Gábor Eszter: Andrássy Avenue – Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)

■ The

intersection of Andrdssy lit and today's Liszt Ferenc

tér at

the beginning of the 19 th century

Nagymező utca and

Factory Street (today's Jókai

utca) in

July 1872. The cluster, comprising three five-storey and four four-storey buildings, was carefully adjusted to the existing cityscape by designer Emil Unger, an architect employed by the Sugárút

Construction

Company. The next permits were granted in January 1873 for the construction of another well-composed unit, the buildings of the Octagonal Plaza (today's Oktogon)

designed

by Antal Szkalnitzky, a professor of the University of Technology. Plans for a block of three buildings of uniform design between Eötvös

utca and

Csengery utca

were

authorised the same year. Four villas for the immediate vicinity of the City Park also designed by the company were also approved in 1873.

Although little is known of the activities and intentions of the Sugárút

Construction Company, designs submitted by the firm suggest that they envisaged a consistently shaped avenue with blocks of uniform design rather than independent buildings built next to one another at random. And the idea of a harmonious cityscape would indeed be self-evident given the fact that the general manager of the company was none other than Lajos Lechner, who was awarded first prize at a competition for city-plans invited by the Board of Public Works in 1871. Buildings planned by the company were designed in the style of 9