Ferkai András: Shopfronts - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1996)

ly used for building shopfronts. (Luxfer glass, patented in 1904, is a fire-proof glass wall similar to leaded glass except that it is made of specially cast prisms braced together by iron wiring. Because of the illuminating and decorative effects produced by these prisms cast with different surfaces, Luxfer glass was particularly suitable for the upper lighting zone of shop windows.) As the demand for fine metal shopfronts increased, Haas & Somogyi became the supplier of complete units. They built the bronze frontage of the Salamander Shoe Shop (now a toy shop) at 37 Andrássy út in District VI. Built in the early 1910s, it is symmetrically arranged. The entrance is in the middle and there are spacious shop windows to its left and right with Luxfer glass above providing illumination. The sign board is set in the frieze of the cornice and one small, flat-arched showcase completes the shopfront on either side. The base and the cornice are connected by six fluted engaged columns made of bronze. The frontage, which had remained in its original state, was renovated in the mid-1980s, though unfortunately the quality of the work was of a rather low standard. The almost flawless Luxfer prisms were smashed and replaced with similarly divided but much cruder leaded glass. Leaded glass was also used to replace the arched

The presemt view of the former “Salamander” shoe shop at 37 Andrássy üt, VI

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