Faurest, Kristin: Ten spaces - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)

Fő tér

Garden in Boston. Something that makes people remember the space, that prompts them to say "Meet me at the..." or "You know, the place with the..." or "Let's go to the restaurant right next to the..."

People are intuitively drawn to the unique and memorable, and those public spaces that draw lots of people are, invariably, the best ones. Fő tér also possesses another quality important to a thriving public square, which is that the ground floors of the buildings surrounding it offer much in the way of culture, food and drink. There are multiple reasons to wander around the square, not just transit across it — although since it's been car free since 2007 and hence offers a clean, obstacle-free way to walk from one street to another, it also serves that role quite ably. There are several restaurants, a folk art museum, a library, and various municipal offices. All of the above pretty much guarantees lots of social encounters on the square at any given time. In the summer the square is particularly active with outdoor exhibits and local festivals of all sorts.

Fő tér is, probably more than any other square described here, a palimpsest. The square’s charm lies in the feeling one gets that people have been working, eating, drinking, writing and living in and around this little space for many, many centuries.

History hangs thick in the air here, much more so than at most other squares. Signs on the buildings refer to former residents, for example translator and writer Grácia Kerényi (1925—85), who introduced Hungarians to Polish literature. A plaque on another building’s wall notes those who were taken away for "Malenkij Robot’’. After the Soviets liberated the city from the Nazis in February 1945, many citizens - including several from Óbuda, although the exact numbers are unknown — were taken for forced labour in the Soviet Union.

The square’s earliest recorded origins lie in Roman times, when it was the intersection of the two main roads of Aquincum, and it remains a crossroads today. The square, along with its adjoining Szentlélek tér, has historic relevance back at least as far as the 1330s, when Empress Elisabeth and Louis the Great built a temple to the Virgin Mary here in 1340-46. Its pillars can be found at Fő tér i and 6. The church, according to extant documents, was built next to an nth century church devoted to St. Peter. The Church of the Cloisters of the Order of the Poor Claires (Klarissza Kolostor) was built by 1350.

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