Contemporary hungarian church-architecture

Re-interpretation of a broken tradition on the turn of the millennium

Abstract

On December 2, 1978, in a letter to the Hungarian bishops, John Paul II wrote the following: "The Catholic Church, which has always played a significant role in the history of Hungary, will continue to shape the spiritual image of your country, carrying to your sons and daughters the light of the Gospel of Christ that has illuminated the path and the vital inclinations of the Hungarian people for many centuries ».
The millenarian Hungarian Christendom has played a dominant role in the movement of liturgical reform: the 34th International Eucharistic Congress was held in 1938 in Budapest. The Hungarian Catholic Church made significant constructions in the first third of the 20th century. The modernist works, developed in the most advanced style of the time, showed the greatness of the Church and the role it played in the social life of Hungary between the two world wars, following the most up-to-date principles of architecture and liturgy. Various churches were built according to the interpretation of the traditions of the first Christianity, which showed the progressive liturgical principles and the new dispositions of the architectural function, all this long before the Second Vatican Council.
After 1945, church building in Hungary was delayed for a long time because of political realignment. During socialism, only churches could be built to replace other demolished, or in some cases fortunate, new temples were built to represent the conformity of state power. Forty years of ideological oppression continued, but the singular architectural memory of that time has stood out for its expressiveness.
From the 90s there was a boom in construction that carried the marks of a crisis of values ​​due to the uncertainty caused by the forced break. Only a decade later a recovered production of architectural value was perceived, consisting of a reinterpretation of truncated development.
In the case of contemporary Hungarian churches, the commitment to architectural value has consisted in the continuity of tradition alongside the aesthetic demands of the millennium. This tradition is closely linked in its identity to a clear conception of the liturgical spaces and to the redefinition of the approach to the Christian space at the turn of the millennium. After an ideologically dark era, dedicating the oppression to a time of preparation, the phase of continuity is reinterpreted.