Panofsky's oeuvre reminds us that changing the perspective is a precious yet scarcely executed exercise. He did no less than subverting the idea of 'Renaissance' as a singularity with a striking statement: There was not one but many 'Renaissances'.

His case resembles emerging tendencies in architecture which point out recurrences beyond established categories, instead of 'anchoring' topics in time and space. ‘Functionalism’, which will most likely experience a revival in the centennial of the Bauhaus, offers, hereby, a suitable playground for reflection: Could functionalism possibly be reassessed as recurrent narrative – as consecutive functionalisms?

The idea is to liberate the notion from historicizing straitjackets through the lens of non-Western environments. The text will be, hence, based on the Hungarian case tracing experimental architecture in the 30s, socialist housing in the 60s and contemporary urbanisation tendencies, which have materialised in rapid succession.