In retrospect, this is not an interview, more a biography based on several long conversations:
Szilárd
Szabad was born in a family of Hungarian, or to be more specific, Transylvanian,
artisans. Both his father and grandfather were carpenters. The grandfather was
a local tycoon who received all local commissions; the father was raised by a catholic priest as the first pupil in a Hungarian public school, he became an organist and
studied to be a teacher. But his involvement in the young labor movement
stopped his career, so he became a carpenter too. As an itinerant carpenter he
could walk from village to village, perhaps primarily to have a chance to propagate
his ideas.
Szilárd
grew up in Nagybánya, then a small town, now a large Romanian mining town
called Baia Mare. The times were difficult, with a World War ending with the
peace treaty in Trianon, Versailles, in 1920 that transferred the Hungarian
district Transylvania to Romania. Since the former Austria-Hungary had disintegrated, Hungary
alone was divided and had over 70 percent of its area made into new states or
handed over to neighbor nations.
But Transylvania had
since long a dominant proportion of Romanian dwellers and the change of
nationality did not mean an immediate disaster for the Hungarian population. [It would get worse. This is a
complicated issue, and anyone wanting to learn more will find a wealth of
documents at http://www.hungarian-history.hu/lib/rum.htm.
Wikipedia has texts on the Trianon treaty and Transylvania.
– Romania needed the
Hungarians, and especially the artisans, to rebuild the country. But I didn’t
want to live under their rule. I did my military service, without learning
Romanian, but I learned Esperanto. I left the country and in Belgium I met a
Swede who spoke Esperanto and who told me about your Technical evening school.
Szilárd
took a chance, went to Sweden, found a job at his friend’s carpenter’s workshop
and was accepted at the Stockholm Technical Institute – in the aero-technical
section. He had after all invented a helicopter back home – a construction that
still rests among his papers, quite different from conventional conceptions. He
studied between 1937 and 1941, but the World War made him lose his interest in
aviation. He also realized that a foreigner had small chances finding a job in
the war–dominated airplane industry.
He had daytime jobs
during the four years in evening school, the second job as an assistant to a model
builder. He remembers building a model of the old parliament’s interior.
A neighbour to the
workshop was Sigurd Johansson, who made window displays and advertising for the
Hasselblad chain of shops, the local Eastman Kodak. When Szilárd opened his own workshop to build foundry models, he soon had
requests from Hasselblad. The war had stopped the import and now they needed
someone who could repair cameras and cassettes. He soon got tired of fixing
broken cassettes and build a series of 50 new ones. Hasselblad immediately
ordered 500, and over the years the production would run into tens of
thousands.
Build us a
better camera!
The
photographers from the nearby studio of Herman Bergne (Birger Eriksson, Ole
Werner, Erik Lundquist and others) all worked with the Eastman studio camera, a
solid construction I wood with a fixed front and a back with limited movements.
Szilárd improved the Eastman construction with a swing and tilt back. He
recently found his old designs, dated October 27, 1945. Soon a second prototype
with an adjustable front was made and Hasselblad’s main office in Gothenburg
ordered 10.The Stockholm branch wanted another 40. Most were made for 12 x 16,5 cm negatives, eventually also for 9 x 12 cm.
But he couldn’t put
his name on them; they were to be named the Hasselblad Universal camera. What can a poor
carpenter do? It still makes him bitter, having worked several years in
anonymity. When he was asked, several years later, to produce a line of
Hasselblad tripods, he answered:
– I have no Hasselblad
tripods, only Szabad tripods.
The first cameras were
built for the negative size 12 x 16 cm (slightly smaller than 5 x 7 inch).
Later, smaller ones for 9 x 12 cm (4 x 5) were made. All built from Mahogany
and in several batches with improvements added for each batch. Eventually the
cameras were numbered (on the back of the base frame) but the system is still a
bit unclear.
Bellows constituted a
special problem. Wartime material was to stiff and thick; only years later
would the quality improve. In anyone in the staff merits mention, it is Ingrid
Isaksson who folded and glued all 1500 bellows with great skill, still finding
time to help with other chores.
The black line
The red cameras had
been improved, step-by-step. But in 1952, Szilárd was ready to manufacture a new
construction, now in black wood and polished metal. An important change was the small metal plate on the front proudly displaying the name Szabad - no more Hasselblad cameras!
The most
important changes were the fixed base, that allowed a double extension, and the
vertical supports made of metal.
The old
model had metal supports screwed to a wooden base, and the back part of the
base was a separate frame, that photographers frequently forgot on jobs. Now
the camera back with the ground–glass could be turned, and both the front and
the back were affixed to the bottom part. Both could be folded upwards when the
camera was closed. The back part hooked on to the knob that secured the
ground–glass and it took a little trick to get it unhooked – something young
photograper Sten–Didrik Bellander didn’t know when he brought his new camera to
a job and couldn’t open it in front of his customers!
The new
cameras also featured a double rise on the front and a sliding tripod platform
in order to get a good balance.
Of this
series, about 50 were exported to the USA, most of them 8 x 10s. The American
importer advertised them with the slogan Swedish quality and could have sold many more. But the
small workshop in Stockholm, that moved away from the demolition of downtown
Stockholm to Tavastgatan in the south side of the city, could only handle a
limited production.
The last
run was built in 1962. Szabad had
then built about 1500 cameras.
In addition to that,
he had manufactured a few special things, as 25 studio-cameras for
Hasselblad, based on an old construction. The last job was two repro-cameras
for the City Museum and the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. Two more for SAAB and
an enlarger for the army council, all for the format 24 x 30 cm. Finally he built the
whole studio for the National Museum of Arts, including another repro-camera
for 30 x 40 cm.
Szilárd
closed his workshop, moved around to some smaller cities as Trosa, where the
very last camera (18 x 24) was assembled in his kitchen from the remaining
parts.
When I met
him, he lived in a small house in the village of Vansbro, some 300 kilometers
northwest from Stockholm. He was now and then visited by younger
photographers who had acquired a camera in need of care. And care did they get, as
prodigal children finally at home.
One
morning, Szilárd came to see me with one of his cassettes in his hand.
– I did not
build all of them myself, but I have at least held each and every one of them in
my hands.
The carpenter’s hands still remembered.
