Buza Péter - Gadányi György: Towering Aspirations - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1998)
2 Rákóczi tér, district VIII A Cartwright’s on the cart row ... The Hatvani utca saddler, Kázmér Kölber achieved the status and livelihood of a Pest bourgeois as early as the 18th century. On that basis his son established the famous Kölber coach-making workshop turning out carriages whose customers included the courts of Europe, spreading the fame of the business far beyond the borders of Hungary. Fülöp Kölber senior was the next in the line. He moved the firm out of the Inner City in the seventies and established a spacious, new and highly productive workshop, a veritable factory, in Salétrom utca off the Great Boulevard. It was at that time that this particular section of József körút was being created (construction work was to be finished around 1896, the year of the millenary celebrations) and it was during this local boom that the Kölber family, or its fourth generation, built a new home for itself. They raised a corner building in the same street as their large workshop, now beyond the zenith of its success with townspeople admiring the first automobiles. It was only natural that the unknown architect commissioned by the Kölbers planned a dome topping, in fact for two domes! (Jp there we find an outer gallery, encircled by a railing, offering a vantage point to the curious wishing to take a look at the world below. If the Kölbers were to return today, obeying the orders of some playful and powerful spirit, they had better avert their glances from the street below. Down there in this notorious, red-light-district square the merchandise being bought and sold has long been something other than carriages! If the Kölbers were to return to this place, obeying the orders of some playful and powerful spirit, they had better turn their glances backwards, rather than to the street below. Down there the merchandise being bought and sold has long been something other than cars. Even if this business is also related to cars - albeit not to carriages... 24
