“The Department of Architectural History and Monuments Preservation at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) celebrated the 150th anniversary of its foundation—and that of its predecessor institutions—in 2020. The department is one of the key pillars of Hungarian architectural education: beyond teaching architectural history, heritage conservation, and architectural theory, it played a fundamental role in laying the foundations for architectural design education in Hungary. For the anniversary, a new visual identity and a volume presenting the department’s work were created.

The identity’s central element is the Esztergom rose window, a motif of profound symbolic meaning. Since antiquity, the rose has symbolized beauty in European culture; in Christian iconography it is associated with the heavenly realm, paradise, and the Virgin Mary—appearing, for example, in Cistercian architecture. The rose also signifies a paradisiacal, fulfilled state and eternal life.

The rose window is the architectural manifestation of this symbol and represented one of the greatest professional challenges in the Middle Ages. Shaping heavy stone structures into lace-like forms and dematerializing them through incoming light required extraordinary craftsmanship. In general, the window expresses the dematerializing power of light and the continual transformation of interior surfaces; together with stained glass—as described by Abbot Suger—it became the most precise instrument for creating a transcendent sacred space. The logo’s woven, delicate linework alludes to this celestial, light-filtered radiance.

The circularity of the rose window carries the Neoplatonic symbolism of the circle: an image of the world’s wholeness and perfection—an ideal architecture itself strives for. Architecture is bound to historical periods yet seeks timeless dimensions: enduring tools of spatial formation and abstract relations that have always existed. The rose window thus stands as a symbol of timelessness.

A missing segment in the logo’s outer ring refers to the department’s heritage-preservation profile—its work with ruins and fragments. It also hints at the department’s mission to search for architectural completeness: the seven spokes signify the fullness of the world, which resolves in the middle ring. The form also reflects the department’s distinct methodology in Hungary: research grounded in measured drawing and faithful survey, and the conviction that by revealing geometrical and structural laws, we can approach architecture’s enduring relations.”

—Prof. János Krähling, Head of Department