Csepely-Knorr Luca: Barren Places to Public Spaces. A History of Publick Park Design in Budapest 1867-1914 (Budapest, 2016)

Public Park design in Budapest during the second half of the 19th Century

Survey plan of the southern part of Parliament Square, 1927 / Rüde Károly, Budapest Székesfőváros kertészetéhez tartozó parksétány és kertek tervei. Budapest, 1929. p. 62. / BFL Library

of the square, with two main statues emphasising the north-south axis, was initially published here. An important point of Palóczi’s writing was that he stressed the difference between design solutions for urban squares and parks.

The statue ofAndrássy was finally placed in front of the southern facade, named the southern garden. The landscaping of the area was finalised after long negotiations. The first plans were accepted in 1903 by the Board of Public Works and the Committee for Public Buildings.310 In 1905 the Municipal Engineering Department recommended the placing of a fountain in the square, which was accepted by the Board of Public Works, with the recommendation that it should be a “posy-like, small spring water feature”?" The final landscape plans were designed by Ilsemann, based on the recommendations of the Engineering Department, in 1906.312Although the original plan is not known, a layout was published in Károly Räde’s collection of plans for the parks of the capital in 1929. From the analysis of contemporary photographs from the first decade of the 20th century, we can conclude that this arrangement was similar to the one designed by Ilsemann. The plan is based on a strongly-organised geometrical layout; it was distinguished from Steindl s informal layouts deriving from English landscape gardens.

In 1904 a new competition was announced to design the square, again, in relation to the placing of a new monument. According to the decision of the municipality, a monument to the 19th century statesman

Equestrian statue of Count Gyula Andrássy on a postcard from the 1930s HU BFL XV.19.d.2.b 68

and revolutionary leader Lajos Kossuth313 was supposed to be erected in front of Parliament.314 The sculptural competition was first announced in 1905, and it was reprised in 1908. Irrespective of that, the Union of Hungarian Architects and Engineers finalised its competition in 1904, with Jenő Lechner winning first prize with his entry called ‘Pietas’.315 The plan, which envisaged two statues, is closely connected to Palóczi’s earlier plan, and it is the forerunner of Lechner’s 1926 plan.316 The plan placed the Kossuth monument at the southern end of the square, to make it visible from the newly-created Szabadság Square. He recommended that the other statue should be of Lajos Batthyány, the first prime minister of Hungary during the 1848 revolution, as a major figure in Hungarian constitutional history. The site for the second statue was on the main axis of the Palace of Justice building. The forward-looking element of Lechner’s plan was that he did not place the two statues symmetrically to the axis of Parliament, therefore the north-south axis of the square gained a bigger emphasis. This was the first plan which tried to incorporate the surrounding buildings into the arrangement of the square, by using the axis of the Palace of Justice building as well. This put greater emphasis on the architectural enclosures. However, regarding the style of the layout for the green spaces, Lechner insisted on an informal style, returning to the traditional models of Steindl and

Keresztély Ilsemann, Plan for landscaping the area in front of the Ministry of Agriculture in Parliament Square, 1911 / HU BFL XV.17.d.l514.a. 5/2.2

Ilsemann. The competition for the sculpture itself remained a crucial element in the history of the square. During the second competition in 1908, János Horvay s monument won, but was only erected decades later.317

In 1911 the landscaping of the area in front of the Ministry of Agriculture started.318 The arrangement can be envisaged from a plan signed by Ilsemann in 1911. At this time the eastern gardens (in front of the main facade of the building) still kept the 1904 arrangement: the mostly symmetrical layout was interrupted by a curved carriage-way. The southern and northern gardens were also constructed by this time, and these had kept this arrangement for a few decades.319

Steindl s idea for Parliament Square fitted into the trend for small urban green spaces based on the stylistic designs for London squares, andthe informal layout of small-scale English landscape gardens. However, in the theoretical writings during the evolution of the square - such as Palóczi’s writing - and in formal layouts as well - such as those for the northern and southern gardens - new, forward-looking elements appeared. The separation of the stylistic models of urban squares and public parks was a decisive step in the evolution of landscape theory, which determined the design thinking of the 20th century. Antal Palóczi’s plans for Kossuth Square, and those for Szabadság Square, which will now be introduced, are probably the most important concepts in open space design in Budapest at the end of the 19th century.

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