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

Public park design in Budapest during the second half of the 19th century

The plans and layouts created in the first half of the 19th century remained mostly unrealised. The existing public parks and the completed urban plans - which characteristically did not put much emphasis on green spaces - determined the further development of the city. Nevertheless, after the Compromise and the city unification, the questions of landscaping came to the fore. The major social changes and the major city development projects effected the creation of urban green spaces and public parks, and the theoretical basis of their design as well.

The role of green spaces in urban plans and projects at the time of the city unification

"It all happened at the time when the juture of states was hoped to be secured through the development of capitals, following the intentions of Napoleon [ill]."163

The position of the twin cities was strengthened after the Compromise of 1867. Parliament, the government and all departments were moved here, which led to the addressing of the crucial problems of city development. The city seriously lacked a decent health infrastructure, but an improvement in the road system and a cityscape worthy of comparison with Vienna’s were needed as well. Questions of parks, green spaces, monuments, public buildings and their surroundings belonged to this latter issue. Nevertheless Pest-Buda was in poor condition compared to other European capitals, as it did not have open spaces remaining after the demolition of the disused fortifications, which had made possible the creation of large-scale green areas and public spaces in many European capitals.164 This partly explains why the Hungarian capital has many fewer public green spaces compared to Berlin or Vienna.

The first comprehensive urban plan was created by the engineer and town planner Ferenc Reitter (1813-1874), whose memorandum written in 1869 determined the city’s developments for the following decades.165 According to Reitter, Budapest had the potential for a composite system of radial and encircling roads. His memorandum contained the idea of a threepart ‘sétányát’ (promenade-road) system, which advanced the future city structure. The system was built out of two semicircular roads, approximately following the line of today’s Kiskörút (Small Boulevard) and Nagykörút (Grand Boulevard) and the third element was the so-called ‘Városligeti sétányát’, which can be appreciated as the precedent of today’s Andrássy út (Andrássy Avenue): it was intended to connect the Lipótváros Parish Church (today Basilica of St Stephen) with the Városliget Park. The sétányát was divided into two sections: the inner being 36 yards wide, the outer part being 48 yards wide.166 It was proposed that most of the radial roads leading into the city should be built on the routes of the main historic carriageways. The line of the Nagykörút also appeared in another plan by Reitter, created in 1862, and published in 1865. It was the route of the main canal, which surrounded the inner parts of the city and served as part of the flood defence system, and also as a ship canal serving the economy of the city.

Mihály Táncsics (1799-1884), an important personality of the Reform Era and the 1848 Revolution published a pamphlet titled "Our Capital" in 1867 in which he discussed the questions of developing infrastructure and the embankments of the River Danube. He drew

up visions for urban green spaces in order to create ‘fresh air’ in the city. Compared to Reitter’s ideas, Táncsics’s plan was utopian, with grandiose green spaces. The main feature of his plan was a port at both the Northern and the Southern ends of the city. He planned to create a link between these ports with two concentric canals running through the city. The inner canal was imagined to run through the Teréz-, József- and Ferencváros districts. The outer canal, bordered by promenades and green spaces, bounded the city on the Eastern side, was to run through Városliget Park, feeding the lake there. The banks of this were envisioned as serving as promenades and green spaces. As Táncsics wrote: "Especially the banks of the outer canal and its environs, enclosing the city from East, are supposed to be conjured into superbly beautiful promenades, for pedestrians, riders and carriages, from one harbour to the other, there is nothing like it."167 Another aspect of Táncsics’s generous idea was the planting of trees along main roads such as Üllői, Váci and Ország Streets (today’s Margit Ring Road between Széli Kálmán Square and Bem József Street) and along the embankments of the Danube. He also suggested planting woodlands over the demolished residential areas at the southern side of Buda (Újlak), and instead of the vineyards in Óbuda, which foreshadowed the idea of the ‘green belt’ around the city.168

To set up an independent authority to deal with questions of city development was an idea of Prime Minister Gyula Andrássy,169 who wanted to follow the recommendations of Széchenyi, and to realise his plans. His principles were also affected by the previously-mentioned memorandum by Ferenc Reitter and the pamphlet by Táncsics.170

The Metropolitan Board of Public Works was set up according to the dispositions of the 10th Act of 1870.171 The Board, which was set up before the unification of Pest Buda and Óbuda in 1873, operated as the top authority. Among its objectives was the creation of planning regulations for both the whole city and the districts separately, and to work as the second level of appeals in building and city law enforcement issues.172 The Board was set up using the example of the Metropolitan Board of Works, established in London in 1855.173

The Metropolitan Board of Public Works was the successor of the Embellishment Committee, but the difference between the institutional system and the roles was already clear for contemporaries. As it was phrased: "How different these two names are: Embellishment Committee and Board of Public Works. The difference between the two eras explains it. The name Embellishment Committee derives from German romanticism. Board of Public Works is the product of the realistic English thinking."'73 After Andrássy, the president of the Board was always the Prime Minister. The deputy president and nine members of the Board were appointed by the Government, six members were appointed by the city of Pest, and three by the city of Buda. One member from the city council of Pest and one from Buda, along with their chief engineers and members of their committees for public works, had advisory rights. The Board gave the same advisory rights to experts as well. This changed after the city unification, when members from the council of the new capitals were appointed.

In 1870-1871 the Board announced the first international competition for the ‘General Plan for regulation and development’ of Budapest. The call was supplemented with the plans devised by the Board and the City Council of Pest. These mostly determined the circular and radial road system for the applications. The call was to determine the arrangement of the major roads and squares that had

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