Kiss Katalin: Industrial Monuments - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)

The Óbüda Gas Works. View from the period of construction

central Gas Works. The director of Zurich’s Gas Works, Albert Weiss was commissioned with preparing both the general outline and the detailed plans of the factory with the participation of two Hungarian specialists, Izidor Bemauer, responsible for the capital’s illumination, and Győző Schön, an engineer of the first gas works. The plans were accepted by a jury. Weiss made propositions not only for the arrangement of the factory, but also for the establishment of workers’ welfare institutions, housing estates and service buildings. Two Hungarian architects, Kálmán Reichl and Lóránt Almási Balogh also took part in the preparation of the plans.

The factory was constructed within 32 months, and its ceremonial inauguration took place on 13th June 1914, when the municipal council visited the establishment. Mayor István Bárczy solemnly handed over the new works to the general manager Ferenc Ripka.

(The gas works was one of the most modern in the world. In the process of producing of lighting gas, coal is heated in a closed space to a high temperature. The gaseous materials resulting from successive distillation, in part became liquid-tar and water-and in part remained gases. These were cleaned and used for illumination. The coal after distillation was transformed into coke.) The production of coal-gas stopped in 1984, when lighting gas was gradually superseded by natural

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