Buza Péter - Gadányi György: Towering Aspirations - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1998)

12 Szabó József ütca, district XIV

Although not in the City Park proper, this one is yet another villa with a dome. Its location is Istvánmező, which had been named after the son of Palatine Joseph at a time when, in the 1870s, the first residents appeared in this the nearest section of the outlying hollow of Pest called Zugló.

The building is a sumptuous luxury villa, the kind that an artist dreams up for himself. The architect is unknown as the drawings have not been preserved in the city’s public archives. What emerged through the joint efforts of architect and contractor is closest in style to Baroque with its rounded-off shapes, coiling ornaments and, at roof level, a well-proportioned and emphatically positioned fine dome.

It actually was an artist, the sculptor József Róna, who had this villa built around the millennial year. He worked here in a specially constructed studio. Róna’s best known work is the equestrian statue by the main entrance to the Hungarian National Gallery in Buda Castle, featuring Prince Eugene of Savoy, the chief commander of the Christian troops who vanquished the Turkish army. Its models are certain to have been made here, in this house, just like another famous statue of Pest, that of Miklós Zrínyi standing on the Körönd.

Róna sold his villa in 1910 and moved to Damjanich utca, where he rented the house of the legendary photographer György Klösz. As for Róna’s house near the City Park, it was bought by Kornél Neuhold, general manager of one of Budapest’s technologically most advanced industrial installations of the time, the Telephone Factory.

The reconstruction which preceded Neuhold’s assuming ownership did not radically alter the building’s original shape. Fortunately, Neuhold, an engineer and government councillor, respected and preserved the overall appearance and structure of the villa.

The citizens of the period respected the adage - do not improve if what exists is good.

28