„Nagyon keveset tudtam a nagyon szeretett szakmámban dolgozni.” Lázár Elzy építész
“I Could Do Too Little in the Profession I Deeply Cherish”. Elzy Lázár, Architect

Summary/Abstract: Elzy Lázár is the co-designer of the Cluj modernist villa designed in Gio Ponti’s office in Milan, built in 1938 at nr. 17 Rosetti Street, known by the local professionals as “the most famous” and the “most beautiful house in the city” or “the Ponti villa”. The house was commissioned by Coriolan Tătaru (doctor, professor, Medical University dean, mayor, politician), known as a friend of the Lázár family. The architect, raised in a wealthy background, has studied in Vienna with prominent Central European architects and has begun her career at the most famous Italian architect of her time, with a design immediately published in the Domus magazine. Little was known about one of the best architects of Cluj ‒ in spite of her only known design ‒, but new information has emerged lately, that I synthesized in the present paper. No other building projects of the architect are known, only stage designs, documented in the local press (1939-1940). The Second World War, the Holocaust and Communism have kept her away from design, but after emigrating in the 1960s to Israel, despite her age, she did not give up, as her correspondence with Gio Ponti shows.

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