Földes Mária: Ornamentation - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)
Further down Mádor utca at no. 16 stands the headquarters of the former Hungarian-Italian Bank (today the head office of OTP). It represents another style closest to that of the massive bank buildings designed by Ignác Alpár. Every feature of its architecture and sculptural decoration is rather depressing in this narrow street. The stone covering of the entire surface, the heavy consoles, the solid sheaves of meander, and the scarcely visible reliefs on the second floor all weigh down on the viewer looking upwards. The already familiar figures alluding to the building’s function also appear here on the reliefs (woman with beehive, harvesting labourer, man gathering in the crops). The design of the main cashiers’ hall, as the interior spaces, was also made along the lines of the specimens seen so far, with their wealthy, lavish ornamentation. The hall is covered by a glass dome. The interior, crowded with coloured stain glass windows, ground and cut glass swing-doors, and glittering brass fittings, is again meant to impress the onlooker as a successful, well-funded bank. The street might as well be called “the street of OTP”, as the next headquarters (no. 21 Nádor utca), built in 1910, also belongs to that company. Its former occupant, the Nasici Co. and Timber Bank, was involved in the logging and wood-processing industries, so it is small wonder that these activities are represented in the sculptural decoration both outside and within. The robust, dynamic woodcutters personify logging in the sculptural group above the entrance. The rest of the process (transportation and sawing) is done by children as though they were playing. In the entrance hall on the side of the stairway there is a similar stone sculpture composition showing another group of children. Of course, on the facade the already familiar elements of sculptural decoration were also employed (garlands and stylised motifs). This building illustrates how slavishly the builders could often “go by the book”, imitating almost automatically and without any purpose the patterns in architectural manuals. Almost at the end of the street we can find another headquarters (no. 36 Nádor utca). Regrettably, its beautiful inner spaces have been converted and its perfect balance overturned. The past glory of the decorations which were in perfect harmony with the exterior 36
