Ferkai András: Shopfronts - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1996)

The clockmaker Imre RiiTs shop at 34 Krisztina körút, I

made by the Bakonyi firm in 1935. The painted logo showing a wall clock is placed in the narrow show-case next to the entrance. This was, perhaps, made for the shop’s founder. What is most wonderful about this shop, however, are its shop windows. The place is a clock museum, as well as a local and family history exhibit all at the same time. Old clock hands, pendulums and weights are arranged in glass boxes. Next to them, old postcards and copies of archive pictures show what this neighbourhood looked like about eighty or a hundred years ago. From the other shop window on the right one can learn every detail of the history of the Rill dynasty of clockmakers. The shop was founded by Ágoston Rill (1850-1907) in 1870. His son, Imre (1880-1967) inherited the shop, then the third generation represented by Egon Imre (1913-1972) continued in the family craft. The present owner is the clockmaker Géza Rill (b. 1911), who received his licence in 1942. One can see

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