A magyar Királyi Pénzügyminisztérium egykori palotája a budai várban

Abstract

In the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy financial affairs remained the sovereign right of the Hungarian Kingdom. In the decades after the Compromise (1867) the finance ministry functioned at several separate venues in Buda Castle. Without calling a plan competition, finance minister László Lukács commissioned architect Sándor Fellner (1857-1944) to design a building complex that would house the entire ministry, and 4 million crowns were earmarked in article XXXIV of 1900 for the construction. The sketches submitted by Fellner, who started his studies in the forerunner of the Budapest Technical University and completed them in Vienna and Paris, were approved on the very last day of the 19th century. In terms of function, the design adopted the cell model, providing each official a room of his own. The rooms were separated and only accessible from lateral corridors. The most attractive appearance was given to the wing with the main staircase and state-room in Szentháromság square. The pair of towers flanking the projecting central section were crowned by roofs adopting the outline of the gothic tower cap of Maria am Gestade in Vienna. The brass knights on the pinnacles also reminded of the Rathausmann of the imperial city. The first section of the lateral wing in Hess András square contained the minister’s suite of rooms, the wing across from it in Országház street included the secretary of state’s offices and representative rooms. The ceremony of laying the foundation stone was held in spring 1901 and the capping celebration was on 19 September 1902, the centenary of Lajos Kossuth’s birth. (Female day-wage labourers got 2 crowns bonus, the chief master builder received 1500 crowns.) The palace, which caused controversy among contemporaries as well (Wasn’t it in conflict on account of its volume and forms with the architecture of the Matthias Church, the church of coronations, renovated by Frigyes Schulek?) could be occupied in late 1904. In terms of innovation and engineering, the archival wing was outstanding, a witness of early Hungarian concrete iron constructions documented by sources. Built with great craftsmanship and abounding in splendid details – equipped lavishly with materials and products from all over historical Hungary – the palace, which represented its status well, was badly damaged in the siege of Buda in 1944/45 (Festung Budapest). The architect, whose active career of sixty years was acknowledged by his admission to the Incorporated Architects & Surveyors (London) in 1937, did not live to see the crumbling of the walls. The monument he had designed in the Jewish cemetery in Kozma street only features his wife’s name who died young (1907). The new looks of his building resulted from the reconstruction led by Jenő Rados (1947-1950). A contemporary critic with the fresh outlook of the new era declared that the resulting simplified form, particularly of the main façade, turned the former Finance Ministry into a truly monumental building.