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

83-85 Andrássy cjt, district VI

Kálmán Tafler was a name which belonged to two citizens of Budapest, both members of a large family which took off from Király utca to become rich through the corn trade and money lending. Kálmán Tafler was obsessed with an unusual hobby. He collected corner houses. Corner houses not memberships of boards of directors, terms as bank president or as city alderman! He stayed out of all social movements. No wonder that today’s student of the period of more than a century ago is at a loss when trying to sort out the numerous Taflers or even only the two Kálmáns and their properties, because these two laconically identified themselves as “landlord” in the public directories of the capital. No doubt, the term conferred status on its bearer, suggesting a hefty bank account and a stable livelihood.

The only basis upon which the two Kálmáns (father and son?) can be identified apart is that one was married to Berta Engel, the other to Karolin Ehrenfeld, and that they co-owned some of the buildings with their respective wives. One, on the Körönd, was built for Kálmán Tafler and was registered as property shared with Berta when the building was completed in 1882. The construction is, needless to say, a corner house two, if not three times over as it can be numbered as standing on Kodály körönd, Andrássy út or Felsőerdősor utca. It is a proud, big building with about a hundred apartments and is perhaps the most richly ornamented member of the foursome forming a “körönd” or circus, so much so that one might even detect a certain amount of exaggeration when closely examining the particularities of its style. Its architect József Kauser fondly emphasised (here as well as with St. Stephen’s Basilica whose completion is also his work) the elaborately functionless details of historical styles as the Renaissance period, adding graceful little spires, richly ornamented turrets to the building, obviously not in defiance of his employer’s intentions.

Ambitions had to be shown to the world, and Kálmán Tafler, the city’s number one taxpayer for many years, owned not only exactly two dozen buildings but the most beautiful buildings in town.

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