Donát Rabb (1976)
Ákos Schreck (1976)
Zsolt Alexa (1977)

minusplus_architects

Zsolt Alexa:
...Three of us work together and we call ourselves a team. The team works well not because three good architects work together and try and solve all the problems that arise, but because we constantly communicate with each other about everything and share our thoughts and problems, not only about design or architecture, but on everything. Our relationship dates back to our college years, but we were able to develop that further. You need to work on it on a daily basis.

...There was a time when the boundaries between work and free time were really blurred, we couldn't tell the difference between when we were working and when we weren't.

Ákos Schreck:
...I'm fine. I see some light. It's about how to incorporate certain spheres of activity, certain things into our lives, which help us see farther.

...In our line of work, freedom is choosing which competition to participate in and how to carry them out. This is where we can create, where we have more influence. To be more exact, to carry out projects that fit into a line of more intelligent, far-reaching architecture. We are looking for more comprehensive assignments where the results point further than the mere design of a building.

Donát Rabb:
...As I was nearing the end of my university studies, my father told me a story: In China, young people go to work for a master potter with the goal of eventually becoming potters themselves. They begin learning the trade and make beautiful dishes. They roam the country for years to learn different techniques. Years pass and the time for the final test arrives. The master tells them to make a very beautiful dish. With utmost precision and high spirits they prepare their work. When they hand them in to the master, however, he smashes them against the ground. When asked why he did so, he answers: the important thing is not where we have arrived, but the road on which we got there.

...I think we're all fanatics, which is by all means positive. When we go out for a beer, by the time we get to the second one we're talking architecture. Whether we turn the computer off, close our notebooks or put the pencil down, things continue inside and we try to carry forward the things we happen to be working on, or things we'd like to work on in the future.

Karácsony Tamás:
..There's one thing that holds everything together for me, and that's team-work.

...I don't really have any expectations, either negative or positive. I don't think being a member of the EU is going to mean too much of a change in my life. For the boys who are going to take my place soon it probably means something very different, because they're just starting their career. It won't be easy for them, I don't think that openness in itself would make things easier. It has its own pitfalls. The first eight years when I started my career were spent in a totally closed setting. I withdrew to Esztergom and rarely came to Budapest. I didn't have the chance to. But looking back, those eight years turned out to be a time of maturation. If it wouldn't have happened that way, I'd be a totally different person. It wasn't bad, stewing away, but it could have been, the potential to go nuts was there.

...I'm willing to do anything, from the smallest to the biggest. I find my own sense of satisfaction and the joy of playing together in everything. I think that could even be a recipe. That you need to handle everything with the same weight, whether it's a small or large project.

General and Specialized School, Csorna

One of the most important challenges facing Hungarian architecture today is the lifting of regional architecture into contemporary thinking. Beyond formal questions it mainly demands an understanding of the contemporary structure and functioning of the settlements and also transforming the position of fast-disappearing inherent traditions. Two schools have been built in Csorna over the last two years. The town is one of the centers of the Kisalföld region of Hungary, with a traditional urban structure of agricultural cities. The design and functioning of the second and smaller school can be interpreted as a study on the town and the possible typologies of activity within its structure. The taut mass is carved out of the cubic plot with paths and spaces modelling typical small-town public spaces and routes. The halls, stairs and open areas connecting the groups of internal spaces are condensed and intense variations of the townscape, its transparencies and forms of movement. The children who spend the majority of their time here, and who are handicapped to various degrees, have thus received their own 'education' of the town, a guide book to its streets and squares, which they would otherwise be able to use only to a much more limited degree.