After World War II, the Rákosi-system has not just spread the communist views, but the cruelties of a system trying to keep its citizens in line outlined as well.
Most were under the constant inspection of people around them. „Enemies” of the system have had their lives rendered impossible, risked jail, labour camp, internment and execution.
People not only didn’t know of the labour camp of Recsk, the Hungarian Gulag: even the captivated just vanished into thin air. Even those who made it home had to take the story of Recsk to the grave: it was a secret the system had to keep, even after eliminating the camps.
The key concept was to grasp and highlight the contradictory drama of hiding and remembering.
The building is half-buried, but its ominous body emerges at the same time.
The two qualities unite in one contradictory composition, symbolizing the two-faced nature of the system. It reveals the tension between perception and reality: the perfectly polished stone surfaces of the entryway and the desert of raw quarrystone upon leaving.
The design considers stone and mining symbols of the internation camp: two fundamentally different surfaces formed by one material.
The route of a visitor starts by going right under the emerging cantilever stone. Visitors have to „disappear” just like the interned people did to grasp the essence of the exhibition.
All visual connections with the outside world are lost. After that, it only opens up at the end: at the tower of quarrystone, a material reminiscent of the immense work the interned had to do. Only then, visitors emerge physically and mentally, flashing up the possibility of an escape.
