Matits Ferenc: Protestant Churches - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2003)
1 driven into the ground to create holes, which were then filled with cement. When the piles meant to support the heaviest part of the building, the tower, were being prepared, sulphurous water gushed forth preventing the cement from setting. Ninety-six columns made of cement mixed with bauxite were thus made and then covered with a metre-thick layer of reinforced concrete for the foundation of the tower. As much as 328,130 kilograms of cement, 60 tonnes of iron and 900 thousand bricks were used for the construction. On 31 October 1937, the congregation moved house from Tutaj utca to the basement of the church, which had been finished by that time. Though the whole building was topped out by the end of the year, its completion required another fund-raising campaign, which is why it could only be consecrated three years later, in 1940. In the triangle of the tympanum above the portal there is the inscription soli Deo gloria. The church building, accentuated by a portico of an Ionic colonnade, is connected by a row of arcades to a prismatic belfry. There are some long and narrow windows on the upper part of the latter and in front of these there is a small balcony on each of the four sides of the tower. Above the narrow cylinder topping the 54-metre tall column there is a star fitted on a column. Steps on either side lead up behind the colonnade, from where the portico of this hall church can be entered through one of the three stone-framed oak gates, each topped with a hood mould. This rectangular church, which has a seating capacity of 800, is surrounded on three sides by rows of columns covered with black marble. These columns support the gallery and carry the weight of the two longitudinal walls, each of which is broken through by a set of five large windows. The walls have a coating of white plaster, while the floor is covered with dichromatic tiles arranged in a chess-board pattern. The fields of the stuccoed ceiling are painted light blue, its ribs dark blue and silver. The walnut pulpit decorated with painted patterns is the work of designer László Juhász. In the basement, there is a 300-seat congregation hall complete with a stage. The L-shaped wing connected to the church houses the parsonage and the rooms of youth associations. The church was hit several times in World War II when its fafade was damaged, its slender columns collapsed and its organ, awaiting installation, together with the furniture of the congregation hall was damaged. During the spring of 1950 the notes of Zoltán Kodály’s Psalm No. 114, a composition created for the occasion, were sounded in the church for the first time to celebrate the completion of the church's renovation. 52
