MOVIE NEWS – The film Brutalist, which won three Oscars, has once again put Hungarian modernist architecture on the world map, and nothing better could have happened to Budapest. The new walk of the long-legged.are we walking? explores the world of Bauhaus architects, who occasionally rivaled each other, often fostering decades-long friendships, and who were united by the belief and idea that it was possible to live in healthier and happier cities in the 20th century. Discoveries, new inventions and technological progress brought such a buzz to Budapest between the two world wars that it left a lasting mark on Western civilization.

Although the film’s protagonist, László Tóth, was born from the imagination of director Brady Corbet, the character’s world is rooted here. The idea for the Brutalist story came to the director when he read the story of the construction of a Benedictine abbey in Minnesota. The architect was Marcel Breuer, and it soon turned out that many Hungarian architects and designers fled Budapest to start a new life in America. The film’s protagonist, László Tóth, is the essence of the lives of many modernist architects in Budapest.

“It’s like they’re building a whole bunch of bathrooms.” – Milán Füst grimaced, while Sándor Márai directly compared the tubular furniture they dreamed up to “modern urinals in train stations”. Yet, many people, from Budapest’s wealthiest citizens to the Franciscan order, felt that they would rather live in airy, modern spaces than in old, stuffy buildings.

The long-walk.are we walking? walk on Rózsadombi reveals how houses designed in laboratories clashed with reality and the needs of clients, and how the once passionate young people were torn apart in World War II.

A walk about what Budapest could have been like.