Földes Mária: Ornamentation - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)
facade overlooking the square. Sitting in reverie in front and slightly to the side of the entrance are two female figures, their fineness characteristic of Art Nouveau, with the flowers of abundance in their laps. It is with joy that we can discover the heads used as capitals above the first floor windows, heads which represent historical periods and types. What is peculiar about them is that the sculptor, Ede Mayer, endowed them with individual characters, with almost portrait-like features to the normally schematically repeated capitals. The building’s most prominent sculptural decora- tion-a row of reliefs opening up like a folding album-is composed into the spaces between the second-floor windows in the colonnade-frieze and onto the first-floor pillars of the projections.The concertina picture book of these reliefs illustrate the evolution of money, the major phases in the progress of industrial development, the changes of trading practices, and the effects and significance of the sciences. In accordance with the individual themes presented, vivid compositions alternate with genre pictures, and exotic locales with dramatic events. The reliefs are made from limestone, as is the buildinq itself. The interior with its decoration is probably the best homogeneously preserved monument of the period. We can safely claim this, even though it is perhaps the city’s least accessible interior. National Bank, relief on the facade, the Arts 48
