Armuth Miklós - Lőrinczi Zsuzsa (szerk.): A Budapesti Műszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem Történeti Campusa (Budapest, 2023)
A Könyvtár épülete - The Library Building Gy. Balogh Ágnes
which proves that the R-C vaulting would have cost three times as much as the 15 cm thick brick vaults because of the complex framework. The northern end of the students' reading hall is the five sides of a regular decagonal covered with a segmented cupola. The ribs of the vault are based in marble pillars with pink stems standing along the walls. Homogenous light conditions are ensured by the semi-circular windows piercing the walls at a height of 2,5 m. Pecz supported the narrow strips of walls between the generous windows with brick buttresses. These contained R-C pillars in their cores, whilst their upper ends were connected with reaction ties. The counter used when the service area was built on the podium next to the entrance, which was also the guard’s room: the south-facing door besides it lead to the stores through the service area. Access to the reading hall was via a marble-framed entrance with a triple opening. The room itself was clad in yellow ceramic up to the height of 1,3 m. The plinths of the red marble columns were made of yellowish faux marble. As opposed to the foyer, here also the ribs of the vaulting were clad in plaster. Originally, the reading hall was designed to have a central steam fulled heating system. Warm air was blown into the room through the openings of the ornate crown rings on the vault, whilst used air escaped into the cellar through openings beneath the service podium. In his autobiography, Pecz mentioned faults of the air-heating, which was harmful to the secco, the light-palette painting and the cream-coloured curtains too. From the very beginning they used electricity for lighting. The foyer originally contained several functional units. Today the readers' service counters are found opposite the entrance. This is were the students' manual library used to be separated by an appr. A m tall wall and in front of it the statue composition. Both the northern and southern expansion of the foyer is closed by a carved wooden partition. The northern one used to be the foyer of the students' reading hall: the cloakroom opened from here with its open vaulted aperture (later on it housed the catalogue room, then an office). The southern part closed the teachers' reading hall and the offices. These wooden partitions were removed after World War II. The foyer was also heated by blowing in warm air from the direction of the attic, and the cooled air was let into the basement through grills inserted in the plinth. Artificial lighting was originally provided by bronze-glass bead chandeliers hung at the crowns. South of the foyer, the office wing of the building was built to serve the functions of catalogueing. On each of the three floors the offices and ancilaz olvasóterem | the reading hall lary services open from the central
