From the 1960s onwards, with the mass production and sale of industrial goods, including vehicles, increasing emphasis was placed on the form, design and appearance of products. This outward look or appearance was largely conceived by designers, who took into account the prevailing tastes, the needs of society and, not least, the technical content. József Cserny’s career as an industrial designer began just as design was becoming widespread. He focused mainly on vehicle design and carried out most of his projects alone. Many new vehicles were created on the basis of his plans, and he was not discouraged if some of his designs were rejected; he sketched out hundreds of ideas, sometimes only roughly, at other times worked out down to the smallest detail.
Today, major manufacturers operate their own design departments, while specialised firms carry out dedicated design work to ensure that almost every structural detail of a vehicle is expressed within a unified concept. In many cases, the names of the designers responsible for the appearance remain unknown or hard to trace – but everyone recognises the design itself.
Cserny’s distinctive personal style can be recognised in most of his works. In addition, with a few exceptions, he was not only their sole designer but also partly involved in their realisation, which makes these creations unmistakably his.
The growing importance of design in Hungary dates back to the mid-1950s, when an independent department of industrial design was founded at the College of Fine and Applied Arts. The heads of the department were Miklós Borsos, András Dózsa Farkas and Gyula Kaesz. József Cserny was among the first graduates in industrial design, and he devoted his entire career to designing vehicles, especially road vehicles.
The design programme began in 1956, and Cserny was a student in its second year. His extraordinary interest in vehicles was already evident at that time: during his college years he designed several vehicles, and his drawings were published in Autó-Motor and in the former Czechoslovak Moto Swet magazines. He came into contact with László Urbach, who before the Second World War had manufactured Mátra motorcycles and, at the time of their meeting, was involved in preparing the production of Berva motorcycles at the Eger Precision Parts Factory. Cserny contributed to the design of both the Berva moped and a scooter that never entered production.
Design students were already involved in industrial projects during their college years. The head of the department, András Dózsa Farkas, attached great importance to vehicle design; he himself was an enthusiastic motorcyclist and a designer and builder of small cars. He actively sought cooperation with large industrial plants and vehicle factories. Under his guidance, the students participated in designing the Tünde scooter, then under development at the Csepel Motorcycle Factory. The new vehicle was created with a completely new approach: first a full drawing was produced, then a life-size clay model was built, and finally the transmission units were adapted to fit the chosen form. Cserny also participated in this project, but he spoke less than favourably about the Csepel engineers: "The technicians felt that consulting the designers was an unnecessary burden, and it was difficult to cooperate with them. If I submitted a coherent design, they would always find fault with something, even just a curve, and have it redrawn. Sometimes they even scribbled into the drawings with a ballpoint pen…".
Given these circumstances, the collaboration did not last long and the Tünde scooter, presented in 1958, underwent a number of simplifications compared to the original plans. Unfortunately, the model itself was not very successful, and production was stopped in 1961.
Cserny graduated in 1962, and as a scholarship holder at the Diósgyőr Engineering Works he designed the factory’s cable-pulling machine, and later the bodywork for one- and two-ton forklift trucks.
After designing for several large companies, he continued as an independent designer, creating road vehicles, camping and industrial caravans, special transport vehicle bodies, small electric vehicles, sports carts, wheelchairs and shopping carts, fibreglass-reinforced polyester bodies, building components, and plastic sports and leisure boats.
By the mid-1960s, the limits of large-scale socialist industrial production were already apparent, and smaller workshops and factories were beginning to grow, where the production of small series or individual products could be economically viable. These enterprises were much closer to József Cserny’s way of thinking, style and temperament than the structure of large state enterprises. He became actively involved in the flourishing small-scale vehicle design. He believed that "in a small workshop, the designer is part of the workshop activity, present at the birth of the prototype, making it himself and personally directing the work. Each vehicle has its own path, from posing the initial question and beginning the research, through modelling the knowledge and carrying out experiments, to the final shaping of the object. A vehicle is a synthesis of the highest technical achievements of its age; it requires complex design, shaped by the designer together with the users, and the designer both receives and expects constant feedback."
József Cserny considered himself more of a ‘designer-engineer’ than a stylist. Most of his realised work consisted of various trailers and caravans. From 1962, he designed small and large camping trailers with tents, luggage trailers and enclosed single-axle caravans for Budamobil, the Budapest Vehicle Industry Cooperative, many of which were also exported to Western markets. Based on Cserny’s designs, the Balaton caravan was equipped with every convenience, including a built-in kitchen, refrigerator, sink, wardrobe, bookcase, lighting and ventilation, and was met with great interest both at home and abroad. In the following years Cserny also designed two- and four-berth caravans. The most significant achievements, however, were the larger so-called industrial caravans. The Alföld type, a single-axle caravan family 7 metres in length – the largest of its kind – was offered for a variety of uses: residential, bathing, cafeteria, office and business services, with around 4,000 units produced. Cserny’s designs not only changed the appearance of the caravans that had been produced before, but also transformed the entire technology. He converted the earlier chassis-based constructions into self-supporting structures, which significantly reduced the weight of the caravans. At the same time, he had to take into account the level of mechanisation in the manufacturing plants, since these cooperatives did not have large presses, and so his designs had to be adapted to the technological possibilities. Special-purpose buses were also produced there, including articulated hotel buses, all-wheel-drive off-road buses and ministerial hunting coaches.
The Fecske (‘Swallow’) family of caravans won the Grand Prix of the Budapest International Fair (BNV) in 1966. In this series he designed three different-sized models, all using the same modular elements and hollow steel sections assembled into a steel ring frame. The product was built with an outer cladding of glass-fibre-reinforced polyester sheets, then an innovation. These vehicles now had softer, more rounded forms. The running gear and braking system of the single-axle caravans were taken from Csepel trucks, fitted with domestic Cordatic tyres, while the tow hitch was manufactured by the contractor itself. Produced in 4, 6 and 8 metre lengths, the caravans could be delivered either with completely empty interiors or fully fitted with built-in furniture, in special versions, even in a floatable design, and were suitable for 2 to 8 occupants.
The caravans were equipped with gas, oil or electric mains heating and cooling, and with bathroom units that could be connected to external electricity, water and sewerage networks. These were the first 8-metre-long single-axle trailers in Europe. In Hungary, these vehicles were the first to use fibreglass-reinforced plastic and air brakes. Production continued from 1966 to 1975, with a total of about 3,000 units manufactured across the three types. Their users included large construction companies, open-cast mines, road-building firms, installation companies, the postal service and the army. Production involved the United Vehicle Cooperative and the Chemical and Plastics Production Technology Laboratory Cooperative.
The new plastic material was quickly adopted in other industries as well. The Sirály Iron and Metalworking Cooperative in Balatonkenese was among the first to manufacture plastic boat hulls, and Cserny was invited to work there as a designer. The first boat, the Primőr 18 – a 5.5-metre cabin motorboat – was built to a Swedish order.
Between 1968 and 1979, he designed twelve different types of boats. The Delfin, a four-seater motorboat, was produced for export, while the Sirály Express was aimed at the domestic market. His plans also included universal boats, rowing boats, small sailboats, as well as police motorboats and sailing craft. Of the boats produced, more than 2,000 were exported.
From their first appearance, Cserny took a keen interest in electrically powered vehicles. In the late 1960s he was involved in designing the Tyny small car for the Institute of Electrical Research. When that project ended without continuation, he experimented with his own concepts. His three-wheeled, joystick-controlled vehicle was completed in 1984. After an unfortunate sponsorship agreement prevented him from bringing the United Vehicle Cooperative – with which he had had good working relations – into the project, the vehicles were built in the early 1990s by Robix, an agricultural machinery company in Veszprém. Nearly ten units were produced in three versions of the Akkumobil, but the company was soon liquidated. He developed more than a dozen possible applications for these vehicles, and eventually a company in Gyöngyös began producing electrically powered vehicles for people with disabilities under the name MRS (Multi Roller System). The design of electric vehicles remained his passion throughout his life – even among his very last sketches were designs for small electric cars.
Freehand sketches played a very important role in Cserny’s work. The drawings his family called ‘coffee sketches’ were usually made during his morning coffee, sometimes dozens at a time. After the day’s work, he continued developing these sketches at the drawing board.
József Cserny never turned down a commission or request, and he always began every task with enormous energy. In 1973 he designed the Micro-train for the Budapest Transport Company (BKV) to run on the grounds of the Budapest International Fair, and in 1986 he renewed the design. Since the Fair, these trains have continued to run on Margaret Island.
In the early 1980s, the Metropolitan Catering Company asked Cserny to design a mobile vending pavilion. The plastic structure he created could serve a variety of functions. Its lines matched those of the Ikarus bus windows used in its construction, and by omitting doors, the cabins could be linked in all directions, allowing the interior space to be expanded at will. In the early 1990s, within the framework of the FSO programme, Cserny also designed the bodywork for light trucks manufactured in Poland.
Although industrial design is primarily part of industry, József Cserny was also a well-known figure in the art world. With his captivating style and extraordinary oratory and organisational skills, he was often at the centre of attention, while also being a dedicated member of the community. He was one of the initiators and organisers of the Sympozion movement and of the international meetings of design artists known as the Zsennyei Workshop. He took part in everything related to art and creation. He approached every novelty with great curiosity and in all his work he strove to ‘dig deep’.
[2017]