Földes Mária: Ornamentation - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)

So-called Staffenberg House, frieze

putti, and the floral runners framing the board advertising the name of the arcade are all well-liked ornaments of the period. We can find similar decorations on several buildings erected around the turn of the century, and they were employed even decades later, well into the twenties and thirties. Stepping into the entrance hall we find ourselves in one of the most beautiful and most unique stairways in Budapest. An elegant and unconventional staircase winds upwards, whose sumptuous covering is made of dc-p-tinted, greenish glazed ceramic tiles, and the solid supporting column is adorned with geometric patterns. It is this staircase that makes the building, whose facade is somewhat neglected, worthy of our attention.

After a short walk spring shines on us amidst the drabness of Pesti Barnabás utca. It is the airy figures of its “Staffenberg house” (no. 6) that enliven the dreary surroundings. There are floral patterns all over the

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