Mentényi Klára szerk.: Műemlékvédelmi Szemle 2003/1. szám Az Országos Műemléki Felügyelőség tájékoztatója (Budapest, 2003)
MŰHELY - Murádin Jenő: Báró Bánffy Ádám válaszúti műtermes kastélya
His studies - begun at the Protestant College of his home city - were continued in Berlin, where he studied economics and political sciences. In 1867 he travelled around Germany and France and returning home he married and with his wife he moved to the family home in Válaszút. Before settling his way of life he felt the need of having a practical knowledge of arts and crafts. He was taught to wood carving by the craftsmen of Brienz in Switzerland. The castle of Válaszút had a storey only above its central projection. In the course of the construction work in 1885 the side wings also got storeys and this way the whole first storey was formed. The open gallery above the hall was built this time. The famous studio built in the already existing first storey great hall between 1875-1876 was supplemented with new spaces. So a special kind of studio and workshop was created which was peaceful enough for the creative work and the rooms for carving and modelling were next to it with masters helping him. Ádám Bánffy 's artistic image was first of all represented in his own castle's late historicizing interior reconstruction. Wall panels, inlayed floor panels, cassette ceiling decorated with coats of arms, fireplaces and furniture were planned by him. He also made wooden reliefs and china decorated with painting. Already his contemporaries were fascinated by floor and wall panels with richly carved ornaments still existing, doors decorated with frontispieces. Fortunately enough the famous cassette ceiling of the dining hall has remained to us unharmed with the wooden fields' carved decoration. The ceiling is connected to the walls with twenty-one wooden consoles decorated with the coats of arms of the Bánffy family and its relatives. Unfortunately the former stained glass windows have already been destroyed. A few of the pieces of furniture planned by Ádám Bánffy have also remained. A richly ornamented sideboard and two chairs from among them was exhibited after a few Hungarian display in the 1878 Paris World Expo. He was the master of the statue decoration of the entrance hall' gallery with Atlas figures and two friezes of hunting scenes. The most beautiful work of the castle is the glazed tile stove mentioned in all the descriptions of the castle. At the end of the 1870's two copies of this glazed tile stove were made; one for the dining-hall of Válaszút, the other for the Royal Castle of Gödöllő. The large size green stove is decorated with Atlas figures, the baron's coats of arms and portraits of outstanding figures of Transylvanian and Hungarian history with two scenes of it, the Conquest and the Blood Pact. The most authentic description of the castle's studio and the works was made by count Sándor Teleki, a friend of Bánffy often visiting Válaszút. The names of his helpers were also known from him. Bánffy s activity was led by the thought of serving the contemporary needs of interior design going together with the economic boom of the period by cutting import and stimulating Hungarian masters. A basic question of Hungarian historicism was similar and Bánffy 's personal example was showing the way for solution. His Válaszút castle was a kind of "gesamtkunstwerk" of historicism made by himself.
