Kiss Katalin: Industrial Monuments - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)
by Dénes Györgyi and Ernő Román. In consideration of the excavated and still standing Roman monuments, the station was designed in Classical style. Every detail of the building was planned and executed with great care. Coincidentally, when the foundations of the building were being laid, a very significant find came to light-a rare surviving water organ from Roman times, which can be seen in working order at the Aquincum Museum. Later the transforming of electric energy ceased here. The Budapest Electric Works introduced new technologies, and installations were placed elsewhere. On the ground and first floors we can today find now offices, store-rooms, workshops, a restaurant and other service facilities. In the evening, when the sumptuous lighting enhances the monumental effect of the building’s columns, foreign tourists often knock on the door with the modest demand of being allowed to visit the “parliament” from within... Óbuda Gas Works III, Gázgyár utca 1/3 After a tour of the Aquincum Museum, there’s a reason not to hurry home. Turning right at the entry, and walking towards the Danube, we soon arrive at the first buildings belonging to the Gas Works housing estate. The Gas Works itself is one of the most attractive industrial establishments of Europe. In 1855 the Pest municipality concluded a contract with a Triest-Vienna share company for the gas supply of the city. In 1856 the first gas works in the former Lóvásár tér (Horse Market, today Köztársaság tér) was built to the designs of the architect Ludwig Stephani. Following the union of Pest, Buda and Óbuda, in 1891 the General Austrian-Hungarian Coal-gas Company was commissioned with the gas supply of the capital. The first gaslamps illuminated Rákóczi út and other streets of the inner city. (Jntil the first decade of this century many small gas works provided the city with gas, but these gradually became rather outdated. Thus in 1910 the city fathers considered establishing a new, 26
