Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 29. (2001)

A BUDAI KIRÁLYI PALOTA MINT ÉPÍTÉSZETI EGYÜTTES; A PALOTA ÉPÍTÉSTÖRTÉNETE A LEGÚJABB KUTATÁSOK ALAPJÁN - Prakfalvi Endre: Adatok a budavári palotaegyüttes 1945 utáni építéstörténetéhez 343-359

ENDRE PRAKFALVI FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT THE POST-WWII HISTORY OF THE ROYAL PALACE IN BUDA Summary Like the rest of Budapest, the Royal Palace, too, fell victim to one of the most fierce town battles of the Second World War. It now seems, however, that the damages did not account for the large-scale development and reconstruction projects alone. The presentday set of buildings was shaped by the communists, who had recently come to power and sought to rebuild the Royal Palace according to their own tastes for ostentation. Prior to the 1956 uprising voluntarism pervaded the reconstruction process, and this, despite countless overall restoration proposals, merely meant that some of the buildings were redecorated, and a few archaeological sites were dug up here and there. The main bone of contention was the central, domed section of the palace. Redesigned many times over, it was finally completed in 1964. Before 1956 the palace was, for the most part, used by the Party and various governmental organisations. Between 1957 and 1984, during the Kádár era, it was converted into a "palace of culture." The annotated documents published here date from the early days of reconstruction, the fifties. They portray well the ideological aspects of the palace's architectural history, and give insight into the ways by which the communist dictatorship operated when it came to the pivot of its image, the Royal Palace.