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

Meroiry above the maim ledge of the József nádor tér faokde,

HOLDING A MODEL OF THE BANK, WHICH WAS NEVER FÜLLY REALISED

directors’ offices. The various types of marble, all of domestic provenance, were selected with extreme care and expertise to suggest a sombrely dignified atmosphere, and unbending sternness. The reliefs on the ceiling evoke early Greek culture. The mood suddenly changes as one enters the corridor of the presidential section on the second floor. The heavy Baroque-like grandeur of the dark-stained wooden panelling designed by Ödön Faragó and made in the furniture factory of Endre Thék is in stark contrast with the puritanism of the staircase despite the latter’s ornamentation.

Entering the building at the Dorottya street corner, one reaches a foyer very similar to the entrance hall of the Commercial Bank on its Roosevelt tér side, which was completed in the second phase of that construction. From here the visitor proceeds to the cashier’s hall through a remarkably ingenious series of spaces. The customer is under the impression that he is proceeding along the axis of symmetry, even though he is being directed by Alpár’s invisible hand from the comer to the hall which is at an angle of 45 degrees to the former.

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