Panelház

[4] After World War II a serious housing crisis developed in Hungary due to rapid population growth and urbanization.

[2] After several study visits and conventions, in the early 1960s Hungary bought the large-panel system (LPS) from the Soviet Union and Denmark.

[2] The Danish technology was known as the Larsen-Nielsen system and was a common housing method in Western Europe, Turkey, and Hong Kong.

[2] After the 1968 Ronan Point explosion (a Larsen-Nielsen-type tower block partial collapse in London), Hungarian engineers modified the original system, made the structure more compact and the joints stronger.

[1] The first, experimental panel residential building was built in Dunaújváros (new industrial city) in 1961, followed by other blocks in Pécs and Debrecen in 1963.

[1] The structure of Hungarian cities in the immediate post-war period consisted of a historic core surrounded by mostly single-story buildings and workers' houses, predominantly on unpaved streets.

Two and three-bedroom sunny apartments with district heating, piped hot water, and flush toilets replaced what had been predominantly one-bedroom dwellings without modern conveniences.

[15] The society of panel housing estates was heterogeneous until the privatization in the early 1990s (after the fall of the Communism), when the poor and the rich fled from these buildings, making them middle class characteristic.