Molnár József - Szilas Péter: Night Lights - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)

sumption per each light-measuring unit of “candle- power” was between 2.4 and 4.4 watts. However, the osmium bulb, which was patented in 1901, expended only 1.5 watts per “candle-power” and thus qualified as the most economical light source so far. The carbon- fibre was later replaced by tungsten. While the power consumption of lamps decreased, their brightness increased significantly.

Although the technical conditions were present, due to the contract signed with the Trieste-based company, the eventual introduction of electric lighting in the capital city was postponed for another 18 years, despite the fact that the project enjoyed popular support and that no technical or practical reasons stood against it. The method of procrastination involved suggestions made for ever cheaper solutions, or new conditions stipulated upon whose fulfilment the realisation of the plan was supposed to depend. Whenever a task was carried out (or abandoned), the original idea was quickly forgotten. And there was no lack of good examples, either. In 1884, the progressive city of Temesvár in the Hungary of the Dual Monarchy, installed the first public generator plant and was among the first in the world to switch over to an electric system of public lighting. Even the small town of Mátészalka managed to overtake the capital city when it, too, installed a few electric lights.

Ganz & Co. entered the competition in 1886. It developed its own arc lamp, and, at a time when its power plants were already in operation in Rome, Turin, Milan and other large cities in Europe, made its bid for the installation of electric lighting along some of the major streets of Budapest. Cinder the terms of its offer the operating costs of the arc lamps to be installed would have been approximately equal to those of the existing gas lamps. However, the capital was still bound by the contract it had entered into with the Trieste General Austrian Gas Co. It was from that company that the city was thus obliged to obtain permission before it could go ahead with the new installation. Such permission, however, was not granted by the Austrian company, which quoted the terms of the “excellent” contract, which stipulated that until the agreement expired the company had exclusive rights to “lay tubes for the purposes of providing public lighting, or cables for any other purpose whatsoever.” In 1891, when the contract for public lighting was renewed with the company, the city stipulated that electric lighting was to be included with any new development.

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