Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 31. (2003)

A MÚLT RÉTEGEI - A SZENT GYÖRGY TÉR TÖRTÉNETE - Magyar Károly: A budavári Szent György tér és környékének kiépülése : történeti vázlat 1526-tól napjainkig 43-126

MAGYAR KÁROLY stumbling block for every Hungarian patriots. (This was so not becuse anyone could or would have argued the indeed heroic death of the general, but since he had given before the militarily unreasonable and cruel order to bombard the city of Pest into ruins.) At the same time even the name of the square was turned to Hentzi Platz\ On the other side the functional chages happening almost paralelly did have some symbolic meaning, too. Since the Royal Palace was entirely burnt out, for the time of renovation works the newly appointed and istalled Habsburg governor of Hungary, Erzherzog Albrecht took the Sándor-palace as his residance. His office worked right in front of him, in the Teleki-palace. This short, provisional role of the St. George Square as an administrative center of the country was a precursory signe of its later importance. The second phase can undoubtedly be connected with the compromise of Austria and Hungary in 1867. The Ausgleich on one hand brought the - partly - independent ministerial structure of the Hungarian State, with its own prime minister, Gyula (Julius) Andrássy, on the other hand put the Hungarian crown upon the head of Francis Joseph. (The Holy Crown that - by the way - from 1790 to 1944 was officially kept in the Royal Palace of Buda, first in a room, next to the St. Sigismund-chapell. This however, did not practically mean the continuous presence of the crown here.) Most of the new ministeries were housed within the Castle-distric of Buda, while the prime minister himself had his office and residence on the St. George Square, in the Sándor-palace. The palace whose original name has been preserved all along its history first was simply rented for the prime ministers, but in 1881 it was bought by the state for the head of government in power. After their coronation in Buda (Emperor and) King Francis Joseph and his wife, Queen Elisabeth quite often visited their palace in Buda. These numerous visites later resulted great-scaled enlargments of the palace-compound. But to return to the time on dispute, we shall return to the area of the St. Georg Square, too. Here the Teleki-palace was temporarily used for the General Headquaretes of the newly founded Magyar Királyi Honvédség, i.e. ~ Hungarian Royal Defenceforces, that was first commanded by Erzherzog Joseph. Paralelly with the functional changes the architectural unit of old Teleki-building was also partly altered. Meanwhile because of the growing administrative importance of the St. George Square, there was a growing necessity to approach it easily from all parts of the city, i.e. of the suburbs and twin-settlements as well. The resolution for this was the construction of the Sikló, i.e. Funicular, the line of which ascended from the bridgehead of the Chain-bridge to the south-eastern side of the square, i. e. next to the Sándor-palace. The new, steam-powered machinery started to work in 1870. The rapid development of the separate Hungarian Military quickly brought the need of a new ministerial building. After a long time of being unchanged this caused a basic alteration both in the structure and in the view of the square. First of all, to make place for the new palace of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of Defence, a number of private houses as well as the building of the former waterworks were to be bought and then to be demolished. It was only after this, that on the southern part of the central block between the two streets the new building was erected in 1879-81. This building of ground floor + 4 levels was a bit glaring feature of the area, the more 124