The Characteristics of Mountain Architecture in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy

Abstract

Mountains principally serve as an ideal location for the construction of monuments, lookout towers, spas and health resorts. In this study, however, I am not going to expand on all these architectures, but limit my scope to the characteristics of mountain architecture typical in case of private buildings that functioned as resort houses or summer resorts. The Classicist villa type of the 1830s and 40s was succeeded by the Swiss jigsaw ornamented villas with timber gables and porticuses. The specific villa type developed from the wine press-houses in Pécs, after phylloxera had devastated viticulture on Mecsek hills. The city intruded to the territories of former vineyards of Sopron and Buda with villas bringing a healthier and more intimate housing environment. Mountain architecture had exceeded its former significance and gained style-forming role by the turn of the century. The attempt of Art Nouveau to renew architecture was related to the demand of creating the national style in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Artists representing the mentioned approach chose a mountainous region that was difficult to be reached and was isolated enough to conserve ancient national forms in architecture they believed to discover. Such regions were Zakopane in Galicia, Slovácko in Czech-Moravia and Kalotaszeg in Hungary. However, the attempt in styles by national romanticism at the turn of the century, mixing Finnish and English effects with forms of folk mountain architecture, was not apt enough to create a modern urban architecture.