Földes Mária: Ornamentation - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)
a bouquet of flowers. Returning to the row of shops on the ground floor, the garish colours and shape of the neon sign above a McDonald’s establishment are disso- nantly out of place here, as they are in stark contrast with the style of the building. Similarly bizarre is the 21 restorer’s pranky idea of hooking into the mouths of the unique gargoyle-like granite lions above the shop windows one of those allegedly turn-of-the-century spherical lamps, which are seen all over the city. Next to this building can be found the aforementioned “Thonet house”, which was designed and built in 1888-1889 (no. 11/a Váci utca). The architects were Ödön Lechner and Gyula Pártos, who were working together at that time. The building, especially its decoration, is one of the earliest representatives of the period. Its great significance is due to the fact that Lechner’s work was seminal not only with regard to the ornamentation but also to the technologies used (for example, the iron-frame structure) and to the novel way of apportioning the facade and selecting the covering materials. The building looks its best in the morning, because it is in the sunshine that the otherwise somewhat dirty, but at such times splendid cornflower-blue majolica covered in a tangle of meanders becomes really visible. It can turn our first impression into something truly magnificent. Lechner went about the task of apportioning the building in a daring fashion, too. The shop level is divided from the residential storeys by the banister of a balcony running the width of the facade. Above the entrance, two triangular terraces, also equipped with an iron banister, serve the same purpose of horizontal division. The vertical division was achieved with the application of rich ornamentation running up to the cornice. When selecting the decorations, Lechner drew on ornamental features used in the Renaissance. Dolphins and shell motifs, bunches of flowers blossoming out of urns, and whimsically winding meanders make up the sculptural ornamentation of the facade and the banisters. Meanwhile, he placed two painted statues in the Gothic niches covered by half-domes beneath the cornice-one male and one female figure. The playfully waving arc of the cornice is accentuated by garlands, and its urn-like vases are also parts of the 20
