Antal Lazar

Making Evergreen Architecture Antal Lazar

In this book, the drawings of the Sports and Cultural Center in Budapest, Hungary are assembled. If nothing else, it's enduring ideas -to absorb and emanate Light -and the distantly conducted design process make it special. It was a competition-winning project 20 years ago, partially constructed, then halted, till just recently. It was completed, and opened with a specially composed fairy tale operetta at the last three days of 2014. Designed by architects Antal Lazar, DLA in Budapest, where at the time he was the dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University of Budapest, and Dr. Peter Magyar, RIBA, serving in the Pennsylvania State University, as the director of the School of Architecture. Hundreds of ink drawings were exchanged via fax (at that time the fastest tool in distant communication), all preserved on letter-size ecru paper. Now some photos represent the unique qualities of the environment, which survived the long hibernation, verifying the possibility of creating evergreen architecture.