Family Home, Transformation of a 100-year-old fruit storage building, Szentendre

The renovation of a fruit storage building in Szentendre exemplifies how existing structures may be valued: simple, found objects can be transformed into architecture that preserves traces of the past while opening up space for the present.

Just south of Sárospatak, below the meandering Bodrog River, lies a compact agricultural complex of several halls, silos, and storage garages amidst the vast, fertile fields. The site doesn’t have a central farm run by a farming family, but rather has the feel of a business complex or perhaps a small sovkhoz, a collective state farm. Most of the buildings are simple, straightforward, unadorned corrugated iron halls. In this cold and impersonal environment, the architects at Kontextus sought to create a pleasant, human building. As the architect Gábor Kovacs explains: “It was a direct commission from the client. The aim was to replace the existing run-down service building with a new building that would reflect the site and its environment.” The new building, measuring just under 300 m², is intended for farmers working the land, several office staff, and the site security guard. The building’s location near the complex entrance allows the security guard, from his office in the northwest corner, to have a clear view of all the vehicles entering and leaving. The site manager’s office is located in the northeast corner, next to the entrance. His office is deliberately positioned near the main entrance and the various meeting rooms. In southeast corner is the weigh house office, which offers a clear view of the weighing platform in front of the building where trucks entering and leaving are weighed. The west façade houses several offices for financial and administrative staff.

The Smithsons recalled this moment again and again. For them, “as found” meant recognising the value inherent in the everyday, the existing, the raw material. The simplicity of the inverted bucket reminded them that architecture does not necessarily demonstrate its power through grandiose forms, monumental gestures, or ornamentation, but often through the smallest, most genuine details. The story of the bucket became key to the couple’s architectural thinking: it represented a shift in focus from “invented” forms to “found” conditions.

It was with these feelings that I entered the house. The original building gradually took shape: first, a stone cube with an almost square floor plan was built, which was later surrounded by a row of arched porches that, contrary to tradition, led the residents in not from one, but from all sides. The house was topped with a simple hipped roof, which was an almost archetypal, unpretentious closure to the structure. The modest but decisive design referred to both the world of peasant houses and the purity of modern architecture.

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