about

How can a creative group in today’s world find a place for refreshing architectural and artistic pastime in a small town of Eger’s scale, characterized
by general (also cultural) emigration? Only if they create a suitable environment for themselves.
   The idea of the arkt arts centre was conceived in 2013, as a large proportion of our time and mental capacities were liberated on account of the economic recession. In recent years, the revitalization of existing buildings has come to the fore. Out of this impulse, as our own initiative, we contacted the local government to provide us a building that no one found the inspiration to refurbish and was too expensive to maintain. We opted for the former GAMESZ (Economic Technical Supplier and Service Provider Organization) building, located on the premises of the historical Gárdonyi Garden, next to the Géza Gárdonyi Memorial Museum, vacant for years and deteriorated by slow decay, marked as dangerous in the city’s cadastre. We received the building of nearly 400 m2 floor space and the 4200 m2 plot with native trees for a 15-year lease.
   In defining our requirements and aesthetic standards, our guideline was to satisfy the basic technical requirements, but in terms of usability, we sought to achieve maximal functionality. In a collaboration involving the social sphere, the institutional sphere, and the construction industry, we managed to realize an exemplary renovation, making the most efficient use of only already available resources, entirely without seed capital and cash flow. We reversed the usual course of planning: first, we found material support for the required tasks and then came up with architectural solutions to match the materials offered by sponsors. Using the construction materials received and recycling the objects found on site, we managed to activate the building in less than a year.
   In addition to our contacts in the construction industry, established throughout the years, we involved some students of the local Bornemissza Gergely Polytechnic High School, the municipal library and the convicts of the Heves County Penitentiary too. Planning gained new meaning and construction became a collective activity. The greatest added value of the project turned out to be the growing social network of organizers and collaborators. The process rendered people’s presence personal, owing to which friendships and relationships were formed, and as a result, the building itself lost some of its significance, as the human relationships became much more important. This is how the Arkt Művészeti Ellátó (Arkt Art Provider) was brought to life as a centre for engineering, arts, and culture, and a community space.