Ferenc Rákóczi II’s House in Tekirdağ, Türkiye, Surveyed by BME Architecture Students

Every Hungarian schoolchild knows that after the defeat of the Rákóczi War of Independence, its leader lived in Tekirdağ, then known as Rodosto, in what is now Türkiye. Fewer people, however, know that the former dining house of the prince still stands in the town on the shores of the Sea of Marmara. This summer, the building became the subject of a BME project, in which students of the Faculty of Architecture surveyed it using both traditional and digital tools.

Organising architectural surveying camps abroad is a long-standing tradition at BME’s Department for History of Architecture and Monument Preservation, with previous projects taking place in Burgundy and Transylvania, for example. Last year, in cooperation with BME’s Department of Building Construction, a camp was organised in Milas, Türkiye, another town with strong historical ties to Hungary. Both the previous year’s and this year’s projects were coordinated by the Liszt Institute – Hungarian Cultural Centre in Istanbul.

“We look for sites with links to Hungarian history, and as this year marks the 350th anniversary of the birth of Ferenc Rákóczi II, his former dining house in Tekirdağ was an obvious choice,” 

Gergő Máté Kovács, Deputy Director of the Liszt Institute, told bme.hu. He himself is also a graduate of BME’s Faculty of Architecture.

After Rákóczi arrived in the Ottoman Empire in 1717, the local authorities provided an entire street for him and his loyal followers, who had accompanied him into exile. “Most of those houses have since disappeared, but the building used by the prince for representative purposes has survived. In 1927, the Hungarian state purchased it and then had it renovated and reconstructed under the direction of István Möller, a professor at BME, in accordance with the original building. It now operates as a museum,” Mr Kovács explained.

That's how the drawings were made

The students produced traditional hand-drawn plans and carried out an accurate architectural survey, while a terrestrial laser scanner was used to create detailed 3D digital documentation. They learned about the methodology of monument surveying and the structural aspects of the building, and compared their findings with Möller’s original drawings. An exhibition based on the work is expected to open next year, following the example of this year’s exhibition presenting the results of the Milas project.

The result of the scan

The Tekirdağ fieldwork was led by Zsuzsanna Emília Kiss, a teacher of engineering at the Department for History of Architecture and Monument Preservation, together with two lecturers from the Department of Building Construction, namely, master lecturer Rita Pataky and teacher of engineering Mátyás Egri. In addition to five BME students, two archaeology students from Pázmány Péter Catholic University and a graphic design student from Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME) took part in the project. Lecturers and students from the local Namık Kemal University also joined. The project was supported by MOL, Turkish Airlines, the Tekirdağ Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, and the Hungarian-Turkish Friendship Society.

The project was covered by the Turkish media (see this report, among others). The state broadcaster TRT filmed on location and the Anadolu news agency also reported on the project.

Rector’s Office, Communications Directorate