Szablyár Péter: Sky-high - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2007)

Churches; Towers; Domes

The towers and domes of St. Stephen’s Basilica

Szent István tér. District V

József Hild (1789-1867) was commissioned to design the Parish Church of Lipótváros (Leopold Town) in 1845. Begun in 1847, construction was suspended because of the War of Independence, only to be resumed in 1851. After Hild's death, Miklós Ybl continued the work of the former. Although Ybl vacated the building on discovering the faults of the materials used and the flaws in the finished structure, he could not prevent the collapse of the dome in January of 1868. Ybl had the building demolished to the crypt before he proceeded to install new pillars on a [.4-metre thick concrete foundation in 1875-76. The new dome structure he placed on an internal and an external ring, which he connected with sixteen pillars to each other. The drum was completed in 1889, when the steel structure of the external dome was also erected. On Ybl's death in 1891 the church was structurally completed. Its interior decoration was finished by architect József Kauser (1848-1919) by 1895.

The dome of the basilica has a unique place in the history of Hungary's architecture. With no dome built for hundreds of years in this country up to the 19th century, new directions had to be explored. The dome of the basilica was mainly

■ St. Stephen's Basilica

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