Attila Kotányi (; 1924,

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

– 18 October 2003,

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second- ...

) was a poet, philosopher,

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

and

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

-urbanist. In his early years in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

, Attila Kotányi belonged to the Budapest Dialogical School an intellectual circle of philosopher Lajos Szabó (with whom he maintained a philosophical conversation for 20 years) and

Béla Hamvas Béla Hamvas (23 March 1897 – 7 November 1968) was a Hungarian writer, philosopher, and social critic. He was the first thinker to introduce the Traditionalist School of René Guénon to Hungary. Biography Béla Hamvas was born on 23 Mar ...

. In 1956, after the failed Hungarian revolution, he emigrated with his family to

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

where he continued studying and eventually graduated in

urbanism Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment. It is a direct component of disciplines such as urban planning, which is the profession focusing on the physical design and ...

. In 1960 he became a member of the Situationist International (SI). His contributions to the SI's journal include ''Gangland and Philosophy'' (1960), ''Basic Program of the Bureau of Unitary Urbanism'' (1961) co-authored with

Raoul Vaneigem Raoul Vaneigem (; born 21 March 1934) is a Belgian writer known for his 1967 book ''The Revolution of Everyday Life''. He was born in Lessines ( Hainaut, Belgium) and studied romance philology at the Free University of Brussels from 1952 to 1 ...

, and ''Theses on the Paris Commune'' (1962) co-authored with Guy Debord and Raoul Vaneigem. He was excluded from the SI in December 1963. Later he moved to Düsseldorf, Germany, where he taught for 12 years at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. Beyond poetry and philosophical conversations he also painted and did smaller architectural works. In the 1990s he returned to Budapest where he pursued the last active period of his life, gathering a steady circle of young intellectuals in his Saturday afternoon conversations where he was elaborating on his Sabbath-theory, the radical suspension of activity. He died in Düsseldorf due to complications of a stroke.

References

External links

* Attila Kotányi Papers. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kotanyi, Attila 1924 births 2003 deaths Situationists Academic staff of Kunstakademie Düsseldorf Hungarian emigrants to Belgium