Meskó Csaba: Thermal Baths - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

The thermal bath of Rudas

concluding, with much loving care, the full reconstruction of the baths he inherited in a rather poor state of repair.

It is from Evliya Cheleby, a Turkish traveller who stayed in Buda between 1660 and 1664, that we know that the bath was very clean and it employed a particularly helpful and clever staff. The place bore the name “the bath of the green pillars" (Jesil direkli ilidje) at the time, named after one of the pillars, which was green, supporting the vault above the large pool. Five steps led to this large pool beneath a tile-covered dome. Altogether there were eight pools covered by as many cupolas - “everybody would take his bath in a pool best suited in size to his build”.

After the retaking of Buda, the royal council bestowed ownership of the baths on the town. In 1794 and then in 1804, the leaseholders operating the bath added extensions to the building. By the early 19th century, the establishment, which was in good condition at the time, had become a meeting place for the town’s high society. Cheerful music was played in the “medicinal” courtyard, and luxurious carriages waited for their owners outside the hostel.

In 1866 the building was reconstructed to be reopened as the Rudas Baths and Medical Centre. The assembly of Buda decreed that responsibility for the operation of the baths be assumed by the municipality itself and forbade the communal bathing of men and women forthwith.

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