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

When the new avenue was opened, the disreputable nightclubs of Hermina

tér, where

the Opera House was built, were banished to the newly established light entertainment district in Nagymező

utca. It

was here, that in 1870, Károly

Somossy was officially authorised to build his "summer music hall to be called 'Orpheum' in

the garden of Zsuzsanna Berger’s house”. In time the nightclubs of the street attained international fame, with Somossy commissioning Fellner and Helmer of Vienna to design his famous Orpheum,

today's

Operetta Theatre, as early as the 1890s. Between the two world wars, the Arizona, a nightclub of European renown, operated in the rooms of the studio-mansion owned by the photographer Manó

Mai

across the street.

The face of the avenue changes somewhat beyond Nagymező

utca. "The

cube oh the hint building to the leht almost makes the impression oh a single monument with the strict symmetry of its components. Having a better look, one will oh course realise that it is three buildings, rather than one, that thus meet the eye. On even closer scrutiny, the analytic eye will discover that what was thought to be a group oh three consists oh no less than hive constituent units. What is more, the hive-hold entity will, when examined with an imaginary 'immersion' microscope in a particularly havourable light, be revealed to comprise as many as seven buildings. This series oh discoveries will provide the passer-by with a very pleasant pastime hor

■ The building that closes the Seven Houses at the comer oh

Nagymező utca (No. 32—44 Andrássy

út)

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