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

natural level differences were used, so that the designers could create a lookout point 12 metres higher than the first few promenades. The original plans also recommended the creation of a ‘picturesque ruin’ on a rock above the lookout point. The termination of the first phase was marked by a resting space, a keeper’s lodge and a gate. The level differences were spanned by ramps and slopes, stairs were not used "considering the comfort of the strolling visitors".'*2'

The start of the second phase was marked with another entrance gate and keeper’s lodge. This phase was also added two more gates. The entrance at the Rudas Baths end of the promenade was emphasised by a keeper’s lodge with a tower. Linking the two sections together would only have been possible with a special engineering structure: according to the plans this would have been a 40 metre long ‘balcony-like passageway’, edged by the same wrought-iron elements which were used on the park fence. An article mentioned as a shortcoming of the plan that it had no links to the parks around the Gellért statue. One year after the publication of the plans, in 1905, the Board of Public Works asked for a new plan and an estimate for connecting the two parks together.422 The reasons for the miscarrying of these plans are not known. The architectural elements of the promenade received both positive and negative critiques throughout the building works and after it was opened as well. While some journals praised the fact that the Romanesque revival architectural forms were similar to those of the recently built Halászbástya (Fishers’ Bastion) on Castle Hill, others saw it as out of scale and a disfiguration of nature.423

As a supplement to the plan, in 1907, Ármin Hegedűs and Arthur Sebestyén published a new plan, which tried to create an integrated redevelopment of the embankments, and to eliminate the mistake that the new park was not linked to the surroundings of the monument.424 The principal idea was to create a viaduct from the second floor of the new Gellért Baths to the Gellért Hill Cave, which would have enabled to the visitors to the baths to enter the park calmly. The enlargement of the square in front of the cave would have become the ground-level station of the funicular railway. The architects recommended linking this space with a tunnel to the grottoes below the Gellért monument. Although it was not realised, Hegedűs and Sebestyént plan shows the importance of the improvement of the environment of baths through natural opportunities, which remained an important design theoretical idea up until today.

In 1908 the journal Építő Ipar reported that the promenade was opened.425 The final designs were reduced in comparison to the original plans: the fence was built lower, it did not visually separate the park from the carriageway, and the link between the two phases was not built either. The link between the two baths and the parks around the monument were also not executed. The author of the journal article also noted the missing functions in the park: he recommended the creation of a coffee house and various shops in the small buildings along the park. The park and its buildings are out of use today, and only the very attentive visitor can notice the valuable plants and the well-thought-through horticultural concept.