Brunner Attila - Perczel Olivér (szerk.): A Liget egykor (Budapest, 2021)

Névmutató

The City Park Once

of the bigger pond was attached to the bank. The celebrations and historic commemorations brought with them the building of the millennial monument and of some further permanent buildings. The Heroes’ Square (Hősök tere), which was chosen as the location of the monument, while being at the time one of the most important places of the city by both ideological and landscape considerations, was not created as a result of a city structure plan. The gradual development of the square had been triggered by the building of Andrássy Street, and boosted by the millennial celebrations. The colonnaded elements framing the square from three sides have a unified architectural design thanks to architect Albert Schikedanz.

The surroundings of the park were strongly urbanized at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The conceptions articulated during the city unification period had prioritised the need for more green areas, but due to lack of new land use plans, in practice they dissipated. The green area spilled outwards, while the built environment penetrated into the Park.

Popular attractions popped up in the Park. Next to the zoo, a fun fair was functioning, some buildings raised for earlier exhibitions now hosted museums, while others were let to catering enterprises.

From 1908 on (except the years 1915—1917) product sample fairs were yearly held here. Starting with 1925 these fairs gained an international character, and the name Budapest International Fair (Budapesti Nemzetközi Vásár abbr. BNV) with it. From the beginning of the 1930s contemporary, coordinated designs were used, though the buildings thus raised were yearly demolished. The fair territory strung up onto the Rondo — Industry Hall axis was spreading more and more.

In 1938 the Heroes’ Square was chosen to be the main location of the biggest international event of the period held in Budapest: the International Eucharistic Congress. The formerly landscaped square then got its decorative pavement.

After WWII the cityward side of the Park was transformed by the communist regime into one of its most important power representation sites. The Heroes’ Square, being suitable for mass events, was retained, but the actual hub was created by removing one third of the Rondo — opposite to the City Park Alley (which was renamed to Gorkiy Alley /Gorkij fasor/) — into the (Procession Square) Felvonulási tér, where the statue of Stalin was erected in 1951.

The second most important change happened in the mid- 1970s, when the Budapest International Fair was moved to District 10, Kőbánya. The large-scale rehabilitation launched as a result then fell back on the landscape park conception of Nebbien.

Each of the papers in the second half of the volume focus on a specific question or subtopic relating to the City Park.

Violetta Hídvégi unravels the story of the initially Gruber, then Kolegerszky Kiosk, built by the plans of Frigyes Feszi. Confectioner Antal Gruber made a proposal on building a kiosk onto the present-day Széchenyi Island. The kiosk then was turned by his wife into a fancied site of the city. In 1884 for the National General Exhibition (Országos Általános Kiállítás) the kiosk got a dome in renaissance revival style, then in 1896 was relocated from the islet to another point in the Park. There it hosted guests until 1930, and the name of a later tenant, Viktor Kolegerszky became attached to it. In 1939, a pavilion for gardening exhibitions and fashion shows was established on its site.

The paper of Olivér Perczel guides us into the heyday of the City Park fun fair. He presents the wanderings of the grifters prior to their arrival into the Park as well as the impact made on their fate by different stages of the Park’s developments. The paper focuses on the People’s Park (Népliget), a once popular fun fair functioning from 1885 to 1908 inside the City Park.

Zoltán Mautner looks at the 1912-1945 period in the life of the Municipal Zoological and Botanical Garden (Székesfővárosi Állat- és Növénykert), which at the time was one of the most rich and diverse such institutions in Hungary. After the full-scale rebuilding between 1909 and 1912 it became suitable for the education of natural history, and at the same time turned into a beloved place of amusement for the citizens of the whole country. To fulfil its cultural mission, the Zoo established different zoological educational branches (a journal, a library, and a movie theatre).

Melinda Harlov-Csortán describes the story of the Procession Square between 1951 and 2011 (when it was renamed to Ötvenhatosok tere in the honour of the heroes of the 1956 freedom fighters). The Procession Square was carved off the green area as a counterpoint of the Heroes’ Square to become the site of directed entertainment. Stalin’s statue was erected and stood here until the 1956 revolution, when it was cut down. Throughout the socialist era processions and maydays were held here until it lost its importance after the political changes in 1990.

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