Even though the American photographer Harrison Forman arrived in Hungary only four years after the 1956 revolution had been drowned in blood, it is not a crushed nation that comes over from his photographs and his notes; it is rather the “happiest barrack” of the Soviet Bloc.
Browsing Category Weekly Fortepan articles
On Foot in the City – Public Life Pushed Back to the Sidewalks
Walking is the default means of human motion and transport. For millennia in urban history public life happened on the streets, on squares, in local places, and using these spaces freely and in their entirety was self-evident. It was twentieth-century modernism that turned public spaces, these “living rooms” of the city ideal for walking, strolling, and gathering, into corridors for public transport and parking lots. By micromobilty expert Ákos Bereczky.
Vending Machines and Self-Service Restaurants in Socialist Hungary
“On November 7, a bar called Mézes Mackó is opening on Rákóczi Street, with the first Jukebox in Budapest, which provides entertainment for only one forint,” this is how a newspaper on October 22, 1956 reported about future automation. The newspaper also reported that the first fully automated self-service snack bar would be set up on the corner of Lenin Boulevard, with vending machines selling all sorts of products, including Vienna sausages, beer, sandwiches, and cakes. “Whether more ‘robotized units’ will open at other spots in the city depends on the success of the first vending-machine bar.”
Insensible Touches – Eszter Babarczy on Photos from the Fortepan Archive
Contemporary philosophy has discovered the human body in the past two decades. This statement leads directly to the question how the human body could be discovered. Wasn’t it there all along, with its heaviness and lightness, with its hunger and pain, for centuries? It was there with us, indeed, but we denied it…
Redressed: Brief History of Hungarian Window Display Dressing
The window display is an exhibition: An interesting, sometimes bizarre, sometimes harmonious arrangement of all sorts of objects, that draws our attention: as the Hungarian saying goes, “All for the eyes, but nothing for the hands.” Shop windows sometimes lure us with an air of abundance, sometimes, they are ashamed testimonies of scarcity. We either take pleasure in looking at them or are appalled at their sight. There are just so many different ways to dress a window.