"...name, fame or any kind of distinction are not yet a force to be revered, I don't think he was particularly interested in them. He saw everyone as equal, regardless of colour, gender or religion. He was direct, youthful, full of ideas and energy, generous, kind, always cheerful. His optimistic modern world view could not be shattered by anything, even though he had seen much misery and failure, as the will to improve was swallowed up by political or economic interest or simply stupidity."
Judit Lévai-Kanyó on Károly Polónyi, 2003
Károly Polónyi was born in the Hungarian town of Gyula in 1928. His brother was István Polónyi (Stefan Polónyi, 1930-2021), a civil engineer, university professor and external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Károly Polónyi completed his architectural studies under Károly Weichinger at the Technical University of Budapest, where he later worked as a teaching assistant for four years. He graduated in 1950.
As a student of the second cycle of the Master’s School (1955-1957), the major organ of a post- graduate architectural education, Polónyi was involved in the planning after the catastrophic 1956 flood of Mohács, working with István Bérces on the planning of Újmohács (New Mohács). From 1956 he was a designing architect at the state office IPARTERV (Industrial Building Design Office). His book Budapest holnap (Budapest Tomorrow), written with Pál Granasztói, was published in 1957. From that year onwards, as chief engineer of the Balaton Institute Committee, he took part in the planning of developments around Lake Balaton. His seasonal hotel building in Tihany was considered by major architecture theoretician Máté Major to be one of the most important buildings of the time. A circular hotel planned for Siófok was never built, but became the model for the cylindrical tower of the Hotel Budapest. In 1961 he was awarded the Ybl Prize in recognition of his work at Lake Balaton.
His international career started at a very young age. In 1959, he was able to travel to Otterloo for the CIAM conference, recommended by CIAM member József Fischer as his replacement. It was here that he came into contact with the architects who, the following year, set up the informal group Team 10 as the successor organisation to CIAM. Polónyi became the only Hungarian member of Team 10, where he forged friendships with such renowned colleagues as Alison and Peter Smithson, Jaap Bakema and Georges Candilis. In the following years, he regularly attended CIAM 10 meetings and even became a member of the editorial board of the group's quarterly journal, Le Carré Bleu.
In 1963 he went on his first official mission to Africa. In Ghana, which had gained independence six years earlier, he became the architect of the Ghana National Construction Corporation, the successor to the colonial public works council, and a lecturer at the university in Kumasi, the country's second largest city. Here he designed residential and religious buildings and documented the country's tumultuous transformation, including the creation of Lake Volta. He organised West Africa's first post-graduate course in urban planning and began to design housing adapted to the African climate but with modern construction techniques.
In 1969, he travelled to Nigeria as a staff member of the KÖZTI (Public Building Design Office), where he was awarded a planning contract to design the zoning plan for Calabar, the capital of Cross River State. This complex work is a major result of Polónyi’s career as an urbanist. In the meantime, he was also given important responsibilities in the Hungarian capital: between 1969 and 1974, he was deputy head of the Urban Planning Department of the Metropolitan Council, and later head of the Department. In this position, he was responsible for the development concept of Budapest and the planning of the metro and related facilities, including the Széll Kálmán Square metro station entry pavilion.
In 1976 he moved to Algeria and the following year to Ethiopia with his family. There, as a consultant to the local Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, he worked on the development plan for the capital Addis Ababa. His major completed work is the redevelopment of Revolution Square here.
In 1980 he moved back to Hungary. From then on, he devoted his time mainly to education. He lectured as a visiting professor at several universities (AA School, London; University of Nottingham; Cornell University; Middle East University, Ankara). From 1980 until his death in 2002, he worked at the Department of Urban Planning (later Urban Studies) at the BME. He organised and, of course, taught the English-language course in architecture. He was also a lecturer at the University of Applied Arts (now MOME), where he taught the DLA course between 1998 and 2002.
His memoirs were published in English in 1992 under the title “An Architect-Planner on the Peripheries.” His memorial exhibition was organised by the HAP Gallery in Budapest in 2005.
Of the recent donation to our museum, documents from the African years make up a significant part. A particularly exciting part of the collection is Polónyi's own portfolios, as well as the thousands of photographs taken by him during his missions to Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, his work in his home country and other travels. The digitisation of this collection has begun, and a selection of the results can be seen here.
The Polónyi archive, which has been transferred to the MÉM MDK, is now available for public research.
Dániel Kovács