Maja Jahoda was born in 1942 in Chișoda (Tesöld), a small village near Timișoara (Temesvár) that has since ceased to exist, yet which she still carries within her through a wealth of intimate, atmospheric memories. She completed her schooling in Budapest, first at the primary school on what was then Szent István tér, and later at the primary school on Diana út. From 1956 to 1960 she attended Móricz Zsigmond Secondary School, and by then her interests were already turning towards the arts; in her spare time she drew and read extensively. Because she was classified as being of ‘X’ social origin [a socialist-era ‘class origin’ label that could restrict educational opportunities], she was unsuccessful in her application to the Magyar Iparművészeti Főiskola (Hungarian College of Applied Arts; MIF), so after her school-leaving examinations she worked for two years at Mélyépterv [civil-engineering design office]. In 1962 she gained admission to the interior-architecture programme of the higher education institution then central to the training of designer-artists, and graduated in 1968 as a student of the Department of Architecture led by György Szrogh. During the rectorship of Frigyes Pogány (1964–1973), an outstanding teaching staff fostered the broad architectural and art-historical outlook of a new generation of applied artists and architects that would prove decisive in the decades to come. Jahoda’s own artistic formation was likewise shaped by these college years: alongside Szrogh, the culture and professional authority of architects György Jánossy and Károly Jurcsik, interior designer István Németh, and her teachers of aesthetics, descriptive geometry and artistic anatomy, garden design, statics and architectural history – Péter Szilágyi, Dénes Gulyás, András Balogh, László Szalay, Ferenc Vámossy – remained a reference point throughout her career. The atmosphere created by these exceptional specialists – an inspiring milieu of dialogue-based master–apprentice relationships and experimental studio work – laid the foundations of Jahoda’s work as a designer, much as it did for fellow practitioners such as Sándor Borz-Kováts, Péter Csíkszentmihályi, Péter Reimholz, Zsófia Csomay, Villő Detre, Ágnes Ucherkovich and Péter Mátrai.
She received her first paid commission while still at the College, together with her classmate Zsófia Csomay; she designed mobile furniture upholstered in black leather for the planned library in the MIF’s Gondüző Villa.
The beginning of her career was marked by an intense period of seeking: for almost eighteen months she travelled abroad to Stockholm to study, work and become independent. As an intern she joined the office of chief architect György Várhelyi. Still in her third year, a competition entry prepared jointly with Péter Reimholz earned her an invitation from the Stockholm architect – himself of Hungarian origin – to spend her post-graduation practical years in his studio. After two years of waiting, and only shortly before her final defence, she was finally able to leave. It was a demanding period in Jahoda’s life, yet full of joys, and one that later proved professionally fruitful. She had to acquire a new language, a different approach, and a knowledge of the craft that went beyond professional foundations. She gathered materials, worked, prepared competition entries; she designed a travel agency, saunas, and experimented with paper furniture. Winning first prize at the A holnap bútora (Tomorrow’s Furniture) competition opened doors for her into the Nordic art world. She could travel, and in Tibro her first piece of furniture was realised in a way that allowed her to follow its creation from design through to factory production. The brushed and polished aluminium chair was produced in several prototypes, and one manufactured version was marketed in Sweden.
Maja Jahoda’s Stockholm years shaped her professional work for life.
On her return home, in 1969, she became a designer at Lakóterv (Residential Building Design Office) and began working in the studio of Károly Jurcsik – her future husband.
In the era of state-led mass housing, prefabricated panel construction and the centrally planned economy, and amid the rise of industrialised building, a new spirit and a shift in approach were reflected in buildings such as the Szekszárd civic-centre complex by Károly Jurcsik and Levente Varga (1966–1972), or the community cultural centre in Orgovány (1968–1969), likewise designed by them – exemplary manifestations of an architecture that set itself against serialised house production. The interiors of these significant works were already designed by Jahoda, with faith in architecture’s mission and a deep affection for the profession.
Her first assignment at Lakóterv was the interior design of the Szekszárd party headquarters built by the Jurcsik–Varga architect duo, in which everything – from the furniture and lighting to the doors and ceramics – was produced to unique designs by contemporary applied artists. The performance requirements of the day made it possible for Jahoda to work on the design for a full year; the interior works were executed to an excellent standard by the Szigeti József Faárugyár (Szigeti József Wood Products Factory), later Balaton Bútorgyár (Balaton Furniture Factory) in Veszprém. For the spaces, Károly Szekeres created a ceramic wall covering; ceramicists Mária Tihanyi and Kálmán Tihanyi produced planters and floor vases; textile artist Csaba Polgár designed curtains; and graphic artist László Zsótér created a photo wall. It was for this project that Jahoda first designed bent plywood furniture, and it was these pieces that later brought her name to wider attention. Her Szekszárd work displayed a more complex understanding of material culture than had previously been typical of her. Her concept aligned with the era’s renewal aspirations, characterised both by a renewed promotion of traditional applied-art genres and by an emphasis on the social role of industrial design. In the great era of artistic symposia and ‘living textiles’ [a 1970s Hungarian boom in textile-based experimental art], an important forum for the awakening design of functional objects in Hungary was the exhibition entitled Magyar design. Tíz kísérlet (Hungarian Design. Ten Experiments) held at Fészek Művészklub (Fészek Artists’ Club) in October 1972, which may be regarded as one of the first ‘actions’ of Hungarian design. As can be read in the catalogue preface by graphic artist and design expert Mihály Pohárnok – initiator and organiser of the Házgyári Konyhaprogram [a state-led programme to improve and standardise kitchens in prefabricated flats] – the exhibition presented objects created by applied artists and designers using a ‘design method’ based on research into needs, available materials and production processes: items that were of good technical and aesthetic quality and could be manufactured in large quantities. Among the progressive-minded designers (Sándor Borz-Kováts, Gyöngyvér Blázsek-Deákné, László Horváth, Mária Minya, Gabriella Semsey, György Soltész, Károly Szekeres), Jahoda’s name also appeared; she showed serial products suitable for building a variable, modular system of furniture – producible through the ‘ply-wood’ process – that could serve different functions.
Alongside her experiments into furnishing options for factory-built flats, she also engaged with questions of creating buildings in a modern, rational and economical manner. She was surrounded by excellent professionals: her closest colleagues – the Lakóterv designers who played a significant role in the renewal process of the early 1970s – represented the highest standard even in solving state planning ‘type’ tasks. A case in point was the technologically grounded design of small-panel and frame-panel school and nursery buildings, reflecting a new outlook, in which Jahoda was actively involved. The first buildings of this kind were realised in Óbuda, and many more followed.
During the ten years between 1968 and 1979 spent within Lakóterv’s creative milieu, Jahoda can thus be found among the innovative designers and the outstanding architects and interior architects of the period. In this phase of her career, besides the interiors already mentioned, she designed for culture houses, youth centres, hostels and offices (in Szakmár, Pusztaszabolcs and Pánd); worked on shop units in Budapest OTP buildings [OTP: Hungary’s National Savings Bank]; designed kindergartens, schools and nurseries; and designed shops at Flórián tér in Óbuda.
After the birth of her daughter she spent the happy years of GYES [state childcare allowance for parents, especially mothers] in the small village of Vérteskozma; then, returning to work, she continued designing for a short time at Lakóterv – in the group led by architect Csaba Virág. Her first assignment there was the Tatabánya–Közművelődés Háza (Tatabánya House of Public Culture).
In 1979 she and her husband, Károly Jurcsik, left Lakóterv, and the family moved to Győr. Thereafter, for five years – from 1979 to 1984 – Jahoda practised her profession as a member of Győri Tervező Vállalat (Győr Design Company; Győriterv). Although she often found herself in a disinterested, petty and dismissive professional environment, she worked with enthusiasm and perseverance: the interiors of hotels, holiday resorts, hospitality venues, specialist shops, border crossings, vocational secondary schools, libraries, a mortuary, a social home and an ice rink bear (or once bore) her imprint. From this period, in terms of both the ambition for a Gesamtkunstwerk and its realisation, the interior design of Hotel Aqua in Hévíz stands out. In line with Jahoda’s ideas, glass artist László Hefter designed a stainless-steel and glass wall element for the interior; textile artists Zsuzsa Péreli and Marianne Szabó produced a gobelin and textile appliqué for the hotel restaurant; textile artist Verona Szabó created a gobelin for the bar; and ceramicist János Som designed planters and a decorative fountain for the exterior space.
In 1984 she was invited to teach at Magyar Iparművészeti Főiskola (Hungarian College of Applied Arts), as an assistant professor in the Environmental Design Studio of the Department of Architecture. As her workplace did not support her teaching activity, she resigned and, until 1989 – when she concluded her college teaching – worked as an independent professional. By her own account, she loved teaching and still does. Over the course of her career she has stood at the lectern on several occasions. From 1986 to 1987 she taught at the Erdészeti és Faipari Egyetem (University of Forestry and Wood Sciences) in Sopron, later called Soproni Egyetem (University of Sopron) and Nyugat-magyarországi Egyetem (University of West Hungary); she then became head of the visual department of the experimental arts secondary school of the Győri Balett (Győr Ballet), founded jointly with choreographer Iván Markó. Between 1993 and 1996 she taught on the postgraduate programme of the Közlekedési és Távközlési Műszaki Főiskola (College of Transport and Telecommunications Engineering) in Győr. She is currently a visiting lecturer at Széchenyi István Egyetem (Széchenyi István University) in Győr. She maintains good relationships with her students; even decades later, former pupils continue to seek her out. “[…] I learned an immense amount from my students; I am grateful to them for keeping my mind fresh and for forcing me to think through and articulate all that I had not previously done methodically,” she wrote in 2004 in the pages of Magyar Iparművészet (see her statement: MI 2004/4).
After leaving Győriterv, the search for professional sovereignty became an intensified need for her as an independent designer – alongside teaching. Thanks to the work she had done at the Győr company, clients and contractors continued to find her with their design commissions.
In the 1980s, a new approach to historical values and to the buildings and relics of the past could also be felt within architectural practice. In the field of interior architecture, Jahoda’s work was among those that represented this intellectual direction and mode of thinking. On many occasions – and gladly – she took part in reconstruction tasks connected to listed buildings, which required specialised design, and in salvaging values that had survived the storms of history; she contributed to uncovering fragments from different art-historical periods, and to reconstructing older building parts in ways that met contemporary requirements while serving the unity of the whole. She received her first heritage assignment in 1985 in the Gambrinus-ház (Gambrinus House) in Sopron, realised to the plans of Ybl Miklós Prize-winner architect Ilona Pusztai-Schőnerné [Ybl Miklós Prize: Hungary’s state award for architecture]. She was entrusted with designing the restaurant–beer hall within the Gothic building. As a collaborating artist – as on several other occasions – alongside László Hefter (stained-glass window) and industrial designer Ernő Jahoda (lamps), Zsuzsa Péreli was also present, whose gobelins adorned the designed furniture.
From the mid-1980s she received several significant commissions. Among others, she worked – at the invitation of the Győri Keksz- és Ostyagyár (Győr Biscuit and Wafer Factory) – on the renovation of the Koestlin-ház (Koestlin House), where once again she realised her concept in close collaboration with the applied artists already mentioned. It was also around this time that she completed the interior architecture of the Komédiás Étterem (Comedian Restaurant) and the Hattyú Fogadó (Swan Inn) in Győr, as well as the interiors of pharmacies and mortuaries.
In 1990 she and her husband founded the Jurcsik és Jahoda Építészeti és Iparművészeti Kft. (Jurcsik and Jahoda Architecture and Applied Arts Ltd.), of which she served as managing director for twenty years, until 2010. Despite the decline in state investments after the regime change [Hungary’s 1989–90 transition from state socialism to parliamentary democracy], they succeeded in sustaining the company. In 1991, after returning to the drawing board from her post as head of the visual department of Győr’s experimental arts secondary school, her design repertoire expanded through a further series of interiors – pharmacies, offices, restaurants, an actors’ club, a swimming pool, a chamber headquarters, ecclesiastical spaces, apartments, a post office, a dental surgery, brand shops, bank branches, and the café of the Porcelánium in Herend. (see her statement: MI/2004/4)
In her inaugural address at the Academy she described her heritage work at Pannonhalmi Bencés Főapátság (Pannonhalma Archabbey) as one of life’s great gifts. She had to refurbish the Archabbot’s official meeting room, salon and private residence with reconstructed historical furniture. The abbey milieu, the conversations with the Archabbot, and the ‘bringing back to life’ of fragmented furnishings marked a period of deepening for Jahoda.
Among her heritage tasks, a highlight is the interior architecture of the Mohorai kastély (Mohora Castle) in Nógrád County, realised in the early 2000s. Together with architect Pál Dercsényi, she undertook not only the exploration of the old building but also the creation of comfortable rooms tailored to the family life of the commissioning couple. The result of the design work, sustained over several years, was a set of spaces that are simple, clear and elegantly formed.
Subsequently, together with architect Károly Hevesi, she worked on the reconstruction of the preservable socialist-realist building of the Béres Rt. Headquarters in Óbuda.
Within the range of her varied commissions – and viewed from the perspective of her oeuvre – a distinct group is formed by sacred interiors, which allowed for a more intuitive mode of design. In the period after leaving Győriterv, her first commission came through the Városgondnokság [municipal maintenance authority]: she had to design the mortuary of Győr’s public cemetery. With simple means, and by rethinking the ceremonial space, she sought to make mourners’ farewell to the deceased more intimate and more personal, allowing room for solitude. The interior designs of the mortuaries (1985, 1999, 2003) form a distinctive unit within the artist’s oeuvre. She writes of this as follows:
“Designing a sacred space is a true joy. While it grants the greatest freedom, it constrains more than anything else. One must articulate the intangible, find the essence of the incomprehensible, and then find the means by which all this can be conveyed. I have been through the very hell of hells, it killed me daily, and yet I became ever richer. I made my peace with death; since then I see the end of the road not as dark, but as bright.” (MI 2004/4)
The concept of the mortuaries of the new Győr–Szabadhegy public cemetery likewise focuses on light that leads out of darkness: in one case the symbolic message is expressed through Zsuzsa Péreli’s gobelin work, in the other through “a torn-open sky, with a star-path running down behind the catafalque”.
From 2002 the illness of her partner and her mother gradually drew her away from interior-architectural work. After the death of Károly Jurcsik in 2009 she felt a professional return to be impossible. She found a liberating occupation that brought her happiness: embroidery. Alongside this she works as a specialist writer and teaches. She is an active animal-welfare advocate.
In 1992 she received the Ybl Miklós Prize “for her outstanding professional work, and for setting a fine example of the harmonious co-creative collaboration indispensable to the design of high-quality architectural works”. In 2004 she was awarded the Ferenczy Noémi Prize [Hungarian state prize for applied arts] for her professional activity.
Following the regime change, a significant portion of the documents of design offices that were dissolved during privatisation – including Jahoda’s design documentation – was destroyed. Most of her interior works are no longer visible today because of demolitions and rebuilds.
She realised her furniture in a variety of materials and techniques: among them we find pieces made of metal and of wood, made by turning or pressing; period-style furniture, bespoke designs, and items suitable for serial manufacture – always designed to meet human needs and the practical requirements of use. Of the furniture made for the Apáczai Csere János Tanítóképző Főiskolai Kar (Apáczai Csere János Teacher-Training College Faculty) in Győr, two of her chairs (1992) are today held in the furniture collection of the Iparművészeti Múzeum (Museum of Applied Arts).
Maja Jahoda’s all-pervading love of work carried her through even the difficult periods of her life, and helped her to value the joys that reside in smaller activities and occupations as well – an everyday wisdom that can serve as an example for future generations.
[2016]