Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 26. (Budapest, 2008)

Mária FERENCZY: Chinese Moon Gate on Budapest's Andrássy Avenue. The Garden of Ferenc Hopp, I

organised restoration on a basic level its first regular post-war visitors - including students at the Apácai Csere People's College played a part.

35 Photographs

36 attest that the roof of the Moon Gate was by then in a very bad condition: Some of the tiles were broken or had fallen off, and the roof beams and their embellishments had disappeared. Only by about 1950 was the damage to the gate made good. At that time, in Pécs, roof tiles were manufactured to the original pattern, so that missing ones could be replaced.

37 At the same time as the roof was attended to, the wooden parts of the roof structure were also renewed, albeit in a simpler form than the original.

38 However, neither in the above-mentioned post-war period was the life of the garden untroubled. From 1954, the Association of Hungarian Journalists used a part of the back garden, annexing it to that of its headquarters building next door. To put matters bluntly, this part was appropriated.

39 In the first half of the 1980s, on the initiative of Director-General Pál Miklós the museum was able, by way of litigation and a binding decision by a judge, to take over the disputed part.

40 Further restoration could take place only in 2002. At that time the foundations of the Moon Gate were insulated, the inserted stone tablets cleaned, the wall painted, and the wooden roof structure again conserved. The beams of the eaves were reconstructed along with the end pieces recalling the shape of fish-dragons (albeit without the embellishment in the middle of the roof) (ill. 16). It was the cleaning of the ceramic pieces that brought the most spectacular results: the brilliant colours of the glazes emerged from beneath a century of dust and soot, and details became visible.

41 16. The Moon Gate; view oj today The beauty of the garden was made complete by the richness of the vegetation. Every generation of colleagues in the museum has attempted to maintain and even add to this. Knowing the vicissitudes, it is not surprising that of the plants put in by Ferenc Hopp only a few now remain. The largest of these is a now enormous ginkgo tree, but there is also a Tatar maple (Acer tataricum), a paper mulberry tree (Broussonetia), a Japanese acacia (Sophora japonica), among others. On the basis of the photographs, a botanical description, too, could be prepared. However, this - and the description of the other works of art in the garden should be the subject of another study.