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

Előadások / Presentations - TÓTH Ernő: Conserving our bridges and protecting

considered to date from Roman times, those at Ráckeresztúr and Budakalász have been destroyed, and that at Százhalombatta is at most only partly original, and as far as I know there has still been no thorough archaeological research done on them. After the Hungarian Conquest, there are records and documents mentioning bridges dating from the 13th century. There are remnants what may be original piles along the courses of the Sajó, the Rába and the Zala, but there have been no studies using instruments. The very interesting history of the permanent river bridge built in Szolnok in 1562 has passed down to us in detail. As well as pontoon bridges constructed in the Turkish era there are reliable military surveys and remnants of several bridges up to castles. Unfortunately the .reconstructed" bridges often do not closely aspire to similarity to the original, and reinforced concrete versions give no impression of the original (Diósgyőr, Szigetvár, etc.). The first military survey (from the time of Joseph II) is an almost inexhaustible source for research. An example from Heves county: 273 bridges are marked on the maps, and there are archive sources showing that in some towns, such as Gyöngyös, there were several stone bridges not shown on the maps. There were vaulted bridges in the Middle Ages in Buda above Ördögárok. In several towns, bridges were made into drains. (Székesfehérvár had more than 100 bridges in 1821.) There are four pointed-arch bridges in the country, but their construction dates are unknown. One of these, at Olaszliszka, is unique, being more of a building than a bridge. Of Heves county it is recorded that in some parishes, more than 70 per cent of bridges were stone. It is a great pity that so many of them have been destroyed. In Eger there were certainly two vaulted bridges during the Turkish era, the Barátok hídja (Friends' bridge) and the St John Bridge, both decorated with statues. The Minorites' bridge, erected in 1730, had unique ornamentation (10 statues) and it is a great shame that it was demolished after the flood of 1878. Further vaulted bridges of great artistic value are those and Jászdózsa, Tárnáméra, Visznek and 27 others now subject to conservation. A welcome development is that every county has arch bridges worthy of protection, although these are distributed very unequally. There are now 380 of them, but 30 years ago there were twice as many on the public roads. It is to be hoped that the decay will not continue at such a rate. Iron and steel bridges: Around 1810, three cast-iron bridges were built in Kisgaram. These arch bridges, built by Maderspach, are further evidence that bridge-building in Hungary at this time was well up with European advances. The Chain Bridge - which in terms of its span was a world-leading road bridge - was the product of designers and engineers from outside Hungary, but shortly afterwards the Szeged road bridge was built on the design of János Feketeházy, and the bridges at Komárom (1893), Esztergom (1895) and the Francis Joseph (nowadays Freedom) Bridge in Budapest were entirely Hungarian productions, and recognised as outstanding even in the international engineering literature. Built in 1896, the Freedom Bridge is partly original, as are the Komárom and Esztergom bridges, but the other Danube bridges were mostly or completely rebuilt after wartime destruction. The beautiful Elizabeth Bridge in Budapest was built in 1903, and remained the world's longest-span suspension bridge for a quarter of a century. Some river bridges (such as in Békés county) remain in their original condition, a tribute to their construction. Róbert Wünsch' reinforced-concretc pedestrian bridge, which now languishes without a function in the City Park in Pest, is now unfortunately the only surviving product of the very productive cement engineers of the time. The oldest Monier-system reinforced concrete bridge still standing was built in Solt in 1889, its larger, more spectacular successors at Sárbogárd and Galgamacsa having succumbed to the Second World War. Szilárd Zielinski's pedestrian bridge in Balatonföldvár, still in perfect condition, is only one of a great number of the Hennebigue system bridges he designed. The Zielinski bequest in the Transport Museum is a rich record of reinforced concrete construction (not only bridges) and many of his other productions would