Specialized Secondary School - Keszthely

For the planning of the new building unit of the János Nagyváthy Agricultural and Medical Specialized Secondary School there was a competition in 1994. The 1st-award plan (the work of József Koller and András Köves) had not been realized at that time. The process of planning started with an invited competition.

architects: József KOLLER, Attila LANTAY – Koller és Társa Tervező Kft.
year of design/construction: 1999
photography: © János SZENTIVÁNI, Albert DÉNES
→ see the building on the map "hungarian architecture"!

The task was to build a new unit to the existing building of the convent in the garden of the White friary. The new building was to give place to 6 classrooms and it had to suit to the convent. The concept was to continue the characteristics of the existing building parts with simple gestures.

On the western wall a soft, unbroken stone and brick walling run through which borders the communicating spaces. The billowy wall terminates in an apsis turning in on the northern facade at the entrance of the gym. The array of the classrooms on the eastern facade is even more closed than the western side because it opens up to the garden. The classroom windows borrow a lively character to the facade as the downstair and the upstair ones differ from each other.

On the two storey of the school li nearly narrowing and broadening, sometimes loft corridor attends the classroom and t he gym wings, forming a smaller auditorium in the gym. If we summarise the values of the building - discip lined ground plan, organic forms, natural materials, and the emphasis on the role of light - we could say it evokes the style of Alvar Aalto.

For many years the Carmelite Monastery had given ho me for Nagyváthy János secondary school that closed its doors on the 30th of June 20 12 due to the low numbers of children and financial problems. Currently, the Economic Supply Organization's offices of Keszthely are located here, supplying urban management tasks.

translation: Filip DÉNES