Szablyár Péter: Step by step - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)

Historic ceremonial stairs, central staricases

ornamental stairs of more than one flight. The ornamental stairs in Budapest marking the various architectural styles function as an area of transition easing the visitor arriving from the outside world into the interior atmosphere of their destination. While achieving an aesthetic effect, they also function as symbols of power, wealth, reliability and quality (as in the case of the Parliament building, a national museum, a bank, a picture gallery or a noble mansion).

The National Museum is a monument to Hungary’s neo-Classicism. After several moves following its establishment, the collection of the National Museum finally was given its own, permanent home as late as 1846. Working drawings for its neoclassical building were prepared by Mihály Pollack, an architect who had been based in Hungary since 1805, on the basis of preliminary designs approved in 1836. Palatine Joseph, who had the cause of the museum at his heart, invited Pietro Nobile, the director of the Vienna Academy, to review the designs. Nobile recommended that the stairs be transformed and the base be raised. Therefore the Palatine decreed that "the portico and the stairs before it be widened and made more emphatic by being moved forward and thus serve as the actual entrance to the building." Nobile also suggested that the side-walls of the stairs be redesigned to make them lean at an angle. That was rejected by Pollack, but he agreed that the base be raised. That was how the

■ The central itairwa,y of the Hungarian National Muieum

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