Porhászka László: The Danube Promenade - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1998)

Danube promenade was the construction of the new Elizabeth Bridge between 1960 and 1964. The snow- white, modern suspension bridge, built to plans by Pál Sávoly and inaugurated on 20 November 1964, provided a fitting end-point, as well as a means of communication, to the southern section of the promenade.

Elizabeth Bridge was still under construction when tenders were invited in 1963 for the designs of a new grand hotel to be built between Vigadó tér and Petőfi tér. The designs submitted, much like those made in 1946, represented two fundamental principles. One of the two schools would have had a high-rise of some twenty to twenty-five storeys, while the other envisaged a building lying along the Danube horizontally. Although prizes were awarded, no final decision was taken due to lack of finance.

The issue of limited resources, however, was shortly resolved. On the basis of a deal made in 1966 with the InterContinental, two Hungarian firms were invited to submit tenders. Before the year was out, a decision had already been made. Architectural plans for a new ten-storey luxury hotel were ordered from József Finta, a young, thirty- year-old architect employed by Lakóterv, in cooperation with interior designer László Kovácsy. Acting on orders, the designers had to restrain the arc of the side fagade leaning towards the Danube, which is why the hotel creates an effect of overall angularity. The whole block of the building has thus become, contrary to Finta’s concepts, much more rigid with an increased visual bulk.

Budapest’s new attraction, the five-star Hotel Duna Inter-Continental, opened on 31 December 1969 with every one of its suites and almost all of its 340 rooms overlooking the river. Built with an underground garage, the air- conditioned hotel has a conference hall, several private halls, a coffee shop, restaurants and an exclusive night club. Artists Arnold Gross and Béla Kondor had made paintings for the café and sgraffiti for the Buda Castle Hall respectively, while the wrought-iron works in the Csárda Restaurant are by Károly Bieber.

However, there was a price to be paid for the panorama afforded by the windows overlooking Buda. The huge hotel, taking up all the space once occupied by the First General Hungarian Insurance Company, the Grand Hotel Hungária, the hotels Bristol and Carlton, turns one enormously massive, windowless stone wall to the city on its Apáczai Csere János utca front. Moreover, the hotel per44