Szatmári Gizella: Walks in the Castle District - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2001)

Ladies, which is why the small street running the length of the side facade is called Nőegylet utca—i.e. Ladies’ Association Street.

The Baroque-style Buchinger House (No. 40 Úri utca) was built by the major domo of the Palatine’s field-marshal Count József Beckers for himself and his family around 1830 according to the precepts of the fashion of the day—neo-Classicism. Fortunately, its trefoil-vaulted sedilia survive. What the neighbouring building is noted for is connected to the present as it was here that András Mikó, the major stage-director of the Opera and professor of the Academy of Music, lived and worked.

The main attraction of the small Dárda utca, connecting Úri utca with Országház utca, is a free-standing section, which is the oldest relic in the entire Castle District, its lowest strata dating back to the 13th century. Of the building, possibly raised under Béla IV, only the vaulted side-wall of a hall and a few foliaged consoles survive.

No. 43 Úri utca was once the residence of Baron Antal Augusz (1807-78). Augusz, the Lord-Lieutenant of Tolna County, was a close friend, personal secretary and in effect representative in Hungary of Ferenc Liszt. Close by, across the street at No. 52, is where Zsig- mond Széchenyi lived from 1927 to 1964, not counting his eviction and deportation by the communists to the provinces in the 1950s. Széchenyi’s hunting and collecting expeditions took him to four continents, during which he managed to almost entirely replace the African collection of the National Museum, a collection destroyed in 1956. His books, in which he recounts the adventures of his travels in a highly readable style, have been translated into six languages.

In 1760, advocate János Ferdinánd Miller, municipal notary-general and delegate to the Pozsony Parliament, lived at No. 54-56 Úri utca. (Miller’s Latin-language work covers the history of Buda in the period from 1242 to 1760.) The sculptures in the niches of the facade are likely to date from the middle of the 18th century.

The Primate’s Palace at No. 62 was bought by Archbishop of Esztergom János Scitovszky in 1874. The Louis XVI style fagade is dominated by a beautiful wrought-iron railing on the upper balcony.

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