MRA People

Kuratórium

MRA is governed by the Kuratórium:

Kuratórium

Graham Bell

Graham Bell

Graham Bell trained and practiced as an architect for 25 years, working on an RIBA Building of the Year and for an Anglo-Swedish project office, which influenced his European commitment and beginning his professional involvement with Hungary in 1992.

In 1995 he became director of the UK NGO Cultura Trust (established in 1965) and established MRA with Hungarian colleagues in 2007. He has led both organisations with a focus on conservation management of historic areas and protected monuments, and the need to invest in traditional skills training.

He was the UK national coordinator for 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage and is a regular contributor to European policy, programmes and projects. He is a keynote presenter at international conferences and an advisor on subjects such as governance, sustainability and public engagement. He has responsibilities across Europe as a board member of Europa Nostra, and president-elect of the Foundation for European Architectural Heritage Skills. He is a member of ICOMOS Hungary.

Since 2015, MRA has represented Hungary as a partner in a range of Erasmus+, Horizon 2020 and other European consortia programmes on project management, digital cultural heritage, sustainability and cultural tourism. This European experience has informed and enriched 15 years of public benefit activities within Hungary, including collaboration with other NGOs, the Institute of Advanced Studies Kőszeg (iASK), universities and the State’s monument management organisations.

Attila Vámos-Hegyi

Attila Vamos HegyiAttila Vámos-Hegyi was involved in the founding of MRA because of his professional and personal background, which has led him to pay special attention to the preservation of Hungary's cultural heritage. His grandfather was an engineer who designed portals as an expert in window and door structures, but he has also worked on the Gellért Hotel and Spa, the Experimental Medical Research Institute (KOKI) and many other well-known buildings. This inspired Attila to study architecture, which he did as his first degree at the Technical University of Budapest. Later he got a second degree at the College of Foreign Trade as an economist.

In his first job, at KIPSZER, he worked as an architect in Hungary and abroad. In order to develop his creative skills in other directions, he turned to telecommunications during the regime change and became involved in one of Hungary's most dynamically developing companies. For more than 17 years, Attila held senior positions at Westel and its successor companies (T-Mobile and Magyar Telekom), where he was responsible for the company's third-party content services and played an important role in the introduction of innovative products and services, like mobile marketing in 1996. In 2011, before his retirement, he was awarded the Telekom Award, the company's highest honour.
Attila has been a Board member of the Direct and Interactive Marketing Association (DIMSZ) since 1997, being Vice President since 2000 and President between 2012-2014. He has been chairman or member of the programme committees of the annual direct marketing events (e. g. Golden Dove conferences) and delivered numerous presentations at Hungarian and international conferences. As a retired architect, he has been able to devote more time to voluntary heritage conservation work in the MRA.

Barbara Fogarasi

Fogarasi Barbara 2Barbara Fogarasi is a conservation architect and joined MRA in 2020 as a member of the Board and as a contributor to the INCREAS and VI-TRAIN projects, aimed at sustaining heritage craft skills. She received her architectural training at the University of Toronto and her degrees in historic preservation at the Technical University of Budapest and at the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation at the Catholic University of Leuven. In the early 2000s she worked as an architect at the State Centre for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites and contributed to the development of the Centre's international relations. Based in Montenegro between 2011-13 she coordinated built heritage rehabilitation projects involving local communities within an EU-funded programme targeting the post-war rehabilitation of architectural and archaeological heritage in South-East Europe. Returning home, she worked at the Gyula Forster Centre for Heritage Preservation, where she was mainly involved in World Heritage and international affairs. Between 2014-16 she took part in a jointly funded Hungarian-Norwegian innovative participatory building restoration process as part of the project Revealing the socio-economic impact of cultural heritage. Her professional interest is in participatory heritage preservation with the identification and integration of people’s values, complementing professional aspects. Barbara is currently a PhD student in environmental psychology at the Doctoral School of Psychology, People-Environment Transaction Programme at the Faculty of Education and Psychology of ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary. Her research, under the supervision of Dr. Andrea Dúll, focuses on the perceptions, attitudes and meanings related to the built historic environment.