obituary
The distinguished architect György Kévés died at the weekend at the age of 88. He was awarded the Ybl Prize in 1973 and the Kossuth State Prize in 2007.
Kévés was named “Artist of the Nation” in 2002 and was a full member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts (MMA) from 2023. The MMA praised the deceased, whom it considers its own dead, as an architect who was active both in public life and at He created a lasting work in the organization of art exhibitions. Throughout his life, Kévés collaborated with the most important representatives of various art genres. All of this was influenced by his Hausmann-inspired approach, which made him unique throughout his life.
Lightweight construction system developed
György Kévés was born in Ősi in 1935, not far from Székesfehérvár. He received his diploma in 1959 at the Faculty of Architecture at the TU Budapest. From the 1960s he was a designer at industrial building planning companies, where he designed numerous public buildings. In 1970 he developed a “lightweight construction system” primarily for the construction of schools, kindergartens and crèches, which was based on domestic production.
Unusual terrace houses
He had been running his own architectural office with his wife, Éva Földvári, since 1964. The so-called terrace houses they designed in Buda are among the most unusual buildings of that time. His more significant architectural achievements include buildings and laboratories for KÖFÉM in Székesfehérvár (1963) and the entire Orczy city center (1998-2007). He won the International Real Estate Association FIABCI award twice for the Orczy Forum. In 1999 he founded the Kévés Studio Gallery, which has organized around a hundred exhibitions over the last two decades.
György Kévés was a guest lecturer at the TU Budapest between 1963 and 1976, and until 1984 he taught at the master school of the Hungarian Association of Architects (MÉSZ). In the 1980s and 1990s he was repeatedly a guest lecturer at Washington University in St. Louis.
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