Szablyár Péter: Sky-high - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2007)

Churches; Towers; Domes

Shoved aside the dome of the Buda Royal Palace

Szent György tér. District I

The palace received its neo-Baroque shape at the end of the 19th century. Miklós Ybl was commissioned in 1881 with the modernisation of the palace originally built under Maria Theresa. After the death of Ybl in 1891, Alajos Hauszmann took over the job. To make the fagade overlooking the Danube more harmonious and to enliven the long and low mass, Hauszmann designed garrets, spires, skylights and a functionless mock-dome in the central axis of the complex.

During the siege of Budapest in 1944-45, the dome as, well as the other buildings of the palace, was completely burnt out.

Six preliminary designs were made in the preparatory phase of the restoration overseen by István Janáky in 1948—59. The first of these plans would have raised a smaller protruding mass to replace the old dome as an allusion to the period of

■ The dome of the Royal Palace

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