Armuth Miklós - Lőrinczi Zsuzsa (szerk.): A Budapesti Műszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem Történeti Campusa (Budapest, 2023)
A Könyvtár épülete - The Library Building Gy. Balogh Ágnes
1 54 O corridor at the end of which the stairwell connects all of them. The same wing houses the management offices, the department of book and periodical supply and the catalogue workplaces. On the ground floor it also contains a vaulted wood-panelled room with an interior height of 1,5 storeys: this is the former teaching staff's reading hall, which is used today as the periodical-reading hall. During World War II both the building and the collection of the Library was seriously damaged. Although only 5-6 % of the items were lost, they were indeed the most precious ones of the stock. The building was badly damaged, as the Germans used the university as a garrison. The original Neo-Gothic furnishing of the students' reading hall, the service counter, the mural, the glass panes of the windows, the entrance doors were destroyed in 1964 during an air-raid. However, the vaults survived intact. The roof of the store wing fell in, seriously damaging the stairwell and the connecting corridor. Almost none of the windows remained intact, which had the worst effects on the stores. Glazing the windows was only done in December, 1945. The majority of the furniture was carried away from the site by people living nearby to use for fuell, and everything removeable, such as the roller blinds and bulbs also disappeared. The Library of the Technical University was opened again on September 1st, 1945. One of the teaching staff's reading rooms was temporarily furnished for students. The Main Reading Hall was opened in the 1949-50 academic year. However, the reconstruction fell behind its former architectural standards, Although there had been no reason why, the remains of the furnishing were replaced: the readers' desks, the lamps, both the general ones and the spot lights, as well as the wooden entrance doors for metal ones. The reading hall was equipped with transversally cut tables to have extra space for 40 people. The restoration of the other parts of the library was realised gradually, that of the facades was prolonged as late as 1956. In 1947 the marble sculpture portraying the royal couple was removed from the foyer, and taken to the Fine Arts College for educational purposes. The service counter was set up in its place. The cloakroom was moved from beside the reading hall to the dead spaces beneath the staircase leading to the Central Building, and a catalogue room was furnished instead. The name of the institute was changed in 1949: instead of the Library of the University of Technology it was now officially the Central Library of the Budapest University of Technology. After World War II the number of university students rapidly increased which meant that the Central Library grew even more frequented. The institution faced serious storage problems in every field of its activities (storage, AZ OLVASÓTEREM FÖLÖTTI KERESZTB0LT0ZAT I THE VAULT OF THE READING HALL
