Ferkai András: Housing Estates - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2005)

After World War I

■ Bécói út townhoiuei: a contemporary drawing (Reziő Hikióch, Ferenc Paulheim Jr. 1327)

The last of those listed above was built in 1927 by Stabil Building Co., a firm owned by the English-Hungarian Bank, on the slopes of Kecskehegy (Goats Hill) where the Újlak lime kiln had stood before. The monumental, five-building unit is a characteristic landmark of Óbuda to this day. Viewed from Nagyszombat utca, the complex impresses one with the enormous and rather bleak facade of a six-storey mansion, its surface broken somewhat to follow the curvature of Bécsi út. After the breakage, the facade is further broken by a passageway- a stepped footpath leads to the interior of the complex. Cutting diagonally across the estate, Kecske utca broadens out into a square in the middle, resembling an ancient amphitheatre due to the effect of the elliptic concave of the building in the back. A gate cut through the middle of this concave wing opens into the next cross street, where the fourth building provides a closure to the composition with yet another small square. Another, self-contained, building belongs to the unit at the corner of Kecske and Nagyszombat streets.

In the building there were 460 flats altogether (59 had one room each, 178 two rooms and a bathroom, 95 three rooms and 4 four rooms). The assortment of types reveals that the housing estate was made for civil servants rather than workers. The assumption is borne out by the better-than-average execution (e.g. there was a lift in each stairwell) and the high-quality architecture. The complex was designed by Rezső Hikisch and his associate, Ferenc Paulheim Jr. After graduating from the Technical University in Budapest, Hikisch worked under Theodor Fischer in Munich and Paul Wallot in Dresden. From the 1910s, he developed his unique style, which was understated and monumentally Neo-Classical at the same time. Analogies can be found in the Romantic Neo-Classicism of late 18th

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