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

The Gerbeaud confectionery in the 1920s

its viewers to rediscover the values of the past. The programme opened the eyes of many to the beauties of architecture predating the modern age and called attention to a number of interesting details found on buildings and in public spaces as well as to various items showing the signs of their makers’ great technical skill and artistic talent. With the strengthening of this conservation movement, it was no longer acceptable to destroy or even allow to decay with the same blindness as before mementos of earlier periods, or at least those guilty of such neglect risked being pilloried. Reconstruction and the idea of rehabilitation came into fashion.

The reconstruction of the Gerbeaud frontage was exemplary and as such was the first of its kind. In 1981 the owner Hungarhotels commissioned the architect Gábor Gereben to carry out the complete reconstruction of the pastry-shop and café, which had been renamed Vörösmarty on its nationalization. Gereben’s task was not easy because the continual alterations of over a hundred years had left their mark on the faqade of the establishment. The neoclassical building was originally designed by József Hild in 1860. At that time the confectionery owned by Henrik Kug- ler operated only in the present “Little Gerbeaud” facing Harmincad utca. It expanded into the Privorszky Coffee House overlooking Theatre Square, as it was called then, only around 1870. In 1883 Emile Gerbeaud, a master confectioner from Geneva, purchased Kugler’s shop and with his great talent made it into one of the best cake and pas41