Ferkai András: Shopfronts - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1996)
building erected. One of the most beautiful specimens is the Thonet House designed by Ödön Lechner (11/A Váci utca, District V). Its lower storeys are covered with a glass wall mounted on an iron frame and its slim pilasters are decorated with an ornamental cast-iron encasement. On the shop levels at 6 Hold utca (District V) designed by the architects Kármán and Clllmann in 1900, an unhidden, riveted iron structure appears similar to aspects of the Millenary CJnderground Railway. The engineer-style design of the row of shopfronts is softened only by the cast-iron banisters on the mezzanine. These shopfronts, whose style anticipates Art Nouveau, take us into the turn of the century. The turn of the century Only one or two examples of Art Nouveau shopfronts have survived to this day. The majority of these extremely individual creations were swept away by later fashions. All the more valuable, therefore, are two shopfronts that have almost miraculously outlasted nearly a hundred years. Moreover, we even know the names of their designers: that of the Philanthia flower shop is the work of Albert Kőrössy, while that of Jónás Hecht’s shop was designed by Béla Lajta, one of the most prominent architects of the period. The Philanthia (the name is a compound of Greek origin meaning “the one who likes flowers”) stands at 9 Váci utca in District V It was built in 1906 for Lady Pepsa Jozefina Szabó, who later assumed the name Józsa, the Hungarian equivalent of Jozefina. After a few years, however, she had to leave the shop because the new owner of the building more than doubled the rent. After the war she moved back from a place next door and ran the “flower hall” until it was nationalized. It retained its function in later times, too, which explains why it has remained almost intact on the inside and has been only moderately altered on the outside. Experts believe the shopfront to be original, but based on the evidence of archive photos it is thought that two pylons crowned with flower buds used to frame the door and the shop windows, above which the still-existing pediment, decorated with flowers and closed by a meandering line, contained the shop sign set in Böck- lin type. Cone-shaped pots full of flowers hung from the ribbed bronze consoles of the two pylons. The shopfront was probably given its simpler present form in the late 12
