József Finta's career is undoubtedly one of the most outstanding in the history of Hungarian architecture. His works not only faithfully reflect but also summarise the complex process that has characterised Hungary’s social, artistic, intellectual and technical conditions from the late 1960s to the present day.
His career began at the time of the decline of “socialist realist” architectural directives. His first major designs already worked on an urban scale, and he took part in shaping the new face of two towns’ flagship projects of socialist urban development: Dunaújváros and Salgótarján. From the late 1960s he became practically the go-to architect for Western investors entering Hungary, designing a series of iconic hotels and public buildings that influenced the urban landscape of Budapest more than any other architect in the past century. Behind his functionalism, behind the buildings’ machine-like character, lies a moral creed: that a building must never demand sacrifice from its users, the people who live and move within it. It follows Sullivan’s principle of “form follows function”, but, as Finta states in his credo, this is interpreted emotionally, not in the austere spirit of Bauhaus rationalism. The two key conceptual components of his design are the needs of the user and the requirements of the surrounding environment. For him, the urge to create a landmark or symbolic form is only a secondary consideration. Always thinking in terms of the highest technical standards of his time, the modernity of materials and technologies is a fundamental requirement of Finta’s architecture. For this, the urban fabric of Budapest, characterised above all by the eclectic architecture of the period from the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 to the First World War, has offered many exciting opportunities.
Finta’s buildings are clearly identifiable, bearing the characteristic intentions of their age and, among other things, marking out the distinctive Hungarian path of postmodernism while shaping the contemporary character of Budapest. Many of his works provoked wide professional and public debate, yet his influence, his firm vision, and his principles of urban development have proved to be enduring. In the Master School of the Hungarian Architects’ Association (MÉSZ), and since the early 1990s in his own studio, he has trained a generation of young architects who themselves have created significant oeuvres. His impact on contemporary Hungarian architecture is also reflected in the fact that the Hungarian Academy of Sciences – an institution long indifferent to architecture – elected him a corresponding member in 1985 and a full member a decade later. In 1991, he was one of the founding members of the Hungarian Academy of Arts.
Past his eightieth year, József Finta remained as active as he had been for the past half-century: he continued to design, to think on the scale of urban planning, to exhibit his ever-new travel sketches, to publish in volumes, and to play an active role in professional affairs. His rich oeuvre is best understood through the presentation of his most significant works.
Pécskő Department Store, Salgótarján, 1965
After graduating – and naturally, given the Hungarian circumstances of the 1950s – Finta entered several urban development competitions within Lakóterv, the state design office of the time. In 1961 his first independent work was completed: a studio apartment block in Dunaújváros, for which he received the Ybl Prize. As a result of the complex approach he had acquired through earlier competitions, the building that came to define the new city centre of Salgótarján became a synthesis of outstanding quality, integrating urban coherence, the designation of focal points, and the coordination of multiple urban functions.
The formerly very poor mining town was radically transformed during the industrial boom of the 1950s. In creating a new town centre, it was politically and symbolically important that the new department store, replacing the demolished old retail network, should appear as an open, welcoming, generous building, acting as a closing element between the hotel, the community centre and the multi-storey apartment block already present at the time of its planning. For the town’s inhabitants, this was the most open building of the centre, the one that most directly served everyday public life. Finta did not close the representative square with a solid wall, but with a multi-storey, horizontally emphasised mass that created direct contact with the square while also bringing dynamism into the spatial fabric. The single-storey block, rising step by step from the hotel side with a dignified ramp reaching into the square, both revealed and enclosed: with its covered and open parts, and with shops of varying sizes, it formed a “city within the city”, a true community space, composed almost with a musical rhythm. Its use of materials made the best of the possibilities of the time while harmonising with the other buildings of the square: a monolithic reinforced concrete frame with prefabricated floor slabs, steel window frames, and concrete facade fins. The honesty of the exposed raw concrete, the well-proportioned openings between the fins, and the generous composition of the whole building went beyond the modernism that defined Finta, moving closer to contemporary European architectural tendencies.
Hotel Duna Intercontinental (now Marriott), Budapest, 1969
Destroyed during the siege of Budapest near the end of WWII, the neoclassical hotel row on the Pest side of the Danube, between the Chain Bridge and Elisabeth Bridge, remained one of the capital’s most painful scars until the late 1960s. This perhaps explains why the planned redevelopment provoked heated debate both among professionals and the public. Some advocated point-like tower blocks along this stretch of the waterfront, while others preferred a horizontal solution. Another key element in the history of Hotel Duna Intercontinental was that, for the first time in decades, a Western investor appeared again in Budapest. Finta’s design won the competition, but its basic concept – a bold mass stretching over the Danube and a hotel block originally conceived as much lower than the one actually built – was ultimately blocked by investor resistance and largely abandoned. Yet even in its truncated form it set a precedent for further development along the Danube embankment. Through the horizontally extended base building and the Y-shaped tower rising behind it, Finta clearly established a visual link with the image of Gellért Hill on the opposite bank. He related the vast 368-room building in Pest to the landscape of Buda, across the river, while ensuring that every hotel room faced the Danube. From an urban design perspective, it provided a model to follow. It also set a new type, being the first hotel in Hungary clearly designed for Western visitors, embodying their standards and expectations in Budapest. The Intercontinental’s design has withstood the test of time and remains a valid work today.
Hotel Novotel, Budapest, 1982
The Austrian credit facility introduced to Hungary in the late 1970s placed József Finta, already well-known to foreign investors, in an exceptional position: within less than a decade he produced five highly significant projects of major urban importance for demanding investors who often imposed difficult constraints. His vision led to the construction of the Forum, Novotel and Penta hotels, as well as the International Trade Centre on Váci Street and the Budapest Congress Centre, linked to the Novotel. In these projects Finta encountered a business environment previously unknown in Hungary, but which became commonplace in the following decades. He was practically the only Hungarian architect able to meet the expectations of Western capital at the time.
The Hotel Novotel was built on the site of the former Németvölgy Cemetery (12th district, Buda), in a grove of chestnut trees. When the site was designated, the intention was to create a complex functioning as a new city centre, with a swimming pool and shops, but in the end only the hotel and, two years later, the Congress Centre were realised. The first design envisaged large-panel construction, while the Austrian contractors favoured another form of monolithic concrete construction, the French-style tunnel formwork technology. Approaching the city, visitors are welcomed by a massive building set into the hillside grove, its upper floors gradually stepping back, like a monumental gateway. The two-storey prismatic winter garden facing the entrance offers a perfect view of the park, behind which the roughly cruciform block, with its dark brown tone, small windows and roof terrace, rises with dignity above the landscape, echoing the ridgeline of the hills behind. The facade’s colouring harmonises with the surrounding trees, while the divided glass surfaces reflect this view. The interiors are characterised by the homogeneous use of materials, ceramic floor coverings, and the prominent role of integrated artworks by fellow artists – a feature that would become highly typical of Finta’s later buildings.
Hotel Penta, Budapest, 1982
Built at the same time as the Novotel, the Hotel Penta was intended to solve a major urban problem: the continuation of the triangular junction of two main Buda roads, Alkotás Street and Krisztina Boulevard, and the series of spaces following the Déli (Southern) Railway Station. The relatively small plot allowed only for a slab building parallel to the boulevard. Like the Novotel, Finta realised the building using tunnel formwork technology, giving the facade rhythm through the staggered breaks in the grid and by subtly articulating the mass. Because of the limited site, the catering functions were pushed beneath the ten-storey block, and their effect mitigated by a three-storey skylit conservatory. The uniform grey colour ties the building to its neighbours, its monotony relieved by bright orange accents on the facade and ventilation shafts. Taken together, these elements introduced an entirely new architectural language in Hungary at the time.
Budapest Congress Centre, Budapest, 1984 (interior designers: Herrer Y. M. Caesar and József Király)
The Budapest Congress Centre, built next to the Novotel, was one of the last major state-sponsored projects with political functions of the party-state era. The conference hall was originally intended for party congresses, but the design programme soon expanded to include a multifunctional complex for diverse cultural and community events – something with no contemporary precedent in Hungary. The limited site constrained the possibilities. Its height does not rise above the treetops, blending gently into the landscape and counterbalancing the vertical emphasis of the hotel. The building is linked to the Novotel by a glass bridge but has its own entrance, marked by a romantic, arcade-like screen wall and a broad flight of steps across the main facade. Behind the curved wall, a divided dark-glass surface looks out towards the park. The three-storey interior is organised into a sequence of functional zones. Besides the small and large section halls, the centre’s true highlight is the 1,800-seat fan-shaped main auditorium, realised with sound-reflecting panels that achieved the highest acoustic standards of the time. Thanks to this, the Congress Centre became one of Budapest’s most important concert venues for many years.
Hotel Taverna, Budapest, 1985
The Hotel Taverna, built on the busiest stretch of the main pedestrian street (Váci utca) in downtown Pest, faced very different challenges from the earlier large hotels. In a densely built-up and characterful environment, it had to connect two streets in such a way that service traffic for the hotel was taken underground, while pedestrian cross-traffic could flow unimpeded. Unlike classic passageway buildings, the Taverna had to present a prestigious facade on both sides, while maximising the number of rooms within the footprint. The result was a U-shaped block with courtyards opening in both directions, at once accessible and exclusive: rooms on the upper floors overlooking the bustling downtown, restaurants and shops on the ground floor open to the public, and a sophisticated interplay of interior and exterior spaces. The building features subtly articulated masses, a ground floor with a densely divided curved glass facade, a skylit courtyard, and sculptural elements integrated into the fabric of the street.
Office Building, Budapest, 1990 (with Gyula Csizmár)
The building, best characterised by the “emotional functionalism” consciously adopted by Finta, was erected on the diagonal corner at the beginning of Andrássy Avenue. Positioned prominently at the gateway to the representative boulevard, it also enters into dialogue with St Stephen’s Basilica along Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Road, responding to its silhouette. Finta resolved this architecturally and urbanistically delicate situation with a double-character mass: instead of running the structure out to the very corner, he recessed the entrance and cut a canyon-like, semicircular inner courtyard behind it. In effect, the building is organised along an undulating line that alternately turns inward and outward with varying angles, allowing two different facade treatments to emerge from the corner. This gesture also recalls the site’s history, as it was originally occupied by two smaller buildings. The two different facades thus create, on the one hand, a softer, more decorated side leaning toward Art Deco, and a more sharply defined, austere side crowned with a tower. The vertical rhythms also differ, as playful postmodern geometric motifs appear only on one facade and in front of the entrance. Between the two sides, a steeply pitched, fan-shaped glass canopy spans the entrance and the inner courtyard beyond.
Bank Center, Budapest, 1995 (with Antal Fekete)
Beyond its primary office function, the Bank Center on Szabadság (Liberty) Square was conceived as part of a programme to revitalise the office quarter of the City (5th district). The architectural context was set by the former Stock Exchange Palace, then housing Hungarian Television, the Bauhaus-style headquarters of the Financial Institutions Centre, and the square’s distinctive urban fabric. The new building was intended to enrich this setting with high-quality architecture, providing pedestrian permeability through ground-floor passageways and offering a multi-storey underground car park to meet the district’s long-unresolved parking demand. Much larger in scale than its neighbours, the building is clad in noble granite on the lower levels, while the upper levels are softened by light, airy glass facades. Evoking the eclecticism of Pest, its granite-clad cube employs enlarged versions of traditional architectural elements – cornices, risalits (projecting sections), and slender metal columns at the entrances – while the upper storeys feature ribless, silvery reflective curtain walls that mirror the colours of the sky. Inside, a three-storey covered passageway branches out from the central atrium and connects to three surrounding streets. The block, bisected by this passage, is connected only at the top levels by a glazed bridge.
Police Headquarters, Budapest, 1997 (with János Plájer, Antal Fekete, Tamás Szabó)
In the chaotic architectural environment at the Pest end of Árpád Bridge, the headquarters of the Hungarian National Police (ORFK) represented an administrative building of a scale unprecedented in Budapest since the Monarchy. Functionally, it serves as a nationwide office building as well as a communications and data processing centre, and it also houses the highest-level units of the Budapest Police Headquarters (BRFK). Its 92-metre-high steel antenna tower is one of the tallest structures in the capital. The neighbouring 20-storey block of the Pension Institute, the proximity of the bridge and the Danube, together with the missing street frontage at the beginning of Róbert Károly Boulevard, did not provide many points of reference for massing. At the same time, it was already clear at the design stage that this urban junction would undergo major transformation in the future. Thus, in a way unique within Finta’s oeuvre, the building symbolically expresses both its function and its position in the life of the city. The three-quarter circular office tower of the ORFK rises eight storeys above the ground floor as a vertical core, and continues with a further eight floors facing the Danube. Behind it, the closed rectangular block of the BRFK serves as a sober, solid counterpoint to the curving, strikingly massive tower. Both volumes are raised on pilotis, allowing urban life to “flow” into the ground level: its arcade evokes the atmosphere of small northern Italian towns, while the glass surfaces behind the arcade and on the upper floors reflect the city’s image. The interplay of cylindrical and square forms, the office layout grid – also visible in the proportions of the facade openings – and the alternation of granite and glass surfaces create the impression of an organically grown city of a technicised age, echoing architectural history.
Reformed Church, Százhalombatta, 1998
The town of Százhalombatta allocated sites almost simultaneously for a Catholic and a Reformed church on the two sides of its long, public square lined with civic buildings. The Catholic church was designed by Imre Makovecz, while the Reformed one by József Finta. For the Transylvanian-rooted congregation, Finta created a contemporary interpretation of a traditional Transylvanian fortress church. In its relatively modest volume, he placed the assembly hall and the pastor’s residence on the ground floor, with the church space itself located on the upper level. In this way, the secular functions, housed in a pitched-roof block resembling a traditional dwelling, almost encircle the central octagonal church space. Both in form and material, the result is a puritan building, with exposed brick facades, timber cladding above, and semicircular windows. Yet the bastion-like church, with its few openings, does not close itself off from the town: in addition to the staircase, a gently ascending ramp also leads up to the church level. The calmly composed central block is linked by a slender bridge to the bell tower, which, with its subtly tilted top, rises like a narrow needle into the sky. The two balance each other formally, while at the same time forming an organic unity.
WestEnd City Center, Budapest, 2000 (with Antal Fekete, Alfréd Peschka Jr.)
The significance of the WestEnd City Center, built next to Nyugati (Western) Railway Station, went far beyond the creation of a shopping mall in terms of planning and urban development. It was intended to heal the scars of the urban fabric cut in two by the station’s railway tracks and the decayed neighbourhood that had developed along them. However, the further development of the area was only partially realised, and WestEnd remains more of a grand overture, a promise unfulfilled even sixteen years after its opening. The shopping centre, which also includes a Hilton hotel, occupies a long, acute-angled block along Váci Road, opening towards Ferdinand Bridge, articulated by a uniform yet varied facade. The glass entrance structure and the boldly cantilevered canopy above it echo the steel-and-glass construction of Nyugati Railway Station. With its combination of glass and red brick cladding, the building appears from the outside as a small city in itself. Inside, this is continued by covered arcades clad in the same red brick, creating atrium-like interior streets, rhythmically punctuated by nodes and intersections. The Hilton, inserted mid-block, is integrated into the complex yet distinguished from it by its elegance and recessed glass facade.
Cardiovascular Centre, Budapest, 2002
The Heart and Vascular Centre on Városmajor Street (Buda) was created as an extension of the existing operating theatre block. Within the oeuvre of József Finta, this building speaks with a different voice than his large-scale public works: the additive mode of composition is here overridden by a strong, expressive shaping force, while its proportions and articulation continue local traditions more than his earlier architecture focused on technology. The integration of the 1,200-square-metre block on the sloping site into the hillside villa district could only be achieved by placing part of the building underground. The main element of the street facade is a curved sheet-metal roof above a stone-clad wall, with a ramp, a recessed entrance at the end of the building, and a parapet projecting above a strip window. The interior design is guided by simplicity and utility: wide white corridors, metal stair rails, puritan spaces, and clear spatial connections.
Family House, Budapest, Gellért Hill, 2005
One of the few single-family houses in Finta’s oeuvre, this project is a fine example of his logical, transparent design method, the light arrangement of masses, and the unity of function and aesthetics. The client requested a house of only 90 square metres of total floor area, although the plot could have accommodated a much larger building. The three-storey house is conceived as a solid triangular form set at 45 degrees, with the upper floor and the partially sunken lower floor also projecting forward in triangular shapes from the brick trunk. The strict geometry, the brick block contrasted with the lighter wood-and-glass balcony and upper structure, creates a natural balance: the house, set in a rock garden, echoes the forms of nature. In front of the ground floor, the open terrace is embraced by walls of natural stone. The house is a disciplined, harmonious unity of protection and openness, of heavy and light volumes.
Ludovika Campus dormitory and educational building, Budapest, 2015–2017 (with János Tamás Szabó)
The complex surrounding Orczy Garden houses the institutions of the National University of Public Service, founded in early 2012. The restored main building of Ludovika was inaugurated in spring 2014, followed by the dormitory and educational block designed by József Finta, completed in 2017. The dormitory underlines its gateway role towards the campus: the arms of its H-shaped plan open towards the square in broken, angled curves, creating a generous entrance zone. From here, the path narrows to lead students to the main entrance. From this view, the building presents a sweeping arc towards the city, framed in white, with a horizontal facade, nicely counterpointed by vertical ribs highlighted with colour. A softer cornice arch facades running under the window lines tempers the strict broken geometry, linking the wings while also providing some shade to the student rooms. The punctuated facades of the two projecting wings are balanced by the elegant, transparent glass surface of the central connecting element. Thus, the functional order is legible from the outside: the wings contain the living units, while the centre houses the communal spaces. The four “arms” of the H also organise students thematically, with each wing or floor housing the members of a given college or teaching unit. The concept’s main ambition is clear here as well: to host real communities rather than isolated student rooms. The lobby is enclosed on both sides by glass facades, making natural light a fundamental experience, while an internal atrium and a rear entrance opening towards the park create a graceful transition between the interior and exterior. A second entrance on the ground floor opens directly to Orczy Garden, and with the complete redevelopment of the sports facilities and the park, the programme offers an exceptional lifestyle for students in this densely built-up district.
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The impact of Finta’s oeuvre and approach, his aesthetic and urban significance, have been a formative experience for generations. After the political transition, it was his buildings and his principles that helped Budapest evolve into a truly cosmopolitan city. In his professional practice, Finta showed the way forward for Hungarian architects from the 1990s onward, and in architectural terms his work prepared one of the important dimensions of Hungary’s belonging to Europe. His contemporaries often contrasted him with Imre Makovecz, the father of Hungarian organic architecture, yet this opposition was more apparent than real. In many respects the two most prominent Hungarian architects of the second half of the twentieth century thought alike: for both, the primary concerns were integrating buildings into the landscape, communicating with their environment, designing at an urban scale, and respecting tradition. Their inspirational influence is often felt together, and even today the strength and validity of a synthesis of these two approaches can be traced in the work of later generations and in contemporary Hungarian architecture.
[Written in: 2016]