Architectural description

The two-storey industrial building stands at the corner of Tűzoltó and Liliom Street. The facade of Liliom Street is articulated with fine brick architecture. It has four opening axes where the division of the openings at the first two axes are the same.

On the ground floor from the Liliom Street in the third and fourth axes squared openings, on the storeys two thin openings are dominating in the middle with ornaments. Above them an eyebrow edge can be seen. The gate used for moving the scenery opens from the second axis of the facade. At the corner of the building stand two-storey-high window openings.

Between the opening axes brick pilasters are placed; between them the wall plane is plastered and decorated with ornaments. From the back of the building we can enter to another building which serves the management functions and from where we can reach also the entertainment hall in the cellar.

Beyond the entrance the lobby and the cloakroom can be found; half level up there’s the cafe, and also the entrance into the theatre hall. The auditorium and the stage are located in one air-space; the whole theatre is a big black box, which can be formed as the different productions need that.

History

The electrical transformer station, a characteristic construction of the industrial Hungarian Art Nouveau, was designed by Ágost Gerstenberger and Károly Arvé, ready for use in 1909. The building kept its initial function until the end of World War II. Afterwards it was abandoned, according to the only sources in the sixties, it was owned by RAMOVILL company, but neither this firm or the next owner had any plans with the building.

At the beginning of the nineties an anarchist French artists’ group occupied the building and for a while it functioned as a squatted house, on a half-illegal basis. Performances, concerts, fine art happenings were held in the venue in great number, in the spaces subject to an ever increasing decay. Artus Theatre has even shot a film here with the Israeli group, Vertigo.

György Szabó, the present manager of Trafó House of Contemporary Arts, came up with the idea of transforming the venue into a modern cultural centre which would function as a receiving venue for the innovative Hungarian and foreign companies. He also took  a lion’s share in the realization. Finally the Budapest City Council bought the building with leftover funds from the unrealized World Expo in which the Trafó House of Contemporary Arts was established, as a successor of the Andrássy Avenue Young Artists’ Club (FMK).  The festive opening event was in October 1998 with a piece by Yvette Bozsik.

The industrial hall could convert it into a suitable, multifunctional, well equipped contemporary arts center appropriate for the current times. The reconstruction was designed by Judit Schell and Mátyás Gaskó, the interior by Benedek Prikkel.  A main point during the execution was to enable the possibility for the building to be flexibly enlarged – which until now has been only a distant plan.  Besides being a receiving venue for the most innovative theatrical performances of all genres, TRAFÓ mainly specialises today in dance and movement theatre.

The Trafó building, once the electrical transformer station for south Pest, was built in 1909 as a work in the industrial turn-of-the-century style. It was put to cultural use by a French anarchist artistic group at the beginning of the 90's, who discovered the building after it had been abandoned for more than forty years. Performances and concerts followed one another for a summer. The Budapest City Council bought the building with leftover funds from the unrealized World Expo so that the legal successor to the legendary Young Artists' Club (FMK), formerly on Andrassy út, could convert it into a suitable, multifunctional, well equipped contemporary arts center appropriate for the current times. The Trafó House of Contemporary Arts opened its gates during the 1998 Budapest Autumn Festival with a piece by Yvette Bozsik.