The Roots of Infinity | Peter Magyar’s spatial drawings

dr. Peter Ma­gyar is a Hun­ga­ri­an ar­chi­tect li­ving in the Uni­ted Sta­tes of Ame­ri­ca. He left Hun­gary in 1975 and moved to the US in 1980. Since then he has con­ti­nu­o­usly been tea­ch­ing ar­chi­tec­tu­re at Ame­ri­can uni­ver­sit­i­es. Along­si­de to uni­ver­sity tea­ch­ing and re­se­arch he has been ac­ti­vely in­vol­ved in ar­chi­tec­tu­ral de­sign at all sta­ges of his life. He has cont­ri­bu­ted to  con­struc­ted and un­con­struc­ted de­signs as a de­sign con­sul­tant and en­te­red many in­ter­na­ti­o­nal de­sign con­tests with works crea­ted in Hun­gary as well as ab­road.

His se­ve­ral thou­sands of dra­wings analy­se the trans­cen­den­ce of spi­rit to mat­ter.

Dra­wing for him is the cru­ci­al phase of ar­chi­tec­tu­ral de­sign, which ser­ves for analy­sis and ar­ti­cu­lat­ing sugg­est­ions, while al­lo­wing to live the sac­ral ex­pe­ri­en­ce of cre­a­ti­on. He draws his hund­reds of ar­chi­tec­tu­ral pro­cess dra­wings and de­sign de­ta­ils on opa­que paper in An­ti­que Sepia ink and a Mont Blanc pen. He draws with eff­ort­less ele­gance, ha­v­ing an awe­som­ely firm hand. His ins­pi­red and pre­ci­se line dra­wings ref­lect the de­sign pro­cess as well as the Tho­ught em­bo­di­ed in the buil­ding. These dra­wings ref­lect ma­inly on the pos­si­bi­li­ti­es of spa­ti­al ar­range­ments, pro­vi­de quest­ions on the na­tu­re, ex­ten­si­on and qu­a­lity of space. Peter Ma­gyar draws with a hyper pers­pec­tive ai­ming at to­ta­lity and du­ring this pro­cess he al­ways has the “vi­si­bi­lity” of il­lustrating geo­metry under cont­rol, the ex­pe­ri­en­ces of foreg­round and backg­round. His dra­wings also ad­vi­se us on his re­se­arch met­hod: th­ro­ugh them he has de­vel­oped and pas­sed on to his stu­dents an ar­chi­tec­tu­ral app­ro­ach, an open de­sign pro­cess that helps exp­lo­re the tho­ught cont­ent of spa­ti­al pro­ces­ses and their in­terp­re­ta­ti­on. In his own words:

"De­sign is a men­tal­ly and cor­po­r­ally ex­pe­ri­en­ced pro­cess, which step by step evokes the myt­ho­logy of the buil­ding, apply­ing the ra­ci­al me­mory of our phy­si­cal body. Ac­cord­ingly, ar­chitecture, th­ro­ugh dra­wings, or in for­tu­i­to­us cases, in con­struc­ted form, re­a­li­zes, 'em­bo­di­es' a phi­lo­sophy, pro­vi­ded if it in­vestiga­tes the basic quest­ions of know­ledge, re­a­lity and exis­ten­ce. My int­ent is the­re­fo­re, to unify fee­ling and think­ing th­ro­ugh will. The will is ma­ni­fes­ted with dra­wing. /…/ I con­duct my in­vestiga­tions with 'Sur­face Dra­wings', or 'Spa­ce­prints'. /…/ This met­hod si­mul­ta­ne­o­usly in­vestiga­tes, analy­ses, exp­lo­res and ar­ti­cu­lates solid and void, or mat­ter and space. These Spa­ce­prints are the­re­fo­re the first ma­ni­fe­sta­tions of the in­ten­ded phy­si­cal re­a­lity, so they are il­lustrating the tran­sit­i­on of spi­rit to mat­ter."

Our ex­hi­bit­ion pre­sents only a frac­tu­re of his oeuvre inc­lu­ding se­ve­ral thou­sands of dra­wings. It seeks to il­lustra­te Peter Ma­gyar’s spe­ci­al way of app­ro­a­ch­ing the built en­vi­ron­ment and th­ro­ugh this the en­ti­re human ci­vi­li­sa­ti­on by disp­lay­ing de­ta­ils from his re­se­arch and analy­ses. 

The ex­hi­bi­ted dra­wings en­co­u­rage vie­wers to par­ti­ci­pa­te. One can­not re­ma­in a mere ob­ser­ver: by brow­sing phase dra­wings and frag­ments and th­ro­ugh as­so­ci­a­tions evo­ked by one's at­tent­ion we get drawn into this cre­a­tive pro­ce­du­re. We ref­lect to­get­her with the ar­tist on – not only ar­chi­tec­tu­ral – quest­ions pro­vi­ded by the dra­wings and we take part in in­terp­ret­ing pos­sib­le ans­wers.

cura­tor: Júlia Szer­da­he­lyi