Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 29. (2001)

A BUDAI KIRÁLYI PALOTA MINT ÉPÍTÉSZETI EGYÜTTES; A PALOTA ÉPÍTÉSTÖRTÉNETE A LEGÚJABB KUTATÁSOK ALAPJÁN - Alföldy Gábor: A budai királyi várkert az újkorban : (építéstörténeti vázlat) 267-292

Ilsemann, Chief Municipal Gardener, designed the south-eastern parts of he Gardens. Ármin Pecz Jun. was responsible for the gardens adjoining the southern front of the Royal Palace. Alajos Hauszmann, who took over Ybl's job, added a new, even more grandiose conservatory and an ornamental staircase. He also built, for Queen Elizabeth, the peasant house that abounded in Hungarian folk-art motifs. Between 1903-1927 Nándor Witzel was head of the Buda Royal Gardens. In 1897 he built a rock garden adjoining the round bastion, with a grotto. At the end of the 1890s the growing demand for flowers and plants in the palace and the large Palace Gardens called for the building of greenhouses. Over thirty were erected, and ornamental plants were grown in them for sale, too. The special orchids and azaleas grown there by Witzel, the head gardener, and Mihály Szörényi, his successor, earned the Palace Gardens international acclaim. The tum of the century marked the end of the last great period in the history of the Royal Palace Gardens. Little changed for near half a century, until the bombing of Budapest in 1944. Until then the Gardens were the finest, best equipped and kept garden in Hungary, befitting the royal residence of a burgeoning Hungary in the late 19th century. During the air raids many of the Palace buildings and the Gardens were severely damaged, but curiously certain garden houses, the rock garden, the outdoor plants, and the garden paths survived almost intact. Sadly, instead of rebuilding the garden, it was methodically obliterated. All of the garden buildings were demolished, and the replacement gardens were built in line with the Palace's new functions. Hauszmann's Peasant House was replaced by the Gothic Gatehouse, and mediaeval-like gardens were built in the area enclosed by the castle walls. The lower sections of the former Palace Gardens were given over to the public. Only a two hundred year-old Japanese Pagoda tree standing at the southern front of the round bastion, and an accidentally forgotten fountain in the courtyard attest to the existence of the one-time Palace Gardens.