Pilgrims’ House, Máriapócs

Máriapócs is one of the largest Marian pilgrimage sites in Hungary; it falls under the jurisdiction of the Greek Catholic Diocese of Nyíregyháza and has been a national shrine since 2005. In what was then a small village in the Nyírség region, the icon of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, first wept on 4 November 1696; then, in later centuries, this miracle was repeated twice with a copy of the panel painting – which had been transported to Vienna by the Emperor against the wishes of the locals – in 1715 and 1905. The eastern side of Máriapócs’s main square is formed by the complex comprising the pilgrimage church and the Basilian monastery; on the northern side stands the single-storey building housing the social care home for the Sisters of St Basil the Great, whilst on the western side we find the pilgrims’ hostel designed by Ferenc Török in 1996. The first of its kind to initiate a small-town development characterised by refined, well-proportioned massing and detailing Ferenc Török positioned the pilgrimage building on the corner of the square, taking urban-scale considerations into account, so as to clearly indicate the direction of the development. Ferenc Salamin is now continuing this approach with the two new buildings, which mark out the south-western corner of the square. The fundamental urban design gesture is therefore the further development of the settlement’s fabric, which, in this case, creates a new quality, transforming the area in front of the pilgrimage church into a small-town square. Upon entering the square, which is naturally dominated by the Baroque twin-towered façade of the pilgrimage church, the new pilgrimage buildings – two long, robust, squat structures – form an almost perfect counterpoint with their proportionately shaped single-storey volumes and their immense sculptural power. The type of ground-floor town house with a row of arcades has been widespread throughout Europe since the Middle Ages, and so in Hungary We are also familiar with numerous examples of this. It is, therefore, a familiar, timeless and welcoming architectural ensemble that fits perfectly into this village in the Nyírség region, not least because it bears a distant resemblance to the porch-style design of the traditional Hungarian farmhouse.

The use of architectural forms from historical periods may therefore be justified, but the questions of ‘how’ and ‘to what extent’ cannot be sidestepped. Salamin always draws naturally on the architectural forms of bygone eras, which he often freely reworks. He does not raise the fundamental questions of international modern architecture as to whether it is merely a matter of new technology and the We may wonder whether this new form is intended to align with international trends in magazine architecture. The traditional plastered walls, the simple off-white colour scheme, the tiled roof and the unadorned detailing all suggest a sober approach that eschews ostentation. The massing of the chapel is also evident on the building’s main façade, where it forms a projection, whilst the stone cross above the round window in the sanctuary signals the building’s religious character from afar. Both buildings feature historical architectural motifs, but rather than placing them in quotation marks or treating them as something alien, Salamin incorporates them with a natural, self-evident ease. He manages to convince us that this is what a public building in Hungary could look like today. This is underpinned by the functional value of the townhouse with its row of arcades: the protected yet open sequence of spaces, and the transitional zone between the exterior and interior. The porch, the row of arcades, the transitional spaces and the row of upper-storey loggias all create well-functioning, useful spaces.

(Text by Miklós Sulyok, excerpts, Országépítő 2016/4)