The Hungarian Museum of Architecture and Monument Protection Documentation Centre (HMA MPDC) opened its impressive exhibition venue in the former Rózsi Walter Villa in 2022. The modernist villa, originally designed by József Fischer, was used as the pediatric clinic of the Interior Ministry’s Hospital for years after the nationalisation. Following its recent rehabilitation, the building itself became an architectural attraction, while also showcasing the museum’s collection. But how can architecture be presented in a museum setting? This is what we strive to find the answer to in the newly opened pop-up exhibition space “Műhelytér”, a venue close to Rózsi Walter Villa, in a building once used by the Interior Ministry’s Hospital as well. The venue provides space for collective thinking and welcomes various collaborative and experimental projects dedicated to rethinking the genre of architectural exhibitions. As the first of such projects, from 9 June 2023, the exhibition ‘IPARTERV unexplored – The heyday of a design company 1948-1970’, by students of the Design Curator specialisation at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design will be seen.

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The aim of the exhibition is to explore and present the works of the Industrial Building Design Company, IPARTERV, one of the most important professional workshops of post-World War II modern architecture, since the buildings they created in the 1950s and 1960s are known to very few even within the profession nowadays. On the one hand, the exhibition slightly departs from the traditional historical approach and focuses on the socio-cultural context, while also applies today’s topical issues to highlight the significance of the IPARTERV heritage that is “hidden” in plain sight, and on the other hand, it attempts to reflect on its values that are becoming increasingly visible as efforts are made to reuse them.