Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 30. (Budapest, 2016)
Ildikó PANDUR: A Wrought-Iron Exhibition Hall Gateway from 1883: A Contribution to the Architectural History of the Old Exhibition Hall and the Old Music Academy in Budapest
Arts rented additional premises in the building next door, the Old Music Academy. (Fig. 10) The neo-Renaissance palatial apartment building on the corner of the Radial Avenue (renamed Andrássy Avenue in 1896) and Vörösmarty Street was built between 1877 and 1879 - like the Old Exhibition Hall, it was commissioned by the Association of Fine Arts and designed by Adolf Lang. From 1879 until 1907 it was used as the Academy of Music.21 The composer Ferenc Liszt occupied an apartment on the first floor of the building from 1881 until his death in 1886. It was during this time that the ground-floor premises were rented to the Museum of Applied Arts, consisting of an additional permanent exhibition room, a room for reading and drawing, and an exhibition space to be used for temporary exhibitions of modern applied art goods.22 The designer: Sándor Uhl Formerly a teacher at the school of architecture in Nuremberg, Germany,23 Sándor Uhl was appointed curator of the Museum of Applied Arts in May 1883, although he did not take up his position until the end of July.24 He was entrusted with managing the conversion of the rented premises in the Old Music Academy25 and coordinating the decoration of the new rooms.26 This relieved the workload of Jenő Radisics, who was still busy with the enormous task of preparing for the large-scale exhibition of fine metalwork due to open in the National Museum in February 1884.27 Sándor Uhl could put his architectural skills to good use, for the conversion of the rented premises in the Old Music Academy involved substantial work. In October 1883, permission was granted to “break up” the ground-floor rooms that had previously been occupied by the “national vocational school of applied arts”.28 It was not only on the inside that work had to be carried out. As the only entrance to the building was on the side street (Vörösmarty Street), the wall between the Old Exhibition Hall and the “neighbouring rented building” was opened up to create direct access between the old exhibition rooms and the newly rented premises.29 The Music Academy’s protests against the lease and the conversions were rejected,30 and work began that October.31 The precise location of the three new rooms taken over by the Museum of Applied Arts requires some further research, which is hindered by the subsequent alterations that took place inside the building.32 Today’s Organ Hall was probably the site of the former contemporary exhibition hall, where “every branch of modern industry is represented.”33 (Because the ground-floor windows facing Andrássy Avenue were quite low here, Jenő Radisics asked the chief of the municipal police force for a regular night watch to patrol the building.34) Sándor Uhl spent just over a year working full-time as curator of the Museum of Applied Arts. From September 1884 - filling the position vacated by Lajos Rauscher, who departed to work at the Technical University - Uhl also taught at the Drawing School, located next to the Old Exhibition Hall (to the north, the left, i.e. the opposite side to the Music Academy). During his three-year trial period there, he did not give up his job as museum curator.35 In addition to his conversion of the rented premises in the Old Music Academy and his documentation for certain items in the collection of metalwork, Uhl was responsible for one more impor105
