Are we going the long way? – this frenetically successful sightseeing tour, and at the same time a special guide – supermodel Enikő Mihalik in Budapest and New York simultaneously evoked the static memory of the first Hungarian engineer, Eszter Pécsi, who was born on Women’s Day.

It is equally famous in Budapest and New York

He was the one who made the American dream come true. His works define the view of Budapest – mainly the area around Pasaré, Új-Lipótváros and Andrássy út – as well as New York, but it is not well known at home.

“Isn’t that weird? A young girl with a bob hairstyle who doesn’t like the cinema or boxing champion, but the construction ” – asked the newspaper in 1938, which published a report entitled “When a Woman is a Man” about senior women in their 30s. Static Eszter Pécsi, the first Hungarian graduate engineer, was not the last to be portrayed by the press as an example of a woman doing “male work”, as she designed reinforced concrete structures instead of a shopping list and ran her sports car from one construction site in Budapest to another. assistants, she was also a mother of two.

Eszter Pécsi – born Eszter Pollák – realized her dream. She loved mathematics and dreamed of working in the early 20th century as the daughter of a humble Jewish merchant family from Kecskemét. And she was not only the first Hungarian woman, but she created a great oeuvre with significant buildings in several countries. Which oeuvre was also commemorated by the Index recently.

From Bauhaus villas to skyscrapers

Together with his brother Esther, he studied to be an engineer from 1915 at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin-Charlottenburg. When women became enrolled at the Budapest University of Technology in 1919, he returned home and completed his studies at home.

Today, the swimming pool he designed on Margaret Island is named after the architect-Olympian Alfréd Hajós, but Eszter Pécsi worked on the imposing structure of the building, on the arches covering the indoor swimming pool. As the Madách block defining the center of Budapest, the II. several Bauhaus villas in the district, the building of the future Hungarian Museum of Architecture on Bajza Street, the II. Due to the work of Eszter Pécsi, the eight-storey people of Pope John Paul Square are definitely on their feet.

It also took most of the reconstruction of the ruined Budapest, saving hundreds of houses from destruction. He was forced to emigrate after 1956, leaving behind his beloved husband, József Fischer, a genius architect who could only follow his wife in 1964, then received a passport. But thanks to his sparkling talent – close to sixty – Eszter Pécsi also made a career abroad. He was involved in the design of the first tower garage in Vienna and then realized the American dream: he moved to New York, where he worked for decades on the skyscrapers of the metropolis, such as the Sheraton Hotel.

The great architectural magazine Tér és forma wrote about Pécs in 1935:

“Eszter Pécsi lives with her husband, the architect József Fischer and his sons, living in the villa district of Óbuda. From their small villa built in the Bauhaus style, he drives into Budapest in the morning in his sports car, of course, he drives the car himself. He scooters from one building to another, negotiating, watching, checking, arguing. The workers are no longer surprised that instead of a man with a mustache and glasses, a young lady with a sympathetic face is the “static Pécs”. ”

After the Second World War, Pécs took a serious role in surveying the bomb-damaged building stock in Budapest. From 1945 to 1946, he directed the reinforcing work on the cracked roof of the National Theater and the People’s Theater. forced closure of his office after that, from 1949 until his dismissal in 1957, he was a member of the Design Office of the Ministry of Metallurgy and Mechanical Engineering (KGMTI). Although there is no justification in the resignation letter, the obvious reasons are: his participation in the corporate revolutionary committee and the role of József Fischer in the re-established Social Democratic Party during the 1956 revolution, and then his position as Minister of State Imre Nagy in our government – we could read that on architecture.com published in great commemoration.

József Fischer, as mentioned above, moved to the United States in 1964 after his wife. After Eszter Pécsi suffered a severe stroke in 1970 and was paralyzed, she nursed her until her death in 1975. her husband . The engineer was first buried in the United States, but her ashes were later brought home. Today she is resting next to her husband in the Farkasréti cemetery. József Fischer died in 1995 at the age of 94.

Down with the hat in front of Enikő Mihalik

March 8, International Women’s Day, was also the birthday of Eszter Pécsi. Due to a lucky coincidence, the long-running process started on Women’s Day 2019. WonderWomen’s campaign, the lack of female statues, drew attention to the undervalued Hungarian heroines. In 2020 A Kolodko mini-statue was erected Hanna Szenes is a Hungarian-Israeli war hero, and in the last year or two, many public places in Budapest have been renamed important women.

Eszter Pécsi was one of the first Hungarian women to be what she had dreamed of as a child, with a oeuvre that shared Hungarian pride. His houses still operate in Budapest and New York, and the cityscape in both homes is unimaginable.

A partner was found in the most famous Hungarian in New York today to capture Eszter Pécsi in New York the are we going? staff .

But not only for him, but for his parent agency, Visage Model Management, Markus Gyarmati, CEO, and even the dozens of people, colleagues, friends, New Yorkers who have known from the Internet who have worked through our days and time zones to make this action happen, and Eszter Pécsi be a role model for many more.

(Cover image: Soos Bertalan)