Kegyúri segítség a puszták népének – telepes és pusztai templomok építészeti pályázatai a 20. század első évtizedében

Abstract

Around 1903–04 there was an outstanding number of sacral design competitions in Hungary, two of which at first glance seem very similar, and their juxtaposition even seemed to be a way of drawing more general conclusions. the Ministry of agriculture was looking for plans for churches in designs for villages to be settled by the state treasury, while the archdiocese of Kalocsa was looking for designs for Catholic churches to be built on the outskirts of subotica. the calls for proposals were for buildings of roughly the same size, a year apart, both seeking a solution to a pressing, long-standing problem. the problem was architectural, simply put: many churches were missing. the tendering process was not cheap, but it was the most efficient way to obtain many plans at once.Comparing the competitions, various aspects were taken into account, firstly, the similarities and differences between the procedures, which were mainly due to the characteristics differences between of the institutions commissioning the work. the second was an architectural analysis, clarifying issues of building size, and then we looked at the characteristics of the design and layout. in this context, we reviewed the texts of the judging reports and made general observations on the two juries. the longer more extended, more professional review was analysed with the aim of reconstructing from the comments, summarising the criteria of the critique, the possible ideal types against which the judges compared the entries.As a result, we have registered a kind of transition in sacral architecture in the mid-1900s, in which traditional form and spatial shaping were dominant, but also the signs of a later formalisation that would come to fruition in the 1910s. this transition can also be observed in professional texts on architecture, which evolved into professional writing that flourished in the years leading up to the First World War.