Many participants at this year’s ECLAS conference in Aas/Norway might remember the afternoon when we planted memorial trees in the garden of the NMBU campus in honor of the greatest school-founding professors. Among the honored professors was Mihály Mőcsényi from Hungary, who was awarded with the Geoffrey Jellicoe Prize in 2012.
On December 2, 2019, the Faculty of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism at Szent István University in Budapest celebrated the 100th birthday of Professor Mihály Mőcsényi with a conference at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in memory of his professional life.
Foreign and Hungarian presenters praised the professor for his outstanding work. As some of the presenters used to be his students, so the presentations were enriched with personal memories, as well.
Maguelonne Déjeant-Pons, on behalf of the Council of Europe, presented the concept of developing the European Landscape Convention, then Krisztina Kincses spoke about the tasks of the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture responsible for implementing the Convention. The Hungarian National Landscape Strategy (2017 – 2026) can be downloaded in English. Ellen Fetzer and Barbara Birli gave a presentation on the early development of landscape architecture education in Europe, including an outlook on emerging competence fields. Professor Imre Jámbor talked about Mőcsényi’s research in the field of horticulture and art history, about the development history of the Eszterházy-Fertőd castle – garden – park – landscape ensemble.
In the professional work of Mihály Mőcsényi, the concept of landscape and the establishment of the discipline of landscape planning were extremely important for the development of the profession. Some presenters appreciated his achievement is this field. The presentation of Eszter Bakay and Kinga Szilágyi evaluated the public parks designed by Professor Mőcsényi in the context of the late modern landscape architecture.
The following day, the event continued with a poster exhibition about the life of Professor Mőcsényi at the Budapest Architectural Center and with the commemoration of his former colleagues. Based on the research of Mőcsényi archives, the exhibition presents Mihály Mőcsényi, as a polyhistor, who obtained university degrees in four different scientific fields. 24 posters demonstrated the main stages and achievements of his personal and professional career.
The full poster documentation can be downloaded here.
Esther Bakay
ECLAS EXCO
