Gerle János: Palaces of Money - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1994)

Géza Marótts special banister decorated with wheat sheaves

aesthetic purposes as well as those of providing communication between one floor and the other. The way the stairs are started and finished together with their lighting and the materials used underscore the bank’s peculiar image by creating a carefully devised positive theatricality.

The ornamentation is an interesting blend of histori- cism and Art Nouveau. Till the day he died, Alpár remained committed to a fundamentally historicist philosophy, trying to evoke the idealised specimens of classical architecture. Many of his works were results of the consistent application of the historical forms; his refined stylistic sense can be best studied on the architectonic group of the Vajdahunyad Castle. In 1993, a modern structure to house new technical equipment (by Mérték Architecture Studio) was (added to the buildings of the National Bank, which included the former Postal Savings Bank.

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