The architect Béla Lajta asked a promising trainee in his office to design the ground-floor shop of an office and residential building in central Budapest (Szervita tér). The trainee was Lajos Kozma (1884–1948), who would soon become a prominent architect and applied artist in his own right. The Rózsavölgyi Book and Music Shop was Kozma’s first independent interior design project, and its success greatly influenced the development of his career. The main entrance, showroom, office and warehouse were all designed according to a thoroughly considered and meticulously executed concept, in which function and decoration were brilliantly combined. The interior space was dominated by lavishly worked wooden surfaces and furnishings. Even contemporary critics regarded the innovatively and tastefully designed shop as an outstanding achievement in Hungarian interior design. The shop’s unique furnishings were destroyed, however, in a catastrophic fire of 1961. Only four pieces survived, two armchairs, a long divan and a table, which are now part of the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts. by: Éva Horányi