Brunner Attila - Perczel Olivér (szerk.): A Liget egykor (Budapest, 2021)
Névmutató
Abstract THE CITY PARK ONCE Being the very first public park in the world, established for the citizens and financed by the city itself, the 250-acre City Park can be seen as the first public park of Europe, funded on public money. It is not just a public garden of high touristic priority, but a protected landscape garden and a green area of Budapest with a historical value on its own as well. This volume could be seen as a catalogue of the exhibition called “The City Park Once”, which took place in the building of the Budapest City Archives in 2019. But at the same time it is much more, as the creators of the exhibition now publish the extended texts of their posters as papers. Moreover, besides the paper on the structural changes of the City Park over time (which is the backbone of the volume) other important papers on so far undescribed subjects are included. The volume is richly illustrated with pictures mostly unpublished until now. The paper authored by Beáta Fabó sketches the structural changes of the City Park and changing locations of its focal points, emphasizing some more important moments. The thennamed City Woods (Városerdő) had been possessed by the city of Pest since 1752, but its forming was informed by private initiatives, city and state regulations as well, and therefore partly reflects the history of the city and the country. In accordance with these, the role of this area has been expanded multiple times. Originally it served as a space for walks, fun and entertainment, while later a spa appeared here, and cultural and sport functionalities have been added. The importance of the park parallelly has grown from city to country level, and its green (or once green) area hosted national and international events for shorter or longer time spans, and even became the main site for international fairs (evolved from former national exhibitions), national and international ecclesiastic events, and also for representations of Hungarian history as well as showcasing the power of the government and the Party' in Communist times. So the City Park has been constantly on the move during its 200-year existence, while also retaining its decisive structural elements for quite a long time. These elements are defined mainly by its physical characteristics, relation to the surrounding town, accessibility, city-planning considerations and the government-level decisions of each given period. The middle of thel8th century saw the afforestation of the area, which had been until then a marshland. In this early period the open-minded municipal leadership launched the development of the surrounding green areas. In 1799 the city council let the City Woods to the Esztergom archbishop count József Batthyány, and commissioned engineer Rudolf Witsch to make a land use plan. In 1808 the Town Beautification Committee received the area for handling, and in 1813 issued a call for proposals on the spatial development of the City Woods. The tender was won by the Lübeck gardener Heinrich Christian Nebbien and the works were started in 1817, based on the complete plan of the landscape garden with the two ponds, a drainage channel, winding paths and a large, round clearance, the Rondo. However, the public garden itself hadn’t been completed until the 1860s. The area was already modified during this period, as the first Hungarian railway line was directed through the park’s territory towards Vác. This hemmed in the park and cut it off the city on the northern side, where — next to the railroad, as a private initiative — the zoo was established in 1866, on another fenced off territory'. Then the new capital came into existence by the 1873 unification of the three towns of Pest, Buda and Óbuda. Based on the structure plan of Budapest developed in the 1870s the Sugárút (the present Andrássy Street) was built, and subsequently, by 1878, the main promenade crossing the park, the Stefánia Street, which became structurally decisive in terms of the further changes. The next decisive change was brought about by the national exhibition of 1885, which was installed in the southern part of the park and organised around the axis of the City Park Alley (Városligeti fasor) and the Rondo, from where another promenade led through the main gates to a geometric park, composed of parterres. This regular, symmetric French park was closed up by the monumental building complex of the Industry Hall (Iparcsarnok), which became the centre of all the further exhibitions, then fairs. At the start of the exhibition just two of the buildings, the Industry Hall and the Art Hall (Műcsarnok) were meant to stay as long-term fixtures. Another government-level ruling decided on the 1896 celebration of the Millennium (that is the millennium of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin), the most important event of which was the national exhibition, occupying a larger section of the public park. All this caused considerable changes in the former structure of the park: the preparation works reduced the water surfaces, the Rákos creek was channelled into the pond, the smaller Swan Lake (Hattyú-tó) was banked up, and the islet 162
