Buza Péter - Gadányi György: Towering Aspirations - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1998)
36 Teréz körút, district VI The capacious apartment building at the comer of Des- sewffy utca near the Oktogon was built with the money of one Miksa Stern, of whom we only know that he commissioned Zsigmond Quittner in 1887. It was at that time, in the early eighties, that the architect commenced his work in Budapest, which would later result in the creation of several dozens of apartment blocks and public buildings. Art history criticism characterises the work of this master, who came from a Pest-based family of German burgesses, as being dominated by the style of Historicism, responding to the fresher tendencies at the turn of the century only at the end of his career. Resting on a pyramidal dome and covered with a strange surface, this closed tower seems to display precisely these features. However, the playful effect of the scattered pattern built into the tin body, together with the appearance of the composition as a whole, possibly reflect other impressions gained by the artist from various experiences, including his many years spent in Asia and, more significantly, Africa, where he studied local architecture. In view of this, the name Bizánc (Byzantium) for the building was an appropriate choice. The café, open round the clock, housed in the building whose windows overlook the Körút and the side-street intersecting the boulevard was a popular feature of Budapest in the nineteen twenties and thirties. In 1935, the Capri night club moved into the ground-floor rooms of the Bizánc. The nightly variety show was accompanied by supper served at the tables. In the early morning hours sour soup was served to allay the customers’ excesses and breakfast guests were provided with the morning papers. In the morning and afternoon patrons could sit around for hours on end with a cappuccino and a glass of ice-water amidst the aromatic, blue smoke curling up from the smouldering ends of their cigarettes without risking unfriendly looks from the waiters. 16
