News

"...my heart races upon seeing them."
"...my heart races upon seeing them."

The chandeliers located on Pesti Vigadó's ground floor were created and designed by Kossuth Award winning goldsmith artist and sculptor István Madarassy. Pesti Vigadó interviewed István Madarassy about the birth and manufacturing of these lighting fixtures.

How did you first get in contact with Pesti Vigadó?

I graduated from the Hungarian College of Fine Arts in 1973. The next year I was approached by goldsmith artist László Tótfalusi, who requested my help in a project: the wrought iron garden wall fence of a historic listed building located in Budapest's Városmajor Street was being renewed. It turned out that there was not enough space in his workshop to do this job, so we used my workshop instead. Then in 1975 he phoned me all of a sudden and asked if I felt like designing and "manufacturing" large-size chandeliers and other light fixtures. This is the way the joint story of Pesti Vigadó and me started.

Who was managing Pesti Vigadó's renewal works at that time? Who commissioned you?

A contemporary firm called MŰBER managed the job: they were engaged in Budapest-based construction works. Given that Pesti Vigadó was a historic listed building, architect László Gerő and art historian István Czagány provided advice in this project and had the final word in many related questions. In fact, István Czagány was also engaged in researching and writing the history of Pesti Vigadó's building.

What commission did you eventually get? What exactly did you design and manufacture?

We were entrusted with producing the wall bracket lights under the arcade, in the stairway and in the Ceremonial Hall, and it was also our job to manufacture the chandeliers located in the Lobby and along the corridors on the ground and first floors. We thought we would be unable to handle that much work so we engaged András Albert to design and manufacture the fixtures in the stairway, and I was busy working on the chandeliers. In the Budapest City Archives, I found the plans of the original chandeliers designed by Frigyes Feszl. And I was also lucky to learn about some of the issues that came up during the design of Pesti Vigadó's building, which I also used as starting points during my work. I believed Feszl's designs perfectly fitted the style of the building so I worked along these plans. In addition, it is important to note that our design can be interpreted as reconstructional design.

What does that mean exactly?

The designs obtained from the Budapest City Archives – most probably – showed a chandelier created by Feszl, which was intended to be used in Pesti Vigadó's Ceremonial Hall. After all it was not this chandelier that was installed in 1865. As my job was to design chandeliers to be used in the Lobby and corridors, which were much smaller places compared to the Ceremonial Hall, I decided to design completely new light fixtures using certain parts of the chandelier shown on the original designs.

How did the final design come about?

At that time I did not yet have my own temporary workshop for that purpose. For this reason, I started designing the fixtures using the walls of my father's workshop. All in all, I had 9 months to complete the job as I was supposed to finish this work by the end of 1976. Following the issue of an opinion by the jury, which examined and accepted the designs and which included the above-mentioned architect László Gerő and art historian István Czagány in addition to interior designers and older colleagues engaged in the restoration works, I had three years to manufacture a total of 14 chandeliers. When Pesti Vigadó's building was opened in 1980, 8 of the chandeliers were located in the Lobby and two sets of 3 chandeliers were located midway along the corridors on the ground floor and on the first floor, respectively. Today the chandeliers originally installed on the first floor are located on the ground floor: they are found in the Lobby and along the Foyer on the ground floor. This means that all chandeliers in these spaces have been designed and manufactured by me.