Buza Péter: Bridges of the Danube - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

The monumental impression made by the bridge is readily explained by its length of nearly one kilometre. In spite of its size, however, the bridge is a work of simple elegance.

its construction began in 1939. In 1940 the bridge was named after Prince Árpád, the leader of the Magyar tribes settling down in the Carpathian Basin. Ten years later it was renamed after another feared leader, Stalin.

The bridge is of solid crest-board, multi-supported, upperdeck beam design. It would have been the widest bridge of the capital had it not been modified for economic reasons during construction. Only the first stretch from the Óbuda bank had the original width of 27.6 metres. From the Hajógyári (Shipyard) Island onward the carriageway narrowed down. Construction was halted in 1943 not to be resumed before 1948. The bridge was completed by 1950. The so called free assembly, a modern technology avoiding the use of scaffolding and relying solely on cranes, was first used here in Hungary considerably improving cost efficiency in the last phase of the construction of the bridge.

Since 1956 the bridge has borne its original name. Between 1981 and 1984 the bridge was broadened which meant, beside carrying out the original plans of the 1930s, giving additional breadth to them. This was necessitated by the increasing traffic by then strangulating the city. Plans for the operation were drawn up under the direction of Lajos Petur. Now the carriageway accommodates three lanes in both directions and the tracks of a rapid tramway. In fact the extension actually meant the construction of two new bridges and piers joined together by no more than the common carriageway.

Demanded by circumstances as it was, this interesting and innovative solution is responsible for this bridge’s own peculiarities. There is another curiosity of its relatively short history: it is the only bridge in Budapest left intact by the teams of German explosives experts. The first peacetime spring found it half-finished but undamaged.

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