Buza Péter: Bridges of the Danube - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

cient to unify the twin cities in the minds of the men committed to building the future. The committee included everybody able to promote the plan and even some of those who might have opposed the cause if left out.

A meeting held in the National Casino was reported by the daily Jelenkor: “...the aim of the association to be founded is to explore all likely difficulties from every possible aspect and to make its findings public with the utmost sincerity ... this will be followed by either the construction of a permanent bridge in Budapest or a disclosure in the greatest possible detail of why we will not have and cannot have such a bridge.”

The story of the Chain Bridge

Real work began in a matter of weeks. Earlier plans, proposals and appraisals were collected. Members of the expert committees were nominated. On April 6 the decision was taken that “completing the survey of the Danube bank, a map of the river summarizing the hydrotechnical details should be prepared and lithographed” in order to invite applicants to draw up plans.

The summer months were busy. In June a petition was submitted to the authorities of Pest County calling on the aldermen to put the cause officially to the Diet, the country’s highest legislative body, because “the signatories claim with the utmost conviction that creating a bridge between Pest and Buda is no longer physically impossible...”

With a detailed survey and a map drawn up, the county approved the project in July. In August Széchenyi, accompanied by Count György And- rássy, travelled to England to study bridge-building procedures applied in the most industrialized country of the time in order to decide on the structure of the permanent bridge across the Danube. As early as December of the same year they came to a conclusion which they published, in March 1833, as

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