Four years on, the annual conference organized by the Miklós Ybl Faculty of Architecture has become something of a tradition; this year’s event took place on May 8 in the historic building on Thököly Street. This year’s event focused on the identity, building culture, and communities of East Central Europe (“East Central Europe: Let’s Build Together”), but of course this motto was not intended to limit the speakers, but rather to inspire them.

Accordingly, the topics presented by the nearly 140 speakers and numerous exhibitors were exceptionally diverse this year as well. Apart from the opening ceremony and the plenary session, researchers, professionals, and educators from both the national and international scene presented their research in a total of twenty-three sections, in two languages.

At the opening ceremony, Dr. András Horkai, assistant professor and associate department chair, welcomed the participants and expressed his gratitude to everyone who helped organize the event, with special thanks to the founders of the conference series: Dr. Habil. Viktória Sugár, Vice Rector, and Dr. Habil. Zsuzsanna Fáczányi, Vice Dean for Research, as well as Dean Prof. Dr. Anthony Gall and Rector Prof. Dr. Levente Kovács for their support.

Prof. Dr. Anthony Gall noted that four years ago, the conference did not look the same; today, the range of speakers has expanded tremendously, and with it the range of topics, among which everyone can find the ones that interest them most. In his welcome address to the audience, he emphasized that this event is shaped by every participant and attendee, creating an international academic community year after year. He pointed out that the value of research is truly evident when we share it with one another and a discourse on various issues emerges. The dean of the Ybl Faculty also thanked all the organizers and colleagues who, working behind the scenes, made the conference possible.

Dr. habil. Viktória Sugár welcomed the attendees on behalf of the leadership of Óbuda University and the conference organizing committee. As a founder, she emphasized how important it is to see the interest in the event grow year after year. Reflecting on this year’s motto, she highlighted the significance of local, Central European values and the inspiring richness of the related thematic areas. Furthermore, he highlighted the Faculty’s close-knit community, which, alongside the conference’s professional and academic nature, creates the family-like atmosphere that is also a defining feature of the Faculty’s everyday life.

For the first time this year, an international expert, Prof. Richard P. Anderson of the Department of Architectural History and Theory at the University of Edinburgh, delivered the plenary lecture on the evolution of architecture in Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. In a presentation showcasing the latest findings of ongoing research, the subject of architecture and construction was examined within a broader historical and social context, revealing the network of connections among the professional discourses of Hungary, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovak, and East German professional discourses, which were fundamentally shaped by similar professional policy issues and interests. The Scottish professor’s thought-provoking lecture examined, from an external perspective, the processes unfolding during the Cold War, the region’s relationship with modernism, the work of the local CIAM group, and those architectural works—significant even on an urban scale—that continue to shape our built heritage and our thinking to this day. One of the most fascinating aspects of the lecture and the research is the presentation of the events that took place behind the scenes—away from the official agenda of representative documents, political visits, and carefully staged photographs—in the real professional arena. 

The presentations took place in three sessions across a total of eight lecture halls; as in previous years, the program was arranged by themes and languages. Sustainability—in line with the Faculty’s profile and the current challenges of our time—continued to play a significant role in the sections, examining the issue from the scale of individual buildings to the urban level. Alongside forward-looking topics such as engineering achievements, infrastructure developments, innovative technologies, and algorithmic design methodologies, this year also saw a significant number of research presentations focused on the protection and management of built heritage, as well as the preservation and lessons learned from local and folk architectural values.

A change from last year was that this time, doctoral students from the Ybl-led Architecture, Design and Technology Doctoral School, no longer presented their research in a dedicated session but instead in the relevant panels according to their topics—given their numbers and the diversity of their subject areas, the community of this young, dynamically developing Doctoral School, now entering its second year, represents a significantly broader scope.

Another new development was that recipients of the University Research Scholarship Program also presented their practical outcomes and project-based research within the “Use of Space in Art Institutions” section. Master’s students make up the backbone of the next generation of researchers, and they enriched the conference program with fresh, forward-looking ideas that reflect the perspectives of the newest generation.

The interaction between the profession and the community has, of course, also come to the forefront of other theoretical research—the search for direction in the 20th and 21st centuries, contemporary trends, and alternative spatial dimensions were the themes of several sessions, featuring presentations that define the future and current state of the profession, such as issues in architectural education, career models for female architects, and the self-reflective, critical borderlands of architecture and art.

Looking over the program, it is clear that, thanks to the variety of topics presented by the speakers, the conference offers a good insight into the increasingly broad horizons of the architectural—and, in a broader sense, engineering—profession, which, alongside “mainstream” economic and construction industry developments, explores a growing number of social, community, and local values and issues year after year.

In addition to the efforts of the Ybl Faculty’s organizing committee, this year’s event owes a great deal to its sponsors: the National Cultural Fund, the journals Magyar Építőipar, Magyar Építőművészet, Metszet, and the Ybl Journal of the Built Environment, which make the event’s realization and the subsequent publication of scientific papers possible.