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Kozma, Lajos
(b Kiskorpád, 3 June 1884; d Budapest, 26 Nov 1948). Hungarian architect, interior and furniture designer, and graphic artist. He studied at the Budapest Imperial Joseph College (diploma 1906) and joined the Fiatalok (‘Young ones’) group, which travelled around Transylvania and Hungary studying vernacular architecture. Dominating his early designs (e.g. the fantasy house ‘Lapis Refugii’, 1908; see HUNGARY, fig. 18) is a luxuriant Secessionist style relying on Hungarian folk-art motifs. After a study trip to Paris (1909–10) he worked at Béla Lajta’s architectural studio in Budapest (1910–13), designing the interior of the Rózsavolgyi music store in Szervita Square (1911–12; destr. 1961). The interior space was separated by transparent, vertical screens, while the carved-wood ornamentation was in a stylized version of Biedermeier. In 1913 Kozma organized the Budapest Workshop on the same lines as the Wiener Werkstätte, to produce furniture, domestic textiles and utility goods, and designs for entire apartment and office spaces (see HUNGARY, §V, 4). His design in the 1920s was stamped Kozma-Baroque. He also became a teacher at the School of Applied Arts, Budapest at this time. Graphics and book illustrations were produced primarily in cooperation with the Kner Press in Gyula. At the end of the 1920s he turned towards objective functionalism in architecture, but, unlike the Hungarian CIAM group, he was motivated by formalist rather than social principles. He was concerned with high-quality building materials and that architecture should blend in with the environment; most of his villas are closed off from the street and face a garden with terraces, steps and pergolas. His elegant family houses, with flat roofs and sash windows, often have high natural stone or brick plinths and simple bannisters (e.g. Berkenye Street (1936) and Somlói Street (1938), both in Budapest). The Atrium cinema and apartment block (1935–6) on Margit Korut in Budapest has a symmetrical façade, and above a glass porch the centre of the building projects slightly and ends in loggias. The building demonstrates Kozma’s functional style. His Lupa Island summer house (1935), which has a long cantilevered projecting terrace, was well publicized at the time as an important example of contemporary architecture.
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