Károly Kós (1883-1977)’s wide-ranging architectural activity spanned much of the 20th century and many of its history-making periods. At the beginning of his career, before the First World War, as a leading figure of the so-called “Young People” group, he created several masterpieces of the then flourishing Hungarian architecture (the pavilions of the Budapest Zoo and Botanical Garden, the Roman Catholic Church in Zebegény, the Székely National Museum in Sepsiszentgyörgy), and later built a home for himself and his family in Staná, in the Kalotaszeg region of Transylvania. Known as Varju Castle, his own house is now a place of pilgrimage.
After his work during the First World War (decorative drawings for the coronation of Charles IV, plans for Archduke Joseph’s hunting lodge) and his study trip to Turkey, he was active in Transylvanian politics for a time, and from 1925 he worked on the reconstruction of the Hungarian minority, with his architectural, publicist, monument conservation and teaching work. In the period between the two world wars, one of the centres of his activities was Sepsiszentgyörgy, where he participated in numerous architectural, ethnographic and community projects in collaboration with the community of the Székely National Museum, which he designed and built in 1912. Most of Károly Kós’ public buildings and town houses were built in this town.
Parallel to the planning of his own house, his writings and plans also include the figure of the farmer, who cultivates the Kalotaszeg landscape in every possible sense – and, if necessary, uses every means to protect it.
Kós has defined the concept of the cultural landscape of Kalotaszeg and Transylvania, and put his talent and knowledge at its service.He designed many buildings for the people of villages and small towns, as well as for the Reformed Church, and his work has influenced the lives of generations. Although he remained out of the mainstream of the architectural world, which was a resounding success, his work has been remarkably consistent and exemplary to this day.
The exhibition presents original plans, archival photographs, contemporary illustrations and documents of the young architect’s early masterpieces.Through contemporary publications and his own writings, the visions and achievements of his multi-genre, multi-architectural and closely related to community organisation, born in the Varju Castle in Stana, are also revealed.
The works of this exceptionally rich oeuvre show that in Károly Kós’s view, the relationship between landscape and settlement is in fact a relationship between nature and man. His work is an artistic expression of one of the last experiments in craftsmanship at the beginning of the 20th century, which still warns us that nature and man do not exist in separate worlds: man is an integral part of the universe and can only maintain his own world by respecting nature.