Holló Szilvia Andrea: Budapest's Public Works - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)

From gashouse to natural gas mains

purity of its luminance was comparable to that of the electric bulb, the cost of gas consumed in the process was at a fraction of the electricity required for the production of the same luminous intensity.

Illumination gas retained its popularity for quite some time yet, which is amply proven by the fact that the amount of gas was in excess of three million cubic metres used by street lights and 13 million consumed in domestic residences in the year 1889. And yet the spread of electricity could not be ignored, which is why the terms of the deal in effect with the Trieste-based General Austrian Illumination Gas Company had to be altered. Extended until 15 December 1910, the contract rules out the possibility of the city granting the monopoly of introducing alternative methods of municipal lighting to a third party, but it does not give any such privileges to the gas works company either.

Despite the appearance of electricity as a new player and the strictness of municipal policies manifest in increasingly rigid regulations, the gas industry went from strength to strength in the years to follow. And that, too, was due to the activities of a Hungarian inventor. It was László Sándor who made it known to the world that gas could be used for the purposes of heating, cooking, cooling, washing and ironing. In Pavilion 91 of the Millenary Exhibition, the illumination gas company (as of 1896 the General Austrian-Hungarian Gas Company) also introduced the multipurpose utilisa■ Holden of the Buda gctó worki, c. 1900

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