“The formula of design is to match a high-quality, culturally saturated form with an environmentally friendly material.” (Zalavári, 2010)
József Zalavári is a versatile creator: designer, sculptor, university lecturer, researcher, specialist writer and organiser. It is noteworthy that these fields of interest did not emerge sequentially, but rather characterised his activity simultaneously from a very early stage, already from the beginning of the 1980s. Naturally, there is a chronology and a layering in his work; however, it is more accurate to say that throughout his career shifts in emphasis can be observed, with the individual fields appearing with varying intensity over time. His oeuvre is thus marked by continuity and organic development, permanence and continual change.
József Zalavári was born in 1955 in Pécs. After completing the local technical secondary school, he earned a degree in engineering at the Pollack Mihály Műszaki Főiskola (Pollack Mihály Technical College) – today the Pécsi Tudományegyetem Műszaki és Informatikai Kara (University of Pécs, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology). Parallel to his studies at the college, in the late 1970s, he came into contact with the Pécsi Vizuális Műhely (Pécs Visual Workshop), whose influence proved decisive for his later career. By that time, highly intensive and internationally outstanding artistic events were already taking place in the cultural life of the city.
The institution that continues to play a highly important role in the cultural life of the region and the country today is the Modern Magyar Képtár (Modern Hungarian Gallery), founded in the 1950s. Housing one of the most significant collections of Hungarian fine art and complemented by the Kortárs Gyűjtemény (Contemporary Collection), it provides a comprehensive overview of modern Hungarian painting. A key factor in Pécs becoming a centre of modern fine art was the launch of the Pécsi Műhely (Pécs Workshop) in 1968. The neo-avant-garde group of young artists in their early twenties that formed around the painter Ferenc Lantos – including Sándor Pinczehelyi, Ferenc Ficzek, Károly Halász and others – made the south-western Hungarian city one of the vibrant hubs of modern fine art in the 1970s. In achieving and consolidating this position, a pivotal role was played by Ferenc Martyn, the central figure of artistic life in Pécs after 1945, whom Lantos also regarded as his master. Martyn had been an active member of the Abstraction-Création group that took shape in Paris in the mid-1930s, working alongside such internationally outstanding geometric abstract painters and sculptors as Naum Gabo, Antoine Pevsner, Piet Mondrian, Max Bill and El Lissitzky. Strengthening the status of Pécs as a provincial yet nationally significant centre of geometric abstract art was the opening of the Victor Vasarely Múzeum (Victor Vasarely Museum) on Káptalan Street in 1976. Alongside Vasarely’s own works, pieces by well-known European abstract, kinetic and conceptual artists – among them Nicholas Schöffer, Hans Arp, Günther Uecker and Jean Gorin – also became accessible to the wider public.
The combination of a creative receptiveness to abstract geometric art, the intense presence of neo-avant-garde tendencies and a strong technical knowledge created a constellation that almost inevitably directed Zalavári’s interests towards industrial design. After intensive modelling studies, he passed the entrance examination on his second attempt in 1980 and was admitted to the Magyar Iparművészeti Főiskola (Hungarian University of Arts and Design), where it was by no means common for applicants to be accepted at their first try. At that time, the University of Arts and Design was a unique institution in the country – industrial designers were trained exclusively there. The situation only began to change from the mid-1990s, when programmes in industrial design were launched first in Sopron (1994) and then at the Műszaki Egyetem (Budapest University of Technology) (1996), both institutions later playing an important role in Zalavári’s career. Two directions gradually developed in industrial design education: one prioritised artistic aspects, the other engineering and technical considerations. In the early 1980s, this duality had not yet appeared explicitly at the University of Arts and Design; the two approaches were instead mediated within the course through the differing attitudes of the lecturers, the subjects taught and the design tasks set. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the subject of industrial design studies was taught, among others, by József Scherer for the 3rd- and 4th-year students. In Scherer’s interpretation, industrial design studies constituted a foundational course in plastic and design education that developed the skills necessary for creating two- and three-dimensional works. Scherer introduced into teaching the solving of tasks in real dimensions, using real materials and real machining processes. These objects of ‘partial functionality’ reproduced actual technologies, materials and dimensions, but the strict functional constraints characteristic of ‘live’ design tasks became more flexible within the framework of design studies. (100 év formatan [lit. 100 years of design studies], p. 68.) This educational method had a highly beneficial effect on the students, making their design practice significantly more open. For Zalavári, design studies became a field of fundamental importance both as a research topic and as a subject he would go on to teach throughout his career. As a newly graduated designer, he was given the opportunity to teach the subject at the MIF Alapképzési Intézet (MIF Undergraduate Institute) under the direction of András Mengyán (1985–1990). Mengyán himself was a recognised teacher and researcher of formal studies. Zalavári subsequently taught the subject, in parallel with design classes, at the Műszaki Egyetem Menedzsment és Vállalkozásgazdaságtan Tanszék (Budapest University of Technology, Department of Management and Business Economics) (1991–1995) and at the Formatervező Tanszék (Department of Industrial Design) (2001–2016), then at the Soproni Egyetem Alkalmazott Művészeti Intézet (University of Sopron, Institute of Applied Arts) (from 2017 onwards). The primary aim of the course he taught was the gradual familiarisation with, conscientisation of and creative experiential engagement with the formal laws that can be discovered in nature, in geometric forms and in the fabric of culture. It sought to cultivate a critical analytical approach towards the visually designed world. It provided knowledge and a repertoire of forms that enabled students to create and develop an autonomous formal character and a distinctive personal style. (100 év formatan, p. 75.)
The sculptor Endre Gádor was succeeded as rector of the college by the interior designer István Gergely (1982–1991), who initiated significant changes both in the structure and in the spirit of education. In the late 1970s and 1980s, a very active generation of modern Hungarian functionalist designers was present at the University of Arts and Design, shaping its intellectual climate and providing the broader context for the geometric–rationalist direction represented by Zalavári. Designers of both older and younger generations contributed to teaching, including Attila Bárkányi, József Gollob, András Mengyán, Aladár Németh, Károly Simon, József Scherer and Tibor Szentpéteri. Regardless of age, a shared foundation could be observed among the designers: a geometric modern functionalist perspective which, on the international scene in the 1960s, had been represented at the highest level by the Ulmi Formtervező Iskola (Ulm School of Design) in Germany under the direction first of Max Bill and later Tomás Maldonado. The latter was remarkably open to an interdisciplinary approach to design, one of whose cornerstones was the study of the relationship between semiotics and design. The most influential designers of the school were Hans Gugelot, Otl Aicher, Herbert Lindinger and, in close cooperation with the institution, Dieter Rams, who became leading masters of functionalist, systems-based design. Their impact proved fundamental and lasting in Hungarian design as well. The other principal design direction of the 1960s and 1970s was organic modernism, centred in the Scandinavian countries (Hans Wegner, Alvar Aalto, Arne Jacobsen, Bruno Mathsson, Verner Panton) and in the United States (Frank L. Wright, Charles Eames, George Nelson), and its influence was also felt, particularly in furniture design and architecture. Nature as a primary source of inspiration and as a fundament of the sustainable economy in need of protection, complemented by the ecological problem of recycling, would later become a privileged field of Zalavári’s research.
Zalavári’s career as an industrial designer began in the early 1980s and immediately took flight. The H10 single-phase electricity meter designed in 1983 for the Ganz Árammérőgyár (Ganz Electricity Meter Factory) and the ET-S MD remote totaliser of 1985 proved to be remarkably durable pieces of product design, remaining on the market for several decades. Both were characterised by clean, economical forms, a rational visual language, excellent proportions and functionality, durability and a design in which simplicity and efficiency appeared as elementary values. In recognition of its high-quality design, the remote totaliser received the most prestigious design award of the period, the Formatervezési Nívódíj (Design Excellence Award) in 1986. Another highly successful product from this period was Zalavári’s information system for the BKV (Budapest Transport Company) (1985), which became an integral part of everyday life in Budapest and marked the beginning of a successful decades-long cooperation with Euroelement Kft. By adapting a readily available aluminium sailing mast and utilising its existing functional connection points, Zalavári found a versatile and aesthetically convincing solution to the design problem. As the product required no special technological development, it could be manufactured very economically.
In 1985, Zalavári founded his own design studio, Zalavári Design, which is still active today and which already foreshadowed the radical changes that would take place over the following years, both in the economy and in the profession. The designer as individual entrepreneur would become the dominant mode of practice for industrial designers following the political transition of 1989, from the 1990s onwards. The in-house employment model within factories declined rapidly and was replaced by design enterprises that were mostly one-person operations, whose freelancers were compelled to be competent in every field. This required a fundamentally different, much more proactive and innovative attitude on the part of designers. The changes within the design scene clearly reflected the broader transformation that took place in Hungary in the 1990s. On the one hand, intensive privatisation, and on the other the dismantling and disappearance of entire sectors and factories (textile, fashion, vehicle, furniture, electronics etc.) confronted designers with an entirely new situation. Some were able to adapt to the new conditions, while others turned towards different branches of design. Whereas applied graphics (advertising, corporate identity, publishing) and packaging design entered a period of intense activity, industrial design began to lose ground dramatically. There were, of course, beneficiaries of the transformation as well. After its privatisation in 1994, Hajdúsági Iparművek (Hajdúság Industrial Works) decided, following the introduction and certification (TÜV CERT) of an ISO 9001 quality assurance system, to modernise its existing product range and to develop new appliances. Within this programme, Zalavári, working together with Lóránt Fodor, designed the FZ hot water storage heater and the F5 water heater (1995–1996), which remain part of the company’s product range today (as the Aquastic AQ 5F) and continue to be available on both the foreign and domestic markets. The appliance followed a pure, natural, organic form and offered ease of use and reliability; in 1996 the designers’ high-quality work was acknowledged with the Formatervezési Nívódíj (Design Excellence Award).
The development of the IKARUS 955 bus (1999–2000) began with great enthusiasm but advanced only as far as a functioning prototype. The commission was preceded by recognition at the annual international vehicle design competition of the Japanese journal Car Styling, where Zalavári received an Open Air / Honourable Mention (Car Styling International Car Design Competition, Tokyo 1988). The design was once again the result of collaboration with Lóránt Fodor. The vehicle was characterised by clarity, functionality and a refined balance of soft forms and edges (soft edge), and was conceived as a homage to the excellence of its legendary predecessor, the 55 bus. The redesigned Ikarus ‘winged’ emblem on the front of the vehicle was expressly intended to symbolise this retrospective sense of continuity. Another long-lived piece of modern organic–functionalist design by Zalavári was the Unipress coffee maker designed for Szarvasi Vas- és Fémipari Zrt. (1998), which, with its pure drop (or egg-like) form, intuitive operation and reliability, quickly became popular among consumers. Its greatest recognition as a product is that it remains on the market to this day. Both the water heater and the coffee maker are justly acknowledged items of Hungarian ‘long life’ design.
In the 2000s, street furniture and urban structures became an important field within Zalavári’s creative work, with Direkt-Line Kft. and Euroelement Kft. serving as commissioning and manufacturing partners. The passenger shelters designed for BKV became part of the organisation of surface transport in Budapest, making it more tolerable and more civilised. In the design of the K4-L Eco passenger shelter (2009) the designer once again relied on the familiar, economical solution that had already proved effective. The main load-bearing structural and functional elements of the construction were made using an innovative nodal solution applied to a square cross-section steel profile originally used in the German-modelled shelters. These elements were both highly load-bearing and conveyed a light, constructive appearance while allowing for versatile application. The various functional components – such as the bench, the wooden leaning rail, the map display, the CityLight advertising panel and the side glass screens – could be easily installed, and the structure as a whole was several orders of magnitude more cost-effective than competing products. Currently manufactured to the orders of JCDecaux, this type of shelter serves the public transport system in Budapest and other cities as a defining element of the urban streetscape.
In the 2000s, an intensive professional cooperation developed between Tungsram General Electric and the BME Gépipari- és Terméktervezési Tanszék (Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Department of Machine and Product Design). As part of this cooperation, the development of new LED outdoor lamps was initiated in the early 2010s, and Zalavári was commissioned by tender, as a practising academic of the university, to carry out the design work. The high-technology Spinella and Navona lamps materialised through the effective cooperation of different fields, serving as replacements for traditional luminaires in streets, parks and city centres. The Navona luminaire possessed the quality of a non-figurative sculpture while simultaneously meeting the requirements of versatile application.
It achieved a harmonious balance between three major creative domains: engineer – industrial designer – artist. These mutually reinforcing fusions had already been evident in Zalavári’s earlier ‘timeless’ (long life product) works, such as the F5 water heater, the Unipress coffee maker, the passenger shelter and the 955 Ikarus bus.
The basis of this successful synergy was that alongside his creative work he continuously taught and conducted research – at technical and art universities, in artists’ colonies and in various workshops. Among these, Zsennye (1988–2016) and Szerencs (2001–2013) were the most decisive. Through the workshops, seminars and conferences of the Zsennyei Műhely (Zsennye Workshop) he was able to pursue and give scope to his passion for form research and his commitment to environmentally conscious creative practice. The discussions and joint design tasks provided later resources to draw on, while the knowledge and experience thus gained could also be transmitted to others. The terminological deficiencies that emerged during the collaborative workshop sessions, the inspiring atmosphere of university seminars, and the need for structured knowledge encouraged Zalavári to study in depth the relationship between ecology and design – collecting its key concepts, processes, interconnections and social implications in a systematic manner and processing them with scholarly rigour. As a result, the Designökológiai kislexikon (lit. Design Ecological Index) appeared in 1997 in the series Zsennyei Műhelyfüzetek (lit. Zsennye Workshop Notebooks). Its international introduction took place in 1997 at an ICSID (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) conference and workshop, where Zalavári participated as the representative (ICSID liaison) of Hungarian designers. Published in several expanded editions, the volumes are now considered standard references in Hungarian design literature (Scolar Kiadó [Scolar Publishing House], 2008; 2020) and are used as course readers at universities. The ecological, economic and evolutionary perspective of design accompanies his entire career as a designer. If we examine its foundations, his ideas and research on form, function and aesthetics, as well as his artistic activity, are permeated by this approach at a profound level.
As a designer, researcher, lecturer, specialist writer and sculptor who had seen the world, Zalavári experienced, observed and assimilated the currents unfolding within the Hungarian and international design and art scenes. The modern functionalist design approach and its various trends, together with the orientation towards geometric concrete art, fundamentally influenced and appeared in his work, yet the postmodern design movements that emerged in the 1980s were not unfamiliar to him either. He witnessed the strong confrontation between the two major trends during this period. At the same time, with keen insight he recognised that from the second half of the 1990s – and particularly from the twenty-first century onwards – this rigid opposition between the two tendencies ceased, and the era of the meta, or in other words the hybridisation of design and artistic practices, set in, with differing emphases and relations depending on the specific field, and with increasing force up to the present. He also understood that in the post-industrial era sustainability and ecology would become the value framework occupying the highest position in the hierarchy of priorities for the coming decades. In his book A forma tervezése / Designökológia [lit. The Design of Form / Design Ecology] (2008) this environmentally conscious, sustainability-oriented stance was expressed through analyses of concrete works. However, his investigations were not restricted to the boundaries offered by the classical evolutionary–functionalist–geometric historical model. Instead, openness, a flexible attitude towards the interpretation and rethinking of works, and the layering of cultural, aesthetic, scientific and technological strata that were sometimes distant in time and space, along with the complexity of meaning, became values that are fundamentally characteristic of postmodern creative endeavours.
In parallel with the developments taking place in the Hungarian and international design and art scenes, Zalavári’s creative outlook also changed over the years, although certain features display continuity. This continuity is evident, for instance, in his preference for certain materials such as steel or aluminium, in his geometric formal solutions, in his economical way of thinking – the application of the principle of achieving the most with the least – and in his linking of playfulness with research. Another solid element in his oeuvre is the parallelism and interweaving of different creative domains, although these vary in intensity and precedence at different times. From the early 2000s onwards his activity as a sculptor gained strength and has since become a defining aspect of his creative work. He maintains connections with galleries in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, where his latest works are continuously presented as part of permanent exhibition programmes (Messmer Kunsthalle – Riegel am Kaiserstuhl; Galerie Linde Hollinger – Ladenburg; Museum Ritter – Waldenbuch; ZSART Gallery – Vienna). His works also appear regularly at Art Market, the most significant event of the Hungarian modern art market. He frequently participates in group exhibitions of concrete–abstract orientation with his sculptures, and over recent decades he has become a recognised representative of this direction in Hungary.
One of his best-known works and a defining piece of his artistic career is Végtelen forma (lit. Infinite Form) (2011), a steel sculpture that embodies in an essential and highly expressive manner the interweaving of art, technology and science in a highly “concrete” physical form. It is likely that these connotations also played a role in its selection – through an open competition – by KIA Magyarország Kft. for installation at its logistics centre in Budapest. In 2017, commissioned by Futureal Kft., Direkt-Line Kft., under Zalavári’s artistic direction, realised the world-famous Gömböc – an emblem of Hungarian creativity. The geometric form (created by Gábor Domokos and Péter Várkonyi) was constructed from steel as a 4.5-metre-tall, 4-tonne sculpture and installed on the Corvin sétány (Corvin Promenade) in Budapest. The precise realisation of the geometric body to such a scale, and in steel, represented a serious professional challenge both scientifically and aesthetically, which is why it occupies a distinguished place in his oeuvre.
As a further stage of his successful teaching career spanning several decades, from 2017 onwards, Zalavári has taught Design studies and Design as a professor at the Soproni Egyetem Faipari Mérnöki és Kreatívipari Kara (University of Sopron, Faculty of Wood Engineering and Creative Industries). His activity as a designer was recognised by the profession and by cultural leadership with the Dózsa–Farkas András Award in 2003 and the Ferenczy Noémi Award in 2008. Zalavári is a full member (2018) of the Széchenyi Irodalmi és Művészeti Akadémia Képző- és Iparművészeti Osztálya (Széchenyi Academy of Literature and Arts, Fine and Applied Arts Section) and, since 2023, an academician and corresponding member of the Magyar Művészeti Akadémia Iparművészet és Tervezőművészet tagozata (Hungarian Academy of Arts, Applied and Design Arts Section).
“My works are the capturing in plane and in space of equilibrium conditions between concrete physical, colour and formal–logical processes, in search of the state in which material and form become one.” (Zalavári, 2024)
Lelkes, P. (1996). Zsennyei Műhely (Zsennyei Workshop). Magyar Képzőművészek és Iparművészek Szövetsége (Association of Hungarian Fine and Applied Artists).
Lelkes, P. (2004). ArtDesigner. Magyar Design Kulturális Alapítvány (Hungarian Design Cultural Foundation).
Slézia, J. (2014). Kortárs magyar formatervezés (lit. Contemporary Hungarian Design). Designtrend Kiadó (Designtrend Publishing House).
Scherer, J. (1999). 100 év formatan (lit. 100 Years of Design Studies). Magyar Iparművészeti Főiskola (Hungarian College of Arts and Design).
Zalavári, J. (2003). Designökológiai kislexikon (lit. Design Ecological Index). Oziris Kiadó (Oziris Publishing House).
Zalavári, J. (2008). A forma tervezése (lit. The Design of Form). Scolar Kiadó (Scolar Publishing House).
Zalavári, J. (2020). Design játékok – A forma tervezés játékai és játszmái (lit. Design Games – The Games and Strategies of Industrial Design). Scolar Kiadó (Scolar Publishing House).