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

Albert Kőrössy in 1912-13. On the corner, fur-trader Marcell Breitfeld opened a shop. He entertained the public in the inner city with unusual advertising ideas. In 1931, for example, he had a mini putting green installed in the shop window and models dressed in his fur coats and fur caps played golf. Breitfeld also had an arcade constructed in front of his premises so that window-shoppers could be protected from the rain.

The “Népművészeti bolt”, which moved in after Breit- feld’s shop was nationalized, used the shopfront in the state in which it was found right up to the beginning of the 1980s. Then the basic principle of reconstruction was that the unity of the ground floor and the mezzanine disrupted by the modern frontage should be restored. On the mezzanine, the original vertical division of the building had survived together with the ornamented copper strips covering the pilasters. After the arcade was dismantled, all that had to be done was to continue the fagade of the mezzanine down to the ground floor. The embossed copper strips covering the pilasters required the use of fine materials, which is why the new base is made of granite, the glass used is black and semi-transparent with the panes bent at the corner, and the surrounding sections are covered with copper plates. All this restored the shop’s fagade to its original elegance. The two windows looking downwards adjoining the simple base are a new addition to connect the basement shopping area and the level of the passers-by. Gereben’s work illustrates how a designer can realize his ambitions finding inspiration in, rather than destroying, the precious heritage of the past.

Among the multitude of recently built Eclectic and trivial shopfronts one rarely finds truly professional work reflecting the original mentality of their creators. Although it is somewhat dilapidated today, one exception is the “Marc” Shoe Salon (27 Teréz körút, District VI) designed by Péter Reimholz in 1987. The difficulty the designer faced here - how to design a modern shopfront on the ground floor of a neo-Renaissance building - is a typical one, but Reim- holz's solution is not. His shopfront is neither modern, nor nostalgic. Being able to appreciate the cultural dimensions of planning, he dismissed the cheap solutions of the historical style. However, as an architect aware of the message a construction conveys, he was not satisfied with a mere rational answer, either. When designing the shopfront, he restored some elements but not others. He re44