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

and build banking centres, which is why he was regarded as a specialist in the field.

The building of the First Pest Domestic Savings Bank (no. 5 Deák Ferenc utca) responds to our expectations as to what a reliable bank based on solid financial foundations should look like. That is the kind of impression which is enhanced in the onlooker and in the client by the somewhat monumental block with its huge engaged columns resting on a weighty solid base, with an ornamental cornice topping the building, and with its somewhat overwhelming proportions. The ornamentation also serves the same purpose. The reliefs between the windows on the first floor overlooking Deák Ferenc utca are repeated on the Váci utca facade, and are thematically related to the building’s function. There are statuettes showing Mercury as the symbol of commerce and other figures representing agriculture and horticulture. Also personified are other abstractions which play, directly or indirectly, an important role in building confidence in the successful operation of a bank, such as Faith, Goodness, Glory, Fertility, and Patronage of the Arts. The sculptural decoration is the work of Géza Maróti. In him, we meet an artist schooled in the neo-Classicist tradition and who is always faithful to convention. The playfulness and creativity of Art Nouveau is relegated to the background here. It is only in a detail here and an idea there that those lighter, freer forms sneak in (for example, in the flower basket on the

No. 5 Deák Ferenc utca, reliefs on facade

28