Holló Szilvia Andrea: Budapest's Public Works - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)
Natural or artificial?
voir and the Christina Town station all badly damaged. Worst of all, twenty-two employees lost their lives when their workplaces were turned into battlegrounds. Reconstruction was completed by 1947, and the interrupted improvements could also be resumed, such as the construction of the Cinkota waterworks or the taking over of the Csepel and Szigetszentmiklós plants. The area of Budapest had grown threefold by 1950 with its population exceeding the 1.6 million mark. Although superannuated waterworks in the outlying districts had to be taken out of operation immediately, significant advances were made in the first half of the fifties owing to the enforced pace of industrialisation: capacities of water extraction grew, as did the combined length of the pipe network, and new reservoirs were opened including the cave-cistern in the belly of Gellért Hill. Hydrological research was undertaken with a view to increasing water-extraction on Szentendre Island, which resulted in the construction of the Pócsmegyer plant and then the installation of radial wells tapping into the water reserves of the also explored Csepel area, whose yield was then conveyed to Pesterzsébet via the bridge of pipe-clusters spanning the Soroksár-Danube branch. Despite these truly promising advances the rapid growth of water consumption led to regular water shortages, which is why the establishment of independent waterworks supplying industrial consumers only was decided on. The first of these to be built, in 1958, was the one at South Pest, but not even this could keep pace with the ever-increasing demands, and factories were sometimes obliged to use up water set aside for open-air swimming pools and baths. A pivotal idea of the long-term, 20-year plan drawn up for the complete elimination of shortages was the construction of a surface reservoir with a holding capacity of 200-thousand cubic metres in the Káposztásmegyer region. The first phase of this was completed in 1962, with the second opening in 1967. The foremost expansion to the pipeline network was the addition of the No. III. main system in Pest. As the main laid at the turn of the century could no longer convey the increased water production of the northern extraction plants, three additional mains were laid in the respective directions of Kőbánya, the inner-city districts, and Rákosszentmihály. At the end of the sixties, the company’s expert employees took the pioneering decision to take into their own hands the manufacture of pipes required for the further development of the system, and the company proceeded to purchase a Rocla-type machine for the manufacture of seamless reinforced pipes. Construction of the factory was undertaken on the Szentendre Island, but as a result of the press campaign mounted against the company the construction permit 63
