Hajós György: Heroes' Square - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2001)

artists were painted by József Kovács, a teacher at the arts college.

The tender invitation for the Museum of Fine Arts had made provisions for an aggregate floor space of 12 thousand square metres (of which 4,500 were set aside for the picture galleries, and 4,400 for the exhibition of small sculpture and architectural decorations). The museum was eventually built with a total floorspace of 10,300 square metres, of which 6,500 are taken up by the picture galleries and 3,800 by the halls where the sculptural collection is displayed (these figures have been modified by the various reconstruction and rearrangement jobs carried out since).

As any completed building, this one too was taken to pieces by the critics. There were those who would have preferred fewer columns, others missed a national character, others again complained of the lack of polychrome exterior ornamentation similar to that of the Exhibition Hall. Everybody gave voice to his or her individual prejudices in their criticism. This was registered by the writer of an article that appeared in a 1906 issue of Vasárnapi Újság (Sunday News): “Everybody who habitually expressed his views on artistic matters had formed his opinion in advance. The conservatives, who insist on the architectonic forms of old, praised its impressive proportions and its balanced style, while the moderns, who embrace the slogans of a renewed architectural style, berated it without having had a single look at the building. We have no inclination to join battle on either side. The opinions voiced on the matter do not concern the fact of the matter in any case, but reflect their proponents’ various preconceptions, over which no dispute can pass judgement. Such a decision can only be made by the natural evolution of the arts.”

Every museum, library or other public collection is faced with the issue of inadequate floor space in the course of its accelerating growth, and the Museum of Fine Arts has proved no exception. After the damage sustained during World War II was repaired, the existing interior spaces were added to during reconstruction in the 1980s, through the covering of the courtyard and the creation of new spaces beneath the Marble Hall, the Pergamon and the Ancient wings.

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