Thanks to the collaboration between the Hungarian Fashion & Design Agency and the Public Collection Centre of the Hungarian National Museum – Museum of Applied Arts, an exhibition showcasing the work of one of Hungary’s most significant product designers, Sándor Borz Kováts, is on view for the first time in Hungary, embedded within the 360DBP exhibition.
Born in 1940, Sándor Borz Kováts lived only 33 years, yet he became a defining product designer of his generation. He was an assistant lecturer at the Budapest College of Applied Arts at the same time as Ernő Rubik, the inventor of the Rubik’s Cube, whom he greatly influenced, as he did many others. He was among the first in Hungary to represent system-level design. Borz Kováts designed, developed, and realised objects suitable for standardised production – at a time when the country lacked the industrial infrastructure, resources, and market necessary for such endeavours. He built the first catamaran on Lake Balaton, designed a music school and a university campus, boutiques in rural Hungary in the 1960s, as well as tubular and fibreglass furniture, modular lamp collections, and even falconry bells.
First presented at the Design Museum Brussels, the exhibition within the exhibition displayed Borz Kováts’s works alongside contemporary design pieces and formal counterparts from the museum’s plastics collection. Besides the works of Sándor Borz Kováts, the domestic exhibition also features a model and video materials created by students of the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design. The exhibition’s curator, Dr Judit Horváth, museologist and head of the Contemporary Design Collection Department at the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest, guides visitors through the selection in a series of exclusive curator-led tours.
Discover nearly 400 works by contemporary Hungarian and regional designers and creative industry manufacturers at the 360 Design Budapest exhibition, showcased alongside the iconic designs of Sándor Borz Kováts. You can register for the exclusive guided tours HERE.