Gábor Eszter: Andrássy Avenue – Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)

■ The

Opera House (No. 22 Andrássy

út)

The construction of the Opera House was also preceded by a competition. Entries included plans made by Fellner and Helmer, the Vienna company specialising in theatres, as well as designs by Hungarian competitors. The first prize was awarded to Miklós

Ybl, who

was then commissioned with the work, but it was a very long way from winning design to completed building. The master architect, who was sixty years of age when he began work on the blueprint went on to add improvements for years to perfect the design. That construction work dragged on from 1873 to 1884 had other reasons, too, including financial problems.

The task was not an easy one. The small Hermina

Square

provided hardly enough space for the building which left no more room than that of two narrow streets around it. It was through the employment of a staggered facade that Ybl

managed to create the impression of an open space towards Sugárút

and

thus the opera was not squeezed in between the surrounding buildings.

The projection of the main front was patterned on the double loggia motif of the Libreria in Venice (the former library building of the Sansovino in St Mark’s Square). Above the triple-arched, covered driveway on the ground floor, which steps outside the mass of the building, there is a terrace open to the public. The loggia upstairs has five apertures with its back wall withdrawn from the frontal plane of the projection. What all this results in is a fascinating play of light and shadow. On either side of the projection are walls extending to the full breadth of the building, each articulated with a window aperture. The principal cornice 18