Szablyár Péter: Step by step - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)
The reppearence of stairway entrance structures gone' missing
signed a "minor miracle” for the small, less than 85 square metre, trapezoidal plot on the steep hillside (with a rise of 11.3 metres). The intricate nature of the task was itself the challenge to this designer of large-scale plans. Hugó Kilényi wished to install his large and important collection in a worthy environment within the villa. Schicke- danz, who had plentiful experience with creating spacious exhibition halls (such as the Museum of Fine Arts and the Palace of Arts), regarded the task of designing a "picture gallery for domestic purposes” as a finger exercise, which he performed with an excellent result. He exploited the potentials of side illumination and sky lighting adapting the combination of the two to the requirements of the peculiar ground- level arrangement here by inserting a large, fan-shaped hall with a skylight in its ceiling between the two side-lit wings. The hall communicated via sliding doors with the two, sixty square-metre spaces lit from the sides. All this opened from a circular lobby five metres in diameter, to which an elegant stairway led from the entrance at the acute-angled corner of the building. Despite its traditional street front, the house was a turning point in its designer’s career as an architect. The entrance to the elegant residential building was placed on the basement level, where the kitchen and the staff's residential quarters were also located. From the square entrance hall a two-flight stairway lead to the circular lobby communicating with the covered courtyard by way of a square "neck". From the salon and dining room opened on the right and left. A second apartment was upstairs, somewhat smaller than the one below. The study overlooking the garden and placed next to the salon of the upstairs flat belonged to the downstairs apartment to which it was connected by spiral stairs. The Kilényi Villa sustained very serious damages in the siege of Budapest, and with a view to its "strategic position” it was demolished in 1948. Its reconstruction on the basis of the extant architectural documentation, is worth considering. The reappearance of stairway entrance structures gone missing The first underground railway laid with the cut-and-cover method on the European continent was built in the record time of 21 months between Gizella (today's Vörösmarty) tér and the City Park. In the festive atmosphere of the Millenary Celebrations the line was opened to the Budapest public in the presence of Emperor Francis Joseph 1, and thus the merry crowds could reach the National Exhibition of a Thousand Years by riding on this miracle of modern transportation. An ornamental structure was raised above the entrance to every station (except the one at the 75
