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
“The once unappealing Gellért Hill today is a relief pinned to the bosom of the Capital."366 Gellért Hill (Gellérthegy) and its surroundings were another major public park project of the turn of the 20th century alongside Népliget Park. Like that, it was also in line with the latest design theoretical principles, and although it was based on different assumptions, it is as important a stage in the development of Hungarian public park theory as Népliget Park. The hill had been populated since ancient times and its thermal baths were known throughout antiquity. According to tradition, it obtained its name after the martyr bishop, Gellért (Gerard), who died on the side of the hill. In the mediaeval times it was called ‘Mons Sancti Gerardi’, but later it is also described as ‘Blocksberg’. In the 17th century, the hill was notorious because of its ‘witches’, while in the 19th century it was popular due to its grape harvesting treats and Easter Monday services.367 Its transformation, and the idea of creating a park first appeared as part of Széchenyi s ‘Udvleldej the National Pantheon idea. Although during the 1840s, when Széchenyi published this idea, it had met with strong opposition, the concept of linking the hill and the national monument recurred several times. According to Géza Hajós, the idea of landscaping Gellért Hill is connected to the German idea of ‘Landschaftsverschönerung’, aiming to strengthen the connection between the city and its landscape. As examples, he mentioned Schlossberg in Graz and Spielberg in Brno.368 After the 1848-49 Revolution and War of Independence, the Austrian army built the so-called Citadel, a military fortress on top of the hill, to demonstrate its power. After the Compromise, the hated fort - one of the three Austrian ‘fortresses’ of Budapest367 - lost its military importance, and both the residents and the city planning professionals turned their attention towards the question of reuse or demolition. These ideas, together with the desire to create a new landscape on the hill, can be divided into two main directions in terms of city planning. The first was the surviving idea of the ‘Udvlelde’, the National Pantheon. This was associated, on the one hand, with the international examples of connecting specific natural forms with national monuments, and on the other with the national social and political intentions to strengthen patriotism. The second direction was the idea of the ‘Spa-City’, which only became a decisive city planning idea during the interwar period, but with the planned reconstruction of the Rudas and Sáros Baths, and with the idea of linking these two together, the scheme had already appeared during the first decades of the 20th century.370 The landscaping of the hill was a crucial point in this case, as well. Besides these two, the idea of creating a pleasure and leisure area on the hill also emerged, through the grandiose plans by János Hein; his aim was to create a new public park that would publicise gardening and horticulture. In the final plans and the created parks, only parts of the impressive ideas were actually realised, but the design theoretical background behind them was highly innovative, like that of Népliget Park. Gellért Hill and its surroundings The ideas after the Compromise were mostly influenced by Széchenyi’s Valhalla suggestion.371 Firstly his son, Ödön Széchenyi, updated his ideas at the beginning of the 1870s when, ahead of the Millennium - commemorating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin -, he described a complex Gellért Hill concept. He wanted to build "pleasure houses and villas" on the hill, recommended locating a military school there, and erecting a Pantheon or Valhalla on the top.372 Frigyes Feszi, in his 1871 city development competition entry, suggested a Millennium Monument for the hill, which was the first appearance of this idea. The form of his memorial was a centre line building with columns and an equestrian statue on the top of it.373 In his 1873 series of plans, he included the development of both Castle Hill and the embankments of the Danube. His designs showed a panoramic promenade with triumphal arches, and the building up of the Tabán valley between Gellért and Castle Hill with monumental buildings. The building on the top of the hill in Feszl’s plans was most probably a pantheon, which was referred to, for example, in the description of his own plans by István Medgyaszay.374 The idea of establishing a suitable memorial site led to the announcement by the Union of Hungarian Architects and Engineers, in 1882, of a design competition to develop a Hungarian Pantheon. Five entries were submitted, and the committee awarded prizes to three.375 Out of these three, two placed the monument to the top of the Gellért Hill, for example the author of the winning entry, Győző Czigler. As he explained in his description, he designed a - because of its function - classical style building on the site of the demolished Citadel. Czigler wanted to place the main axis of his building exactly on top of the main axis of the Citadel.376 The central hall, crowned by a dome, was supposed to exhibit the history of the Settlement of the Magyars in Hungary and the period of the Hungarian Kingdom, while the right hand hall commemorated renowned Hungarian statesmen, and the left hand one generals. The other prize competition entry which placed the monument to the top of the hill was created by Gyula Bérezik, who also suggested using the Citadel as the basement of the new building.377 During the preparations to celebrate the Millennium the creation of a statue of Árpád - the head of the confederation of Magyar tribes at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries - as a memorial to the Settlement of the Magyars in Hungary was discussed. Locating this monument on the hill had already appeared in the writings of László Madarassy in 1886. A key feature of his proposal was that the statue, which stands on top of the landscaped hill as a final destination of a promenade, should enlighten the city with a “flash of lightning".373 In 1891, the idea of relocating the Town Hall onto the Hill was published in the newspaper Fővárosi Lapok. The article also mentioned other suggestions, such as a colossal statue of Árpád. The author of the article referred to the ideas of Károly Pulszky, who had recommended building a “necropolis on Gellért Hill", which could be a “cemetery transformed into a view of piety and glory through art”. As a precedent, Pulszky referred to Louis Is Valhalla, and he also recommended moving the recently built mausolea of the 19th century statesmen Ferenc Deák and Lajos Batthyány,379 to the hill. He recommended the creation of chapels and graves Concepts for a National Monument Frigyes Feszi, Design for the millennial monument on Gellért Hill, 1871 HUMNL-OL T 11 No. 6/1 Previous page: Frigyes Feszi, Plan for a scenic route on Gellért Hill, detail, around 1873 / Kiscell Museum Architecture Coll. 97.254 119
