Kiss Katalin: Industrial Monuments - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)
which are without glass. One is occasionally wedged with an empty beer bottle by a charitable passer-by. The former tram depot is encircled by boarding behind which sad, thin trees growing out of the roof shake their heads in the wind. The sight here is sad and desolate. Cars and buses run with pride beside the former horse tramway station standing between two highways. It’s as if they are pulling a long nose behind the back of a hard-of-hearing grandfather. The Récsei autobüs garage XIV, Cházár András utca 1 On 20th July 1927 the municipality decided to buy a hundred new autobuses. First the plan was to build two garages with fifty spaces, but then the construction of one for 180 started. The designs were made by the professors of architecture Dezső Hültl and Győző Mihai- lich. Seventeen months work saw the creation, at the site of former cave dwellings, one of the most modern garages of Europe. The most important part of the building is the 100 metres long and 72 metres large hall, roof frame of which is 72,000 m2, with only five supports at 20 metres intervals. The frame is covered with reinforced concrete plates and leather plates applied to these. Half of the main supports rise above the roof. A glass lighting strip opens besides the supports, through which one can also see the high structure of the supports. This offers a unique view: the steel structure of the frame roof and the entire hall can be clearly seen at the same time. In addition, in the middle of the workshop two twenty- seven metres high compact towers rise up, with two forty-six cubic metres water tanks. In consideration of the special building requirements, the commission for execution was given to the best firms of the period. Many inventions and innovations were born in the interests of a good execution of this exceptional structure. Special praise is due to the municipal engineers who participated in the construction. In 1930, during celebrations of the feast of St. Imre, the garage served as a festive hall, accommodating 15,000 people. In memory ofthat festive occasion, the 57
