MAKOVECZ, IMRE - GERLE, JANOS

Axel Menges. 2006. Helshirting med smudsomslag. Nice copy. Edition Axel Menges, 2006. 252 pp. 25 x 33 cm. Full cloth in dust jacket. Richly illustrated in colour and b/w. At the start of this book Imre Makovecz gently criticises the commentators who first brought his work to the West. He is grateful to them of course, but he claims they only half understood, simplifying and misinterpreting. They presented him as a heroic rebel against the communist system, rather than seeing his battle against a larger enemy that we all still face: this he calls impersonal intelligence. When he remarks that architecture is not regarded as an art in Hungary, but as a service, and that it has no place in the Ministry of Culture, we find it all too familiar. Most bold and most intriguing is Makoveczs claim to be tapping into ancient and universal folk memories that are lodged in hand-made patterns, gestures and even dance. Over the last century we have had to revise our sense of civilisation, for cities and writing are but five thousand years old, yet our forebears tens of thousand years ago could scarcely have been less intelligent and communicative than ourselves.