Buza Péter - Gadányi György: Towering Aspirations - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1998)

6 Zichy Géza utca, district XIV

As shown by the history of Budapest’s architecture, the vogue of decorating corner buildings, mostly large apartment blocks, in the streets crowded with houses in the Inner City with balconies and towers was already on the wane in the 1910s. Simpler, more functional structures became the order of the day, which reflected a predominantly west European influence. As for other areas, and later residential districts built over with smaller detached houses, builders have remained faithful to a style characterised by towers and domes to this day, thus creating the familiar architectural types of the past century or more.

The simplest and most frequent of these are the villas featuring towers resembling those of churches. A fine specimen of this category is this house in Istvánmező, noteworthy on account of its interesting history. It was built one or two years after the millenary celebrations for Elek Lip- pich, the prematurely departed reputable poet and art critic, who filled a ministerial post in the field of the country’s art administration. The architect was László Gyalus, known as a restorer of old, mainly Romanesque, buildings, whose creation here, in its every detail, evoked the Middle Ages on the edge of the City Park. One more romantic touch is given to the story by the fact that between 1912 and 1916 the house was owned and lived in by Count Géza Zichy, the one-armed virtuoso pianist, who conquered the world with his concert tours playing his instrument with one hand.

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