Hungary
Society continues to change. In the 1990s, city
dwellers and foreigners started to buy houses in
the villages. These newcomers visit periodically
and generally do not take part in community life
or are excluded from it. If one-third of the houses
are bought up by city dwellers and foreigners, and
another third belong to elderly people in their sixties
or seventies, only the final third is available for local
families and the younger generation. City dwellers
longing for a move to the country, or people search-
ing for a second home, do not want to run a farm,
so they rebuild their new residences as summer
cottages and the environs are also subordinated to
this function.
But there are also new farmers coming from the cit-
ies who are interested in growing plants and keep-
ing animals. Such people stay in touch with the city,
and thus are not interested in establishing a self-
supporting, peasant-like style of farming. Though
they produce food, both for their own consumption
and for sale, they often have ecological ideas which
are new to the communities they have joined.
In villages where subsistence farming cannot be
revived, these newcomers bring new thinking. Their
ideas and their new methods of farming will influ-
ence the villagers’ way of thinking too. Hopefully
these changes will lead to a revival of rural life in
villages like Bonnya.
Design philosophy
The designer, Gábor Szücs, works at the PAGONY
Landscape and Garden Design Company, which is
influenced by the renowned organic architectural
studio led by the eminent architect, Imre Makovecz.
PAGONY Landscape and Garden Design Company
builds, in its own way, upon the organic approach,
and this influences everything from the initial rela-
tionship with the client to the changing life of the
garden and the requirements of future users. The
aim is to create a living system and not to have a
still, frozen, static construction.
According to Gábor Szücs, a designer can only cre-
ate a really excellent garden if he is a good observer.
The reasons for this are twofold. First, observation
allows one to recognise the spirit of the place,
so that it is possible to create new things which
arise from the character of the landscape. Second,
accurate observation of the client’s personality is
essential in order to connect the place with the
person. Gábor Szücs’s approach was developed
after a study tour to Switzerland where he was
influenced by the writings of Jochen Bockemühl,
who was formerly the head of the Institute for
Natural Sciences at the Goetheanum at Dornach.
Without the ability to observe, says the designer,
there can be no cooperation between client and
designer. The designer must recognise and mediate
all the associations that lie in the client’s hidden,
