Gábor Eszter: Andrássy Avenue – Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)
that a raised ground-floor side-wing fronting on Rózsa utca also belonged to it, and the wide entrance admitting coaches was at the meeting point of the buildings. The side-wing contained the coach house with the servants' quarters above and, connected to these and parallel to Andrássy út, a stable with six boxes in the courtyard. The residential wing was different from all the others surveyed above in that it was neither a uniform mansion nor a series of tightly separated floors each with a self-contained apartment of its own. Lacking a ceremonial staircase, the floors were connected by double-stairs located in an external stairwell with a spiral staircase establishing internal connection between the floors. There were four kitchens in the building itself, with another three in the basement and a further one on the mezzanine. There were only two bathrooms, one on the ground floor and another on the first floor. The ground-floor rooms were far larger than the ones upstairs. What all this suggests is that rather than having self-contained flats admitting strangers, the building consisted of more-or-less independent suites for the family members. A new owner, Baron Frigyes Kochmeister (1816-1907), had the property rebuilt by Rezső Ray Jr in 1902. As a result of the reconstruction, a five-room flat on each floor was created. The building was transformed into a boarding house by the wife of Count Nándor Arcz in 1940, which prepared it for its new function it was to assume after the war, when it became an old-age home for the privileged. In the 1960s the former service wing was replaced with a new, fourstorey residential wing. It is from here that the former mansion can be accessed, where the Vilmos Vázsonyi Old-Age Home is now operated by the Municipality of Budapest. At the end of the second section of Andrássy út we reach the second square, the Körönd (or Kodály körönd, to give it its full name). "I cannot help mentioning the Andrássy üt Circus. whose fiirst building, which id alio an apartment block belonging to the Pensions Administration ofi the Hungarian Railways, was built, in the best taste possible, to plans by Gusztáv Petschacher and decorated by the able hands ofi Lajos Rauscher. Also fiairly pleasant to look at is the building opposite the square raised by Józsefi Kauser and also owned by the Pensions Administration. But then the architecture ofi the Andrássy Court or the Hübner Court with their leaning and ungracefiul turrets had better not be looked at in case one should think that these were raised fior no other reason than to enhance the impression made by the other two by providing contrast to their beauty. One involuntarily wished that they could be removed firom here lest they continue impairing the otherwise well-conceived appearance ofi the square." The above is another piece of contemporary criticism, whose judgement is valid to this day. The assessment, made by Gusztáv Nendtvich in 1891, appeared 39
