Introduction

Ágnes Herczeg obtained her degree as a certified landscape architect in 1984 at the Budapesti Kertészeti Egyetem (Budapest University of Horticulture). At that time – apart from the little-known activities of a few distinguished predecessors – landscape architecture in Hungary was almost entirely unknown to the wider public. Neither as a concept nor as a profession. As a freshly graduated professional and practising landscape architect, Ágnes soon recognised that the social acceptance of landscape architecture and the establishment of its professional parity could only be realised through bottom-up initiatives, civic engagement and professional collaboration. She came to understand that, first and foremost, landscape architecture in Hungary had to be articulated in a way that was comprehensible to everyone and embedded into public consciousness; with some exaggeration, one might even claim that, much like the mathematical genius Bolyai, who created non-Euclidean geometry, she formulated the conviction that, in the case of landscape architecture too, an entirely new and different world had to be created out of nothing.

As a result of this realisation and the strong desire to act, she and her colleagues established an intellectual workshop in the early 1990s that fundamentally shaped the Hungarian landscape architectural mindset and refined a multitude of followers. The message of this professional workshop – the Pagony Táj- és Kertépítész Iroda (Pagony Landscape and Garden Architecture Office) – remains valid to this day: “the task of human beings is to find their way back to their natural environment, to find community there, and to become aware of their own responsibility.”

Ágnes Herczeg is a leading landscape architect and chief designer; an associate professor at the Magyar Agrár- és Élettudományi Egyetem, Tájépítészeti, Településtervezési és Díszkertészeti Intézet, Kertművészeti és Kertépítészeti Tanszék (Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Institute of Landscape Architecture, Urban Planning and Ornamental Horticulture, Department of Garden Art and Garden Architecture); and a founding co-managing director of the Pagony Táj- és Kertépítész Iroda (Pagony Landscape and Garden Architecture Office). She is President of the Magyar Kertörökség Alapítvány (Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation) and the Ars Topia Alapítvány (Ars Topia Foundation). She serves as advisor and curator to numerous national and international professional organisations. She is a certified heritage expert for historic gardens; her primary fields of research and teaching are the history of garden art and landscape and garden heritage. She is the designer of numerous nationally significant, award-winning landscape architectural works. She is the organiser of the Székelyföldi Fürdő- és Közösségépítő Kaláka (Székely Land Bath and Community-Building Kaláka) [kaláka is a traditional Hungarian form of community-based mutual aid] movement. She is an initiator and practitioner of education, research and creative work in Transylvanian landscape architecture and garden art. She is the author and editor of numerous books, conference volumes and articles, and an organiser and participant in national and international conferences and exhibitions.

Memories, Roots

Ágnes’s interpretation of garden and landscape can be traced back to her childhood landscape experiences and to the visual world of childhood. The ‘rust-infused milieu’ of her mechanical engineer father’s workplace, together with a small kitchen garden and a large apricot tree – a mixture of industrial, urban and natural environments – constituted a primary source of inspiration for her in this respect.

Childhood images, family collection

Closely connected to this are the summer experiences spent with her grandparents: the distinctive, karst landscape character of the Vértes Mountains and the Mór wine region; the spacious Gyergyó Basin with the young Maros River and the surrounding Görgényi and Kelemen mountain ranges; as well as the farming traditions of the Székely community living there. Together, these experiences shaped Ágnes’s unique, Carpathian Basin–centred landscape perspective. All this was further refined later through her university studies and the influence of her masters.

As a university student, she regarded the professional and human teachings of Ilona Baloghné Ormos and Mihály Mőcsényi as exemplary. Alongside the obligations and the beauty of professional education in landscape architecture, during these years she became part of an intellectual circle connected to Imre Makovecz, István Kálmán and Miklós Kampis. This intellectual relationship, grounded in anthroposophical principles, played a significant role both in the development of her personal worldview and in the maintenance of her professional ambitions, and it also assisted her in acquiring high-level craftsmanship and workshop leadership skills. For decades, she was consecutively involved in the work of the Kós Károly Egyesülés (Károly Kós Association) and in the summer workshops of the Natural Science Section of the Dornach-based Szellemtudományi Központ (Goetheanum), led by Jochen Bockemühl.

At the same time, the historic garden monuments of the Carpathian Basin – such as Margaret Island, the English Garden in Tata, the palace garden at Alcsút, or the vast, abandoned Baroque–Rococo garden of Eszterháza – as well as iconic European garden art creations – such as the gardens of the Alhambra in Granada, or the Italian Medici gardens that inspired King Matthias – exerted a very strong influence on Ágnes’s professional outlook and credo. Visiting these sites made it clear to her that something had been lost here in the Carpathian Basin over the course of the twentieth century, and that in some way we are nevertheless obliged to excavate this memory: we must engage with our historic gardens.

Viewed in historical perspective, the example of Hungarian noblewomen of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is of great importance to her, both as a woman and as a creator. From Zsuzsanna Lorántffy through Anna Bornemisza to the present day, she regards them as the creators of a functional, everyday, high-quality way of life and of Hungarian cultural responsibility. They constituted the foundations of Hungarian landscape culture in terms of both preservation and teaching – in contemporary terminology, environmental education. Among foreign masters, Gertrude Jekyll represents an outstanding model for her, whom she considers an exemplary master of artistic garden design and plant use.

Firtosváralja, Kilátó, 2006. Székelyföldi Fürdő- és Közösségépítő Kaláka (Firtosváralja, Lookout, 2006, Székely Land Bath and Community-Building Kaláka)

Photograph collection of the Ars Topia Foundation, 2010

Creative Creed

As a result of her multifaceted physical and intellectual experiences and her attentive observation, Ágnes Herczeg discovered a key to interpreting landscape, landscape perception and the understanding of the natural world. One source of this key lies in nature itself and in the worldview offered by Goethean approaches to nature, while the other derives from the relationship between human beings and nature, from humanity’s activity of transforming, shaping and forming the landscape.

Environmental art action: “A hely” (“The Place”) – detail, Tündérszikla, Ágnes Herczeg

Photograph by Borbála Kormos, 2018

She is convinced that shaping the landscape, cultivating gardens and practising garden art are cultural, intellectual and artistic activities that form an inseparable part of both individual and communal life.

According to Ágnes, the essence of garden art lies in revealing and emphasising not only the natural aspects of plant life, but also its artistic dimensions – the compositional roles of leaf and branch forms, flower colours and scents, fruits and growth habits – and integrating these into everyday life. The garden itself, as a work of art, is composed somewhere within this dual unity of nature and art, to which the specific conditions and philosophy of a given place are added.

Vadalmafa a Kárpát gerincen (Wild apple tree on the ridge of the Carpathians)

Photograph by Ágnes Herczeg, 2020

Her objective is for landscape to appear – or rather, to reappear – prominently and intelligibly within society’s worldview, in connection with the spirit of the age, as the foundation of all human action. For this reason, her work, starting from the spiritual, emotional and physical unity of landscape and garden, engages with concepts and questions that help expand the state of consciousness of the practical world of professions towards what she herself describes as a ‘cosmo-ecological-social’ mode of thinking.

Ágnes considers the shaping of social attitudes to be a priority. Through her thoughts and works, she draws attention to the fact that today, when everything resounds with the threat of environmental and climate catastrophe, the end of the Earth and the emphasis on human destructiveness, it is first and foremost social life that is ill. In her view, a positive vision of the future is possible only through harmonising existential questions with the spirit of the age. She emphasises that thinking must take place locally, at the level of the individual and the community, rather than following global, rootless principles. One must start from place, from the culture of the given landscape, and with respect for universal values and individual responsibility, help and act in ways that maintain the organic balance of the impacts of natural, social and environmental change, ensuring the continuity of life.

Havasi rét (Mountain meadow); workshop practice, Rita Kesselyák, Ágnes Herczeg

Photograph by Ágnes Herczeg, 2018

Professional Habitus

Ágnes’s professional activity is wide-ranging. Her works – perhaps precisely because of the motivations outlined above – are immediately recognisable, distinctive and loveable. What she does is not a copy of anything else. The uniqueness and depth of her art are unparalleled within Hungarian landscape architecture. Yet for her it is never enough simply to be artistic; she always strives to teach and educate. Every work by Ágnes Herczeg reinitiates the dialogue with nature – or rather, signals that she has never stepped out of this dialogue, even for a moment.

Community, landscape, homeland. Three key concepts that, for me, summarise Ágnes’s sense of vocation. Beyond technical, artistic or ecological content, her works respond to all those invisible, intangible forces and interconnections that have shaped the landscape over centuries: social conflicts, human relationships, historical events and personalities, and the questions of real life and philosophy. From the very beginning of her career, she has worked consistently with local communities and for local communities throughout the Carpathian Basin: in Taliándörögd or Balatonfüred, in the Tokaj wine region or Tihany, in Budapest or Iszkaszentgyörgy, in Lázárfalva, Homoródkarácsonyfalva, or in the Gyergyó landscape that also represents her grandfather’s legacy.

Landscape-Scale Planning

Ágnes’s comprehensive body of work now spans nearly four decades. During this time, she has worked in practically all fields and sub-disciplines of landscape architecture. Regional development tasks have played a defining role in her work, primarily anchoring her to rural Hungary. One of her earliest such projects emerged as the result of a winning competition entry by a young team: the natural and landscape assessment and development of the Pécsely Basin. This work caught the attention of Judit Vásárhelyi, head of the Független Ökológiai Központ (Independent Ecological Centre), who recognised the interconnections between ecology and regional development. This encounter led Ágnes in the very early 1990s to a small basin located at the meeting point of the Balaton Uplands and the Bakony Hills, where, as the result of several years of work, they produced A Dörögdi-medence tájfejlesztési stratégiája (The Landscape Development Strategy of the Dörögd Basin). Today, the working method employed at that time is almost unimaginable: weeks spent in the field, getting to know the people living there, the history and culture of the landscape, and modes of community cooperation. It was then that she became consciously aware of what she had heard at home during her childhood: the dramatic processes that unfolded when land was nationalised after the war, what forced collectivisation truly meant in dismantling Hungarian landscape culture, and in destroying the farmer – the individual and community responsible for the landscape. She realised how a vision for the future of a region can be formed, and what is required for a young landscape architect to commit to a given place.

“Tájban élünk – A Stiftung pro Dörögd Becken tevékenysége a Dörögdi-medencében 1993–2001” (“We Live in the Landscape – The Activities of Stiftung Pro Dörögd Becken in the Dörögd Basin 1993–2001”), Front cover of the publication, published by Dörögdi-medencéért Alapítvány (Foundation for the Dörögd Basin), Stiftung Pro Dörögd-Becken and Ars Topia Alapítvány (Ars Topia Foundation), 2001

“Örökségünk. A Dörögdi-medence természeti értékei” (“Our Heritage. The Natural Values of the Dörögd Basin”), IUCN publication, 1996

Taliándörögd, ruins of St Andrew’s Church, Malmok útja (“Mills Route”) Project

Photograph by György Darabos, 2024

Among her regional development works carried out in the Dörögd Basin, particular significance is attached to her professional contributions related to regulatory plans (Öcs, Pula, Taliándörögd), as well as to her village image renewal projects (Öcs, Pula, Taliándörögd, Kapolcs, Vigándpetend).

Building on this regional development foundation, Transylvanian colleagues invited her in the late 1990s to collaborate with the Csíki Természetvédő és Természetjáró Egyesület (Csík Nature Conservation and Hiking Association) in developing Romania’s first landscape-based small-region development strategy in the Csomád–Bálványos area of Lower Csík. At that time, there was no landscape architecture education in Transylvania or throughout Romania, and this pioneering work demonstrated – even to professionals working in adjacent fields – the importance of the landscape architectural approach, which is capable of connecting a region’s micro- and macro-level worlds, its natural, social, cultural and architectural values.

The twin craters of Lake Saint Anne and Mohos (Csomád–Bálványos Region)
Photograph by Csaba Jánosi, 2000

Alcsík village and landscape
Photograph by Csaba Jánosi, 2000

It is therefore no coincidence that this work was followed by numerous landscape surveys in Transylvania, including projects in the landscape environments of Csíkszépvíz, Bikfalva, Zalánpatak, Kisbacon, Bölön, Gelence and the Úz Valley.

Regional development is closely linked to tourism, and thus Ágnes Herczeg also contributed to the preparation of numerous tourism development plans, in which she emphasised the outstanding importance of landscape values, traditional land use and sustainable landscape management. These include, for example, the tourism development plan of the Csomád–Bálványos Region; the complex tourism system of Borsec; the landscape-value-based tourism plan for the Káli Basin and the Basalt Hills region; the tourism information system plan for the Tihany Peninsula; the design manual for beaches along the Danube Bend, Lake Balaton and Lake Tisza; and the tourism strategy for the Buda Castle District 2030.

Landscape survey in Zalánpatak, 2014
Photograph by Attila Kovács, 2014

Object Design – The Part Reflected in the Whole

The artistic detailing that underpins landscape-scale strategies prepared for areas of several hundred or even thousands of hectares constitutes the foundation through which these works become unique, site-specific and, through their aesthetic quality, identity-forming elements that ensure a sense of attachment to place. In Ágnes’s detailing, it is evident that extensive site visits support a profound understanding of place, enabling her as a designer to confidently intuit its spirit. She considers it essential to relate this broader landscape context to the micro-scale, interpreting the part as a reflection of the whole.

Numerous village surveys and settlement image, as well as streetscape renewal programmes, are associated with Ágnes’s name, all of which supported municipalities in their search for identity. An early project in this respect was the square in front of Mikó Castle in Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc), but over the years exemplary settlement image–shaping projects have been completed in Tihany (for example, the Tihany Peninsula tourism information system), Balatonfüred (for example, the Reform Era town centre, the spa square and the Anna Promenade), and most recently in the garden of the Székely National Museum in Sfântu Gheorghe. The renewal of the historic town centres of Visegrád and Tokaj, as well as the redevelopment of the settlement centre of Csíkszépvíz (Frumoasa), can also be classified within this category.

Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc), square in front of Mikó Castle
Designer: TransPagony Kft.
Photograph by Attila Dobos, Eszter Dobos, 2018

Evoking the atmosphere and former image of spa towns effectively revived a forgotten way of life – the summer resorts of Reform Era national identity, civic culture and social life. In Transylvania, Ágnes led a similarly large-scale project involving the renewal of public spaces in spa towns across Harghita and Covasna counties (for example, Borszék [Borsec], Tusnádfürdő [Băile Tuşnad], Homoródfürdő [Băile Homorod], Szejkefürdő [Băile Seiche], Zsögödfürdő [Jigodin-Băi], Gyergyóremete [Remetea]).

Balatonfüred, Gyógytér
Designer: Pagony Kft.
Photograph by Ágnes Herczeg, 2017

Balatonfüred, Gyógytér
Designer: Pagony Kft.
Photograph by Péter Krisztián Szapó, 2017

Balatonfüred, Reform Era district
Designer: Pagony Kft.
Photograph by Péter Krisztián Szapó, 2017

A work that clearly highlights the spirit of place and its authentic ideological background is the renewal of the inner and outer courtyards of the Benedictine Abbey of Tihany. The design task here began with addressing questions such as what constitutes tradition, legacy and heritage, and what heritage protection itself actually means; and how we should relate to our past today in a way that allows us to connect it to the future. The quadrum, the cloister courtyard, is a philosophical point in both sacred architecture and garden art – an enclosed infinity, a vertical axis that connects heaven and earth. Monastic life as a vocation comes into being within the garden itself, or within the ideas embodied by the garden. This metaphysically significant place therefore had to be renewed as a community garden that meets the demands of the twenty-first century.

Quadrum of the Benedictine Abbey of Tihany, aerial view, Tihany
Designer: Pagony Kft., Ágnes Herczeg, Lead Designer
Photograph from the collection of Pagony Landscape and Garden Architecture Office, 2022

Tihany – Pünkösdi-liget (Pünkösdi Grove)
Designer: Pagony Kft., Ágnes Herczeg, Lead Designer
Photograph by Dóra Tikk, 2018

Tihany, Pisky Promenade
Designer: Pagony Kft., Ágnes Herczeg, Lead Designer
Photograph by András Wolsky, 2018

Tihany Benedictine Abbey, Rege Courtyard
Designer: Pagony Kft., Ágnes Herczeg, Lead Designer
Photograph by András Wolsky, 2018

Tihany, Main Square
Designer: Pagony Kft., Ágnes Herczeg, Lead Designer
Photograph by András Wolsky, 2018

Protection and Renewal of Historic Gardens

Ágnes states that every landscape architectural task has a strong local historical dimension, since landscapes consist of numerous places, and every place has antecedents and a history. Historicity provides the foundation for local identity, the experience of the present and the planning of the future. For grounding design work, she considers thorough research into historic gardens to be essential, as these sites in Hungary – and more broadly across Central and Eastern Europe – have had rather turbulent histories; yet they represent works of garden art that occupy an important position in themselves, in relation to their sites, and within the broader European continuum of garden history.

Among her thematically relevant works, a particularly outstanding example in recent years is the renewal of the Schossberger Castle Garden in Tura. The complexity of this task lay in the fact that historically only the tree stock had survived; all other garden elements and functions had to be reconstructed through archival and archaeological research, and the design adapted to the functional requirements of a contemporary castle hotel or event venue. This project most clearly reflects how the past can be integrated with present-day use in a high-quality, sustainably maintained unity. In the case of the freely accessible public park of Szerencs Castle Garden or the renewal of the surroundings of Thury Castle in Várpalota, the functions of an urban park and public green space likewise had to be combined with historical presentation and heritage preservation. In the renewal of the inner courtyard of the Archbishop’s Palace in Eger, opening the interior space to the public posed a similarly complex task, yet it was successfully realised, resulting in a space that functions simultaneously as an open and enclosed garden. In the case of the castle garden in Bölcske (Tolna County), where hardly more than one or two mature trees survived from the original stock, Ágnes was able to establish an intellectual collaboration with the castle owner that ensured that the activities planned within the castle would secure the site’s living activity and sustainability through the renewal process.

Tura, Schossberger Castle Garden
Designer: Pagony Kft., Ágnes Herczeg, Lead Designer
Photograph by György Darabos, 2023

Várpalota, Thury Castle, Green City Project
Designer: Pagony Kft., Ágnes Herczeg, Lead Designer
Photograph by György Darabos, 2022

The Alcsút Arboretum and Palace Park, the Wenckheim Castle Garden in Szabadkígyós, the vineyard and castle garden of Count Dégenfeld in Tarcal, the Esterházy parks in Devecser and Pápa, as well as the gardens of Buda Castle, are further sites that bear the imprint of Ágnes’s research-based creativity and dedication to the renewal of Hungarian historic gardens.

In addition to truncated historic gardens within present-day Hungary, Ágnes has also participated in garden-historical research and reconstruction work at several Transylvanian castle gardens (for example, in Nagykároly [Carei], Gyalu [Gilău], Sepsikőröspatak [Valea Crișului] and Görgényszentimre [Gurghiu]).

Szabadkígyós, Wenckheim Castle
Designer: Pagony Kft., Ágnes Herczeg, Lead Designer
Photograph from the Pagony photo archive, 2020

Education, Research, Volunteering, Kaláka

The Pagony Kft., co-founded by Ágnes Herczeg, has from the very beginning been more than a simple design office. It is regarded by both the profession and aspiring young practitioners as an intellectual workshop in which, beyond the transmission of design skills and methodology, the multifaceted preparation, education and training of younger generations take place. Ágnes is an associate professor at the Magyar Agrár- és Élettudományi Egyetem (Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences), Institute of Urban Planning and Ornamental Horticulture, but she also teaches several subjects in the agricultural economics and landscape architecture programmes of the Sapientia Erdélyi Magyar Tudományegyetem (Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania) in Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc) and Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș). University work is inconceivable without research. Even prior to completing her doctoral dissertation in 2003, Ágnes had already been researching historic gardens from 1995 onwards as a scholarship holder of the Magyar Tudományos Akadémia (Hungarian Academy of Sciences): in Vienna at the Collegium Hungaricum, in Lucca at the Centro Studi Giardini Storici, and later she researched and processed the history of the garden of the Hungarian Academy in Rome. This passion – which greatly supports both her teaching and design practice – has continued uninterrupted to the present day. In addition to early Renaissance Italian and Hungarian garden history, her research covers, among other topics, the system of relationships between landscape, human beings and society; the history of monastic gardens and ornamental kitchen gardens; modern Hungarian gardens; Hungarian spa culture; the gardens of Buda Castle; and the work of numerous Hungarian and international figures connected to landscape architecture (Ármin Petz, Imre Ormos, Gertrude Jekyll, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Károly Kós). At the university – at both bachelor’s and master’s levels – she is responsible for, develops and teaches several courses (for example Garden and Open Space Design 1; Garden Art and Heritage Protection; Professional Practice), regularly supervises and reviews theses and diploma projects, and serves as a supervisor in the Landscape Architecture and Landscape Ecology Doctoral School.

Beyond research, office work and teaching, Ágnes is also engaged in a wide range of educational activities, both within higher education and in informal educational and folk high school contexts. Worth mentioning are her lectures within the open university programmes of the Kós Károly Egyesülés (Károly Kós Association Open Education Forum and Free University), her self-organised landscape observation courses, and lectures delivered at the invitation of non-governmental organisations (for example the Antopomedicart programme, the Marospart Folk High School, the “Kertünk tája” (“The Landscape of Our Garden”) course in Odorheiu Secuiesc, “Nature and Landscape in Reflection” at Normafa, and the Dendrology Open University in Iszkaszentgyörgy). She considers the broad dissemination and conscious establishment of the landscape architectural approach within society to be of crucial importance, including through former students. To this day, she remains in contact with her former pupils, many of whom now lead companies, work in municipalities or are engaged in regional development.

Nature studies practice, Lázárfalva
Photograph by Ars Topia Foundation, 2015

One of the most classical forms of teaching, education and knowledge transmission – the kaláka [traditional Hungarian form of community-based mutual aid] – was rediscovered by Ágnes for the profession in the early 2000s. Over two decades, she built a genuine movement that resulted in the renewal of dozens of vanished traditional Székely baths. The restoration of locally significant mineral water springs, baths, gas venting venues and other folk healing sites was carried out as community work, with the involvement of local residents and volunteers participating in the work. The connection between urban thinking, project-based approaches and communities living locally within the landscape around a noble professional goal made participants aware of values that also represent existential questions for local people. Kaláka is a traditional form of cooperation that has historically functioned within Hungarian communities as an important self-help institution and a communal credit system. Ágnes is convinced that for a landscape architect it is a crucial life experience to tangibly live through this process – the encounter of matter and spirit, individual and community. For this reason, these kalákas represent irreplaceable experiences not only for students and teachers, but also for young practitioners from other professions. Since the first Nyírfürdő (Lázárfalva) kaláka in 2001, several thousand young people have participated in the movement, which, beyond its professional legitimacy, enriches participants with a distinctive worldview. The professional significance of this work should also be emphasised, as professional conduct cannot be taught along ideological lines, but through professional activity, experience and action, drawing attention to traditional local craftsmanship, material-use traditions and the latent potential of the landscape.

Selection from the work of the Kaláka Movement, Ars Topia Foundation photo collection

While the kaláka involves demanding physical voluntary labour, Ágnes Herczeg also undertakes a highly significant role in professional advocacy through forms of intellectual voluntary work. In 2021, she founded the Magyar Kertörökség Alapítvány (Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation), and as its President she works with tireless determination on a daily basis to elevate landscape architecture in Hungary to a higher level – both within legislation and professional regulatory frameworks, and in terms of its social recognition. Her aim is to enable landscape architecture to move beyond the secondary position into which it has been forced, both on the market and within the profession, among the legally prescribed compulsory specialist design disciplines. The Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation operates as a professional non-governmental organisation and is currently working towards the establishment of a Green Round Table, bringing together all relevant professional and non-governmental organisations as well as educational institutions. Among its achievements to date is the inclusion of the issue of green infrastructure and the introduction of the green certificate into the current construction framework legislation – the latter constituting a globally unique innovation initiated by the Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation. As a result of Ágnes Herczeg’s work, Hungarian garden heritage has been integrated, through the Foundation, into prestigious international networks such as the International National Trust and the European Route of Historic Gardens. These networks also function as collaborative partners that actively support the cause of Hungarian gardens. She furthermore initiated the establishment of the Mihály Mőcsényi Garden History and Garden Art Workshop Conference, the purpose of which is to preserve the master’s legacy through active engagement, to operate a Central European forum, and to foster connections between researchers of European garden art and other artistic disciplines.

Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation, Ornamental Kitchen Gardens Conference, Budapest – Várkert Bazár, April 2022
Photograph from the Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation photo collection

Alongside this, she is also actively involved in professional organisations: she is President of the Ars Topia Foundation; curator of the Ormos Imre Foundation and the Károly Kós Foundation; a member of the Hungarian National Committee of ICOMOS; the Hungarian Association of Landscape Architects; the advisory boards of the Hungarian Chamber of Architects and the Hungarian Tourism Agency; the National Architectural Design Council; and a member of the Board of Directors of the European Routes of Historic Gardens.

Exhibitions, Conferences, Publications

From 1995 to the present day, Ágnes has presented the scholarly results of her landscape architectural work at numerous exhibitions, while these exhibitions also represented a major step forward in popularising the profession and embedding it within society. In the 1990s, such exhibitions occupied a unique position within the field of landscape architecture, including, in particular: “Életösszefüggések a tájban” (“Interrelations of Life in the Landscape”, Goetheanum Institute of Natural Science, 1995); “A Dörögdi-táj individualitása” (“The Individuality of the Dörögd Landscape”, International Ecological Conference Exhibition); “Örökségünk” (“Our Heritage”); the millennial exhibition of the Kós Károly Egyesülés (Kós Károly Association); “A Dörögdi-medence tájának gazdagítása” (“Enriching the Landscape of the Dörögd Basin”); “Sas-hegy az év körforgásában” (“Sas Hill in the Cycle of the Year”); “Tíz éves a Kós Károly Egyesülés” (“Ten Years of the Kós Károly Association”, travelling exhibition); the travelling exhibition “Tájteremtés – kertalkotás” (“Landscape Creation – Garden Making”); the Hungarian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, “Less Aesthetics, More Ethics” (2000); the exhibition on the kaláka; and the Hungarian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, “Fundamentals” (2014). The latter appeared in the Hungarian Pavilion of the architecture exhibition as part of the BUILDING theme, presenting the process of building and its character and community-forming power and impact. In international comparison, the activity of Hungarian volunteers introduced a unique perspective into the biennale’s exhibition concept.

She also plays an active role in professional and scholarly public life through the regular organisation of conferences. With conferences entitled “Landscape and Music” and “Landscape and Literature”, she emphasised the interdisciplinary nature of landscape architecture and its connections to other art forms. From 2020 onwards, she has been the chief organiser of the Mihály Mőcsényi Garden History and Garden Art Conference and Workshop Series held annually under the auspices of the Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation, which this year was organised for the fifth time at the Esterházy Palace in Fertőd. The aim of the conference is to bring together garden history professionals from Eastern and Western Europe, seat them at one table and encourage joint work.

She has published dozens of scholarly and popular works. Her academic publications can be followed in detail in the Magyar Tudományos Művek Tára (Hungarian Scientific Works Database). Of these, her independent books are of outstanding artistic quality, including Tájteremtés, kertalkotás (Landscape Creation, Garden Making), Szép és kies kertek (Beautiful and Charming Gardens), Kalákázni jó (Kaláka Is Good) and Szenthatározó (Sacred Delineation).

Mihály Mőcsényi Garden Art and Garden History Workshop and Conference Series, Conference Volume III, published by Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation, 2022

Professional Recognitions

Professional credo, design, research, education, volunteering, philosophy, advocacy, exhibitions, publications and community organisation – a hauntingly beautiful and multifaceted life path that, one might say, reveals the career profile of a nation-building personality. Professional and social acceptance depends greatly on visibility, and its tangible indicators are professional awards and recognitions. Ágnes’s creative work has been acknowledged over the years with numerous individual and collective awards. Her most significant individual awards include the Hermann Ottó Innovator Award (2014) and the Mőcsényi Award (2019). Among her collective awards are the Pro Natura Award (1994), the Henry Ford Award for Cultural Heritage (1998), the Kós Károly Award (1998), the Torsanlorenzo Award (2011), the Landscape Architect of the Year Audience Award (2017), and the Landscape Architecture Quality Award – Heritage Protection Category (2022). In connection with her works, national and European awards from MUT, FIABCI, ICOMOS, Pro Architectura, Virágos Magyarország (Hungary in Bloom) and the European Village Award can also be mentioned. Her own view on recognition, however, is that there exists a form of acknowledgement that one does not receive as an award. The greatest recognition, she believes, is when appreciation of one’s performance returns unexpectedly from elsewhere, not from the person for whom one designed. In relation to awards, Ágnes emphasises that the landscape architect is not a solitary creator, but is supported by a team, a community and a shared creative process.

Conclusion

Ágnes is not only a recognised professional, a good colleague and a role model, but also a master. She effortlessly leads her environment to the recognition that the Carpathian Basin – which we shape daily as landscape architects and which can be defined as a perfect physical unity – is simultaneously a spiritual space that, as an emotional dominion, unites Hungarians living scattered across the world. For the sake of clarity, in conclusion, I can identify Ágnes with a character created by writer Áron Tamási. She resembles the spirit of Jégtörő Mátyás (lit. Matthias the Icebreaker), who volunteered for earthly service from the idle infinity above exactly six and a half decades ago in order to assist the prosperity of his people. From the very beginning, he was aware of the tasks that lay ahead of him, for, as he himself stated, “I know a thing or two about the nature of this people and thus I can honestly say that the service I have undertaken will not be an easy one.” To her credit, Ágnes has since carried out this difficult service with distinction: she works, strives and believes with unwavering trust.

Tihany, Pünkösdi Grove, Az anyanyelv kertje (“The Garden of the Mother Tongue”)
Designer: Pagony Kft., Ágnes Herczeg, Lead Designer
Photograph by György Darabos, 2023

[2024]