan to rethink a specific house and its surroundings in his dissertation, and since then his research has been completed by creating a typology of more than 1,500 houses. In November 2019, he created the website www.debrecenhazai.hu to present his cadastre and research, and still distributes content on the topic on daily related pages.
He joined Attila’s work in 2019 as a photographer, Viktor Löki; and the authors have set the goal over the past two years to supplement archival and architectural research with internal surveys of houses, thorough photographic documentation of their interiors and typically old furniture, and interviews and recollections with residents, tenants and, in some cases, store managers.
The authors entered a total of 16 private houses in one and a half years, and their work can also be seen by the public in the exhibition hall of the Hajdú-Bihar County Chamber of Architects.
The exhibition was opened on Wednesday by Deputy Mayor István Puskás. He stated:-
A building is not only brick, wood, glass, metal, concrete but also a multitude of stories that invade the spaces. They keep the house together, and the house keeps the stories of those who live in it. In order for our houses, our built heritage, to be preserved, the stories born in them must also be preserved. The exemplary business of Attila and Viktor helps a lot in this, let them be an example to us, and let us follow them as many as possible.
An exhibition of the Gyergyó Photo Club
The Gyergyó Photo Club started its operation in 2009 with the aim of capturing the beauties and treasures of Transylvania and Gyergyó for posterity, and with their exhibitions, they delight those living both in Hungary and abroad.
Between 11th and 17th October, the photo exhibition entitled Our Values in Gheorgheni arrives at the Memorial Garden behind the Great Church, where excellent paintings by six artists are presented to those interested.
The creators of the exhibited photos are: Árpád Bartis Borbály, Barna Buslig, Géza Lukács, Szabolcs Mincsor, Attila Munzlinger, Noémi Munzlinger.
From 6 pm after the opening of the open-air exhibition, the Character’s 1517 Bookstore and Café will feature a presentation by ethnographer Irén Kissné Portik, Sunbird: Sawn Mother Tongue. The ethnographer’s presentation presents pagan symbols in folk culture. The author managed to collect about 12,000 board cuts from more than 1,100 settlements in Transylvania, with the pain of which he would like to urge the change of folk architecture, with which we could still preserve our symbols and motifs.
On October 11th, Edit Bódor, Ecclesiastical Reporter of the Municipality of Debrecen, and András Csíki, President of the Transylvanian Public Benefit Association, will greet those present at the opening of the open-air exhibition.
The exhibition will be open until October 17th during the opening hours of the Memorial Garden. Admission to both the opening and the accompanying event is free of charge.
Károly Hofgárt
A trivial past: an exhibition of Károly Hofgárt’s photographs opened on October 12th, at the DESz24 courtyard (Batthyány utca 24.) He photographs ordinary places, mostly in Debrecen: housing estates, industrial buildings left behind after the change of regime – one of the walls reads “beautiful life” – and circuses camping on the outskirts of the city. His spaces are extinct, they lack the identity-building topos, sometimes one or two people rush somewhere in a timeless and anonymous environment. The exhibition will be opened by Zsuzsa Béres-Áfra.
