Kiss Katalin: Industrial Monuments - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)
using the garage, and started the comprehensive reconstruction of the plant. First of all they renewed the structure of the garage hall. Its covering is made of elliptic steel concrete shell- plates of a few centimetres thickness, supported by steel concrete arches. In 1941, when this 82 metres large structure was built, it was the largest in the world with a stressed-skin structure. Its designer, the construction engineer Dr. István Menyhárd planned its conoid shell with a parabolic directrix, on the model of French examples. He is considered one of the greatest construction engineers of the 20th century, who made his mark in both the theory and the practical application of stressed-skin structures. His buildings are excellent from the point of view of not only structural engineering, but also architecture. During the more than fifty years since its construction, the large hall has suffered severe damage because of interior smoke gases and infiltrating rainwater. The urgent restoration of the shell structure was made not too well, which is owing to the lack of money and time. However, at least the little shacks and mountains of rubbish disappeared from the courtyard during reconstruction. The view of the plant will be improved by the reconstruction of the gate’s architectural group. The overall architecture of the plant is the work of the designer Jenő Padányi Gulyás. The garage can be visited with advanced notice, but only within limits. Water Tower XIII, Margitsziget (Margaret Island) This water tower is well known by every inhabitant of the city. It is a meeting-place, a look-out tower and an epoch-making work of Hungarian reinforced concrete architecture. (The water tower was to store water pumped up continuously from wells, reservoirs and other sources. Although the pumping itself was continuous, but the water consumption changes from day to day. The dimensions of water tanks are calculated on the basis of the water needs of a given area, and are situated above it, in order to maintain the necessary pressure. Thus 49
