I strive to connect Heaven and Earth; this is my calling as an architect.
Makovecz, Imre
‘Angels & Architecture’ celebrates the 90th anniversary of Imre Makovecz (1935-2011). The exhibition is an exploration in drawings, sound, original film and music, models and photographs of the spirit, beliefs, imagination and buildings of this special Hungarian architect.
Imre Makovecz believed in angels. They are our companion guardian spirits who accompany us on our journey through the light, half-light and darkness of this mortal life into the light again. Makovecz's buildings are angels of a kind, too, sheltering us while connecting us through wings of inspiration from the earth below and the ground we stand on to the sky above and dimensions beyond.
Whether beneath the ribbed domes of churches, auditoria and houses, the wing-like roof of the Village House at Bacs or within the circular walls of the Forest Cultural Centre at Visegrad or those of the numinous Mortuary Chapel at Farkasréti, Makovecz’s 'building beings' surprise us, centre us and elevate our spirits.
In the revival of Hungarian villages through the agency of organic architecture, local carpentry, local materials and a burning desire to make things happen, Makovecz willed distinctive buildings into being that raised morale. They belong not just to the physical nature of their rural settings but, imbued with folklore, myth, legend, nature and age-old Christian belief, to the ancient spirit of these places.
Rich in symbolism at every turn of their design and construction process, Makovecz's buildings draw from a rich variety of sources, yet they are very much products of his imagination and the skill of his many collaborators over the years.
The aim of this exhibition, commissioned and produced by the Imre Makovecz Foundation, has been to evoke the spirit of Makovecz’s architecture and of the mind and soul of the man himself. It has also been curated in the hope that his last great work, the Church of the Resurrection, also known by Makovecz as the church of St Michael the Archangel, will yet take wing.
Makovecz's buildings are indeed ‘living beings’. They helped give back a spiritual life to Hungary and its architecture where this had been in danger of being lost. Controversial, perhaps, yet they have been Hungary's architect-angels.
Jonathan Glancey, Curator