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

Market squares become green spaces

"... the market squares of the suburbs should be turned into promenades, so that these desolate areas could become beautiful, vivid and demanding places."229

Market squares play and have played a decisive role in the evolution of Budapest. The importance of these spaces was increased by the fact that they could remain unbuilt, even in the densely built-up areas of the city - mostly because of their role in providing food for the capital. The first market square to be planted in the 1850s was Erzsébet Square. The space itselfhad been used as a cemetery and later as a market square, before it became a public park, just after Széchenyi Promenade. After the German theatre previously occupying the square bunted down a temporary blockhouse was created, and next to it a kiosk, in 1853, making room for an ice-cream stand and bowling alley.230 As it was nearly the only green space close to the city centre, it attracted numerous visitors. It became a favourite pleasure garden in the second half of the 1850s, where military bands amused the visitors as well. The design for the green spaces was created by Armin Pecz Sr. in 1856, which - according to his memoirs - was executed, but never paid for.23 ' A survey drawing, dated 1874, signed by György Incze, shows the new layout of the square after the Erzsébet Square Kiosk was built, according to the designs of Alajos Hauszmann.232 The

1874 plan is a representative example of the landscape style of the period. The central, major ornamental element - a circular carpet bed - was created on the main axis, which was parallel to the main axis of the building. The axis was marked by another two smaller circular flower beds. The rest of the park was divided by informal, winding paths; the designer also recommended the placing of monuments next to two of the four entrances. The park was another representative example how the stylistic elements of large-scale private gardens appeared on a much smaller scale in the public spaces of Budapest during the period under the first head gardener, Emil Fuchs. In 1892, porcelain slabs were installed in the square to give information on the names of the plants according to the idea of the municipal gardener György Reitlinger. This shows the same desire to educate the visitors in public parks as in other European countries, in this case, in botany.

Erzsébet Square remained the most extensive green space in the city centre. The journals and newspapers of the period published an immense amount of information on the park: mostly on the changing bedding-out of the carpet beds.233 Among these articles, the ones written by Keresztély Ilsemann are the most significant sources for the history of public park theory, especially those he wrote about his own carpet-bed designs.234 He strongly criticised the fashion of collecting exotic plants, and gave a new direction to the design of public open spaces. He condemned the

Erzsébet Square and its kiosk, photograph by György Klösz around 1877 / HU BFL XV.19.d.l - 5/35

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