The project team consists of generationally and academically diverse prominent experts in their respective professional and scientific fields, joining forces to deepen the dialogue between Croatian and Hungarian researchers, doctoral candidates, academic supervisors, and museum curators dedicated to the research of architectural heritage of both countries from the end of the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Based on the thesis of vertical and horizontal transfer of knowledge, the two main research topics are:
1) the knowledge dissemination via the Hungarian architectural schools and projects funded by the Hungarian state authorities, and
2) the democratic process of knowledge exchange via the national and international professional associations (in form of journals, magazines, exhibitions, congresses and conferences, study and professional trips, etc.).
The team of Croatian researchers is led by Tamara Bjažić Klarin, Ph.D., architect, Senior Research Associate and Head of the Research Unit for Built Heritage of the 19th and 20th centuries at the Institute of Art History in Zagreb. From the Hungarian side, the project is led by András Ferkai, D.Sc., architect, Professor Emeritus of Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME) Budapest, as the external associate of the Hungarian Museum of Architecture and Monument Protection Documentation Center. Tamara Bjažić Klarin and András Ferkai have collaborated in the projects Atlas of Functional City and Comparative Urban Analysis (gta ETH, Zürich, 2012–2014) and in the platform Makers of Modernity. Modernist Architects and Socio-Political Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. 1920s-1950s (KU, Leuven, 2017–2020), which results were recently published in the Journal of Modern European History (2020). The members of both Croatian and Hungarian team have already successfully collaborated in a number of European and bilateral research and exhibition projects.
Along with Tamara Bjažić Klarin as the head researcher, the members of the Croatian team are museum advisor Marina Bagarić, Ph.D., doctoral student Boris Dundović, M.Arch. and conservation architect, and Mauro Sirotnjak, M.Arch. Recent collaboration of Marina Bagarić and Boris Dundović is of a particular importance, for they co-authored the grand international exhibition Ars et Virtus. Croatia-Hungary: 800 Years of Shared Cultural Heritage (2020). In the process of the exhibition preparation, they collaborated with leading Hungarian museum institutions like the Hungarian National Museum and the Hungarian Museum of Architecture, just to list a couple. With the latter, Boris Dundović has successfully collaborated in the past, on several scientific and professional studies dealing with the topic of built heritage. Within the tasks of the project, Mauro Sirotnjak will do a preliminary research and defining the topic of his doctoral thesis.
With András Ferkai, D.Sc., as the principal researcher, the Hungarian project team brings together the leading experts of the Hungarian Museum of Architecture – art historians and museologists Eszter Baldavári, Pál Ritoók and Ágnes Anna Sebestyén. The team from the Hungarian Museum of Architecture has research and curatorial experience in 19th and 20th century architectural history. As the member of ICAM (International Confederation of Architectural Museums) and Docomomo International, the Hungarian Museum of Architecture has strong international connections in the fields of museum practices and heritage protection. This has led to fruitful collaborations with leading architectural museums and research centres on an international level.