Péter Román Árpád
Earth as building material in the Hungarian folk architecture

The aim of the paper is to present those changes and factors which transformed the basically wooden architecture of the Carpathian basin during the stay of the Hungarians into the increased use of earth in rural architecture. As a result, earth became a determining building material on the majority of the country's territory (90%) by the second half of the 19th century. In the first half of the paper the more sifgnificant historical events are presented, in which changes are rooted. The second part is about the characteristic earth-based wall-structures, which spread and were determining in rural architecture till the pre-20th century. It specifies those earth-based techniques which were made possible by this variously usable simple material in folk architecture.

Péter Román Árpád graduated as an engineer of wood-processing and wood-technology at the University of West-Hungary and later obtained a second diploma as a heritage expert and conservation engineer at the Technical University of Budapest. Since 2003 he is working at the open-air museum in Szentendre, with tasks related to vernacular architecture and especially wooden vernacular architecture. During the building of the ensemble named "The Upland-agricultural Town" he fulfilled different engineering tasks. Afterwards he was the engineer in charge for the construction works for the ensemble "Northern Hungarian village", taking part in preparatory research and survey, the development of the concept, planning and contracting procedures. Román Árpád attends the building process as technical expert of the museum is in charge of inspection on an daily base. From 2013-on he am also in charge of the Szenna Museum as a technical expert and takes part in the planning of the new museal concept of the open-air exhibition.