A műemlékek sokszínűsége (A 28. Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai 1998 Eger, 1998)

Előadások / Presentations - KUBINSZKY Mihály: Preservation of railway monuments

stored, differences between regulations effective in 1874 and 1987 had to be taken into account. This was the reason why the floorings and the apron-wall on the side of the platforms had to be consolidated, without any significant alteration to the appearance of the historic building. This monument, Budapest's Nyugati station, is especially precious since little in the world remains of the constructions designed by the agency of the great master of 19th century architecture, Gustave Eiffel. It took only 20 years to replace, between 1890 and 1910, all through the Hungarian railway network, in practically all our significant towns, the old rationalist-puritan standard design of the main stations with representative urban public buildings. The success of these activities is due to famous MÁV architect Ferenc Pfaff and his team. Among these buildings, the railway stations of Fiume (1890) and Zagreb (1882), /the latter used to be the largest one outside Budapest in the country/ and three identical fine buildings, the Kaposvár (1899), Szatmárnémeti and Versec stations were presented. The speaker also mentioned some of the other public building type small town stations. At smaller stations in the country, railway companies used a set of standard designs for different sizes of building. This practice was introduced by the three main private rail companies, Déli Vasút, Tiszavidéki Vasút and the French-owned AVT. But the largest scale standard design program was carried out by the local rails. The ministry usually obliged the various corporations to apply standard designs that would guarantee uniform quality and facilitate centralized management, especially in the case of those lines that MÁV was to take over. As an interesting point, it was mentioned that MÁV built an individual railway station for Kálmán Széli at Alsórönök, Vas county, similar to the standard design but smaller in size. Another rarity is the still surviving building at Ata station, once part of the Mohács-Pécsi Vasút, the combination of a water house and a boarding building. A memorial plaque at the sometime Lajtaszentmiklós (now Neudörfl) station still reminds you of philosopher Rudolf Steiner, whose father used to be Stationmaster there. On the same SopronNémetújhely line, three trackmen's houses from 1847 are also surviving! Other Hungarian railway lines have some more fine old trackmen's houses, including the one at Méra, a document of the architecture of Tiszavidéki Vasút. This is a genre that gets more respect abroad: every single one of the trackmen's houses along the Semmering rail line inaugurated in 1854 has been preserved, though they might have different functions today (e.g. they are used as summer cottages). Lövő and Körmend were presented among several examples of goods boarding facilities. Very interesting is the series of reinforced concrete structured goods sheds designed by the well-known reinforced concrete designing engineer Dr Szilárd Zielinsky in the South-East part of the Plains, including Battonya station. Early modern architectural monuments will probably soon include the electricity supply building at Nagyszentjános on the Hegyeshalom line as well. Slides were projected on a few famous European railway monuments, including Gare d'Orsay in Paris, now deprived of its function and hosting a museum. The Neo-Renaissance style Trieste station was erected by the then Austrian Southern Rails. One of the most outstanding works of the Austrian State Railways still survives, nicely restored, in Nova Goriza, Slovenia. Helsinki's station building, designed by Eliel Saarinen, is a special asset of early modem architecture. The Prague railway station presented was built in Art Nouveau style by the same Fanta who designed the memorial for the Slavkov (Austerlitz) battlefield. A couple of significant and historic railway bridges also rank among railway monuments, including viaducts of the Semmering railways, the bridge over the Salcano valley with its 100 meter walled arch and the impressive 2-km bridge over Firth of Forth in Scotland, with its Gerber beams and lattice frame. These assets are all valuable for both their appearance and technical perfection. Some of the deficiencies of the situation in Hungary also deserve to be highlighted. The conditions of Józsefváros station in Budapest are far from reflecting the role the station has played in the history of the