Church of Cserépváralja

Partizan Architecture was established in 2013 in Budapest. The studio is currently formed by Zoltán Major and Péter Müllner. In Hungary in the 1950s, due to the strict regulations of the dictatorship, churches could only be built in exceptional cases, on the same floor space as previously used. The church of Cserépváralja, consecrated in 1961, became László Csaba's first sacral building and is one of the hidden masterpieces of 20th century Hungarian architecture. The approved concept was built with local materials and with the active participation of the community under the technical guidance of the architect. In its original state the building was an outstanding work of art, not only architecturally, but also in terms of fine art: the corpus of Jesus was made by József Somogyi, while the tabernacle door was painted by Béla Kondor, two outstanding Hungarian artists; both objects are currently under renovation. The Roman Catholic church, which was declared a national monument in 2009, was in a very poor state of repair six decades after its construction. Despite good intentions, the interventions, both large and small, on the exterior and interior, have not improved the overall appearance. Despite its controversial reception over the decades, the modernist church, which has an unusual appearance in a rural setting, has been loved by local residents, and in 2020 the opportunity arose to renovate the building. In the process, we tried to learn more about the history of the building, to understand its significance and to focus more and more on the building's condition at the time of construction. We identified three design choices that we considered to be essential to the original architectural concept, and therefore wanted to follow and reinforce these with the new interventions.