Farkas Molnár

1921–1925 Bauhaus student

Portrait of Farkas Molnár, Bauhaus Weimar, Photo: unknown, 1921–1925.
Portrait of Farkas Molnár, Bauhaus Weimar, Photo: unknown, 1921–1925. © Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin.
  • Born 21.6.1897 Pécs, Hungary
  • Died 12.1.1945 Budapest, Ungarn

  • Birth Name Farkas Ferenc Molnár

  • Profession Architect

Farkas Ferenc Molnár was born on 21 June 1897 in Pécs, Hungary. Molnár was a Hungarian architect who emigrated to Germany after the fall of the Republic of Councils in Hungary in 1920. He studied at the Bauhaus in Weimar from 1921 to 1925 under Johannes Itten, and later worked in Walter Gropius’s architecture office. Molnár designed the ‘Red Cube’ for the experimental Bauhaus house, the Haus Am Horn, at the first large Bauhaus exhibition in 1923. The design was not implemented, however, and the jury instead decided in favour of the design by Georg Muche (master of the weaving workshop at the Bauhaus). The building was a major feature of the Bauhaus exhibition in 1923, at which the college presented itself and its products to the public for the first time.
Molnár returned to Hungary in 1925. At the suggestion of Walter Gropius, he founded the Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and was responsible for its Hungarian section. He died on 12 January 1945. [AG 2015]

  1. Literature:
  2. · Farkas Molnár (1925): Life at the Bauhaus, aus dem Ungarischen übersetzt ins Englisch von John Bátki, in: Timothy O. Benson, Éva Forgács (2002): From Between Two Worlds. A Sourcebook of Central European Avant-Gardes, 1910–1930, Cambridge, MA. [Originally published as „Élet a Bauhausban“, Periszkop (June-July 1925)].
    · György Várkonyi (2010): Drachensteiger, in: Júlia Fabényi (Hg.), Von Kunst zu leben. Die Ungarn am Bauhaus, Pécs, S. 198–213.

Farkas Molnár

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