The connection between construction projects using standard plans and the change in lifestyle

Sári, Zsolt (2010) The connection between construction projects using standard plans and the change in lifestyle. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 55 (2). pp. 467-494. ISSN 1216-9803

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Abstract

This study aims to throw light on questions of 20th-century rural housing construction using standard plans with features differing from traditional architecture, and how this was related to lifestyle. Houses built to standard plans are significant not only from the architectural viewpoint but also as regards modernisation and the changing lifestyle. These houses are often the forerunners of modernisation and innovations, setting a pattern. The state projects in the interwar years were also responses to the deepening social crisis. The ONCSA (National Folk and Family Welfare Fund) movement was undoubtedly the most influential among the construction projects using standard plans in the interwar years, not only because of the numbers involved (more than 10,000 houses were built), but also because of the level of preparation and organisation.Construction with state support and using standard plans continued after the Second World War. A number of independent settlements were created in the early 1950s using these standard plans. Ebes was a typical example of this socialist village-building. From the 1960s there was a rapid proliferation of a new type of building, the square house that increasingly dominated the appearance of the village street and represented a complete departure from the earlier, traditional architectural forms and types. As a result of the new building types, modernisation and technical development, new objects and implements appeared in material culture, also influencing the lifestyle: it is sufficient to mention lighting, electrical appliances, mains water and modernised forms of heating.

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