Szatmári Gizella: Signs of Remembrance - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2005)
Expressing the weight and prestige of jurisdiction, the prominent building whose keystone was put in place by King Francis 1 on 6 October 1896 is a worthy counterpart of the Houses of Parliament across the square. Its contemporary significance is indicated by the fact that it received a plaque with a relief in Hauszmann's honour some years after the completion of the building. The architect's portrait was sculpted by of János Pásztor (1913). According to Hauszmann's journal, the placement of the plaque here was meant to highlight the fiftieth anniversary of his work as an architect and a teacher. Indeed, he had finished his apprenticeship under master-builder József Diescher in 1864, after which he designed eighty public buildings, private mansions, villas, apartment houses, hospitals and schools in his unmistakeable eclectic, neo-Renaissance style. Whatever its inscription says in contradiction to the protagonist's more reliable journal, the plaque was unveiled on 3 May 1914 as the apex of a splendid and large-scale celebration involving as many as eighteen laudations and the arrival of a benedictory telegram from the Archduke Joseph and the Archduchess Augusta. The memorial slab could have gone into the Castle District, on a quiet wall of the Christina-Town wing of the Royal Palace, too, as it was Hauszmann whom the king had put in charge of enlarging the palace after the sudden death of Miklós Ybl (1891), the original supervisor of the works there. Besides adding the Christina-Town wing (where the National Széchényi Library is housed today) to the complex, Hauszmann extended the central tract in a northerly direction. With a view to serving his country, the architect went out of his way to ensure that the fittings and decorations of the new wings, the objects serving practical or aesthetic purposes in it, were made by outstanding representatives of Hungary's arts and crafts. He also made sure that episodes of Hungarian myth and history were represented and that the ornamental motifs of a Hungarian folk style were ubiquitous in the interior decorations. He also supported the idea of a Matthias Fount to be attached to the external wall of the palace chapel. Alajos Stróbl's work was unveiled in 1904 in the presence of the monarch. His work was frequently recognized. Besides major assignments (such as the Somossy Orpheum in Nagymező utca, the New York Palace, the Governor’s Mansion in Fiume, the central building of the University of Technology) his designs for the interior of the St. Stephen Hall meant to be opened in the 64
