A Photographer’s Memoir of Budapest
It was half past eight on a June evening. Bus 5 had just dropped off its passengers on Kossuth Lajos utca. I stood across the street from Királyi Bérpalota as the shop lights came on around Ferenciek tere. Between a brightly lit kebab shop and an equally ordinary currency exchange, the Art Nouveau wrought-iron entrance still announced a far grander age. The building had adapted with quiet modern-day pragmatism, its rooms now divided between shops, offices, private apartments and even a hostel. Over the last century it had survived two world wars, a revolution, Soviet rule and years of decline. Until recently.
Recent restoration work has returned much of the building to its former glory. The collapsed glass roof over the inner courtyard has been rebuilt. Ageing water and sewage lines have been replaced, as has the overloaded electrical wiring. Even the drab grey interiors of the Soviet era have been restored to their original Habsburg yellow. This was Budapest.
Passing through the entrance was like stepping into another Budapest. The bustle of Ferenciek tere gave way to a light-filled courtyard beneath a rebuilt glass roof. Marble stairs swept upwards to elegant Art Nouveau doors, their stained-glass panels glowing softly from within. Looking down the stairwell, ornate wrought-iron railings curled from floor to floor, each landing framing the next.
Built in the early 1900s for the senior nobility of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Királyi Bérpalota reflected the confidence of imperial Budapest. Within a few decades, however, war and the Soviet era had taken their toll. The recent restoration of the building and its surroundings has reclaimed much of that lost elegance. Gyula Jungfer’s wrought-iron gates and staircase railings have been painstakingly restored, as have Miksa Róth’s intricate stained-glass panels above the inner entrance.
I waited until a resident crossed the courtyard before pressing the shutter.
A Dash of Pink, a Bit of Blue
Across the street lies Váci utca, Budapest’s best-known shopping street, lined with international brands, cafés, wine shops and souvenir stores. For me, it was a place for people watching.
One evening, a window shopper in a vivid blue coat and pink skirt paused beneath the warm glow of a boutique window. A few days later, I found myself photographing an advertising pillar on Bethlen Gábor utca built around the very same colours.
Budapest seemed to repeat the same colours in unexpected places.
I’ll Take Green Any Day
On our first evening, while the family settled in, I picked up the X Vario and headed out. To reach Gellért Hill, I crossed Szabadság híd, better known as Liberty Bridge, less than a kilometre from Ferenciek tere. Completed in 1896 to celebrate Hungary’s Millennium, Liberty Bridge is one of Budapest’s most elegant crossings, its steelwork decorated with intricate latticework and crowned by the mythical turul bird.
Like every Danube bridge in Budapest, it was blown up by retreating German forces in 1945. Remarkably, its foundations survived, allowing it to reopen after reconstruction the following year. Local lore has it that a shortage of grey paint led the authorities to repaint the bridge green instead. Whatever the reason, Budapest is all the better for it.
More recently, a major restoration in 2016 closed the bridge to traffic. Since then, on selected summer weekends, it has become an unlikely public square, hosting picnics, concerts, yoga classes and even an open-air Mass.
As I walked across the bridge, I noticed a tiny “Pig in Japan” sticker clinging to one of its green steel girders. Franz Joseph would almost certainly have disapproved. I rather liked it.
Designs on Budapest
Missing my stop on the way to Keleti station one afternoon, I found myself walking back along Thököly út. Across the road, four black-and-white portraits stared out from niches in an otherwise unremarkable building. Between them, a woman in a pale blue top walked past without a glance. At the time, they were simply four striking faces. Only later did I discover that they belonged to some of Budapest’s leading designers and architects, featured in a campaign celebrating the city’s creative community.
After a few days in Budapest, I realised I had been photographing arches without meaning to. Railway stations, markets, bridges and apartment buildings all seemed to be built around them. Keleti Pályaudvar and the Great Market Hall were perhaps the grandest of all.
The great entrance to Keleti Pályaudvar, designed by Gyula Rochlitz and completed in 1884, frames an immense wall of glass beneath a monumental stone arch. Two statues stand guard above the entrance: George Stephenson, the pioneer of the steam locomotive, and James Watt, whose improvements to the steam engine helped usher in the railway age.
Less than five kilometres away, another monumental arch welcomes visitors to the Great Market Hall. Completed in 1897 to the designs of Samu Pecz, it replaced Budapest’s open-air markets with a vast covered marketplace beneath its colourful Zsolnay-tiled roof.
Sons and Daughters
The faces of Budapest’s sons and daughters looked down from banners, their names appeared on monuments, and their stories surfaced in unexpected places.
In 2016, Hungary marked the 60th anniversary of the 1956 uprising against Soviet rule. Near Ferenciek tere, a huge banner covered much of the scaffolding on a building. Julianna Sponga was a freedom fighter during the short-lived uprising. Here she was, bandaged cheek and determined gaze, beside a quotation from the Hungarian writer Sándor Márai.
There was a modern-day story behind the photograph. The image reproduced on the banner differed markedly from the original taken by the French photographer Russell Melcher. The background had been altered, people removed, and the black-and-white photograph colourised — all without his knowledge — by the 1956 Remembrance Committee.
Climbing Gellért Hill to the Liberty Statue — taking the long way, as is my habit — I passed the rather severe bust of the writer Dezső Szabó by the sculptor Tibor Szervátiusz. The monument had been vandalised but remained firmly planted in Gellért Hill Jubilee Park. Farther on, three slender white amphorae by Ödön Metky stood in the grass while local residents relaxed nearby with their dogs.
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I was disappointed when I asked a resident about another famous son of Budapest, André Kertész, only to receive a blank look. Perhaps I would have had better luck asking about Endre Friedmann, better known to the world as Robert Capa.
Gellért Hill
Climbing Gellért Hill, it was impossible to ignore the Liberty Statue. Long before I reached the summit, her outstretched palm leaf stood against the evening sky, watching over the Danube and the city below.
Designed by the Hungarian sculptor Zsigmond Kisfaludi Stróbl and unveiled in 1947, the monument originally commemorated the Soviet liberation of Hungary from Nazi occupation during the Second World War. Its inscription thanked the “liberating Soviet heroes” on behalf of a grateful Hungarian people.
History, however, has a habit of rewriting monuments. After the collapse of communist rule in 1989, the Soviet dedication disappeared. Today the inscription honours all those who sacrificed their lives for Hungary’s independence, freedom and prosperity. The statue remained where it was; only its meaning changed.
I watched a family smile for a selfie. The view was behind them.
Heading back via Sánc utca, I passed a young couple on their way down. Spotting the X Vario in my hand, the young man stopped to give me a thumbs-up.
At the foot of Gellért Hill stands the Gellért Thermal Bath, one of Budapest’s finest Art Nouveau buildings. Opened in 1918, it remains one of the city’s most celebrated baths.
It was close to closing time when we stepped in through its imposing entrance on Kelenhegyi út. Inside, the Zsolnay-tiled halls were quiet. Solemn statues of Venus glowed gently in their niches. Once again, we paused to admire Miksa Róth’s stained glass. Too late to slip into a pool, we soaked in the stained-glass master’s handiwork. The X Vario struggled in the dim light.
Art Nouveau Rules OK
Standing at the Pest end of Chain Bridge, the former Gresham Palace is one of Budapest’s Art Nouveau masterpieces. Designed by Hungarian architects Zsigmond Quittner and József and László Vágó, it was completed in 1907 for the London Gresham Life Assurance Company.
Some of Hungary’s finest artists and craftsmen contributed to the palace, making it one of the world’s outstanding examples of Art Nouveau architecture. Géza Maróti created many of its sculptures, while Gyula Jungfer’s elaborate wrought-iron peacock gates have become one of its signatures. As I photographed them, a little girl in pink rode past on a matching pink scooter, inadvertently producing my favourite photograph of the afternoon.
Across the road, in Széchenyi István tér, Ferenc Deák — the “Wise Man of the Nation” — sits overlooking Chain Bridge. Four allegorical figures around the pedestal celebrate justice, education, Hungary and the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. Time has coated them all with the same rich green patina. It was difficult to say which was greener: the bronze figures or the leaves above them.
A Fine Balance Between Church and State
We climb to a narrow gallery that circles the dome of St Stephen’s Basilica, opening onto Budapest in every direction. Looking west towards the Danube, Buda Castle rises on the left. The bell tower of Matthias Church stands proudly on Castle Hill to the right. Zrínyi út runs arrow-straight towards the river.
I don’t have a head for heights, so don’t expect a photograph of the street below. I did, however, want to capture the scale of the panorama. Time to switch from aperture priority to manual and stitch together four frames.
The cupola of Szent István Bazilika rises 96 metres above Budapest — the same height as the Parliament Building. The matching height was deliberate, said to symbolise the balance between church and state. The basilica had three architects between the start of construction in 1851 and its consecration in 1905, and along the way, its first dome collapsed.
Parliament is one of Budapest’s great landmarks, its vast neo-Gothic building designed by the Hungarian architect Imre Steindl. It also houses the Hungarian Holy Crown.
Around Parliament, the recently renovated Kossuth Square has replaced much of its former parking and paving with lawns, gardens and pedestrian areas. At its centre stands a statue complex dedicated to Lajos Kossuth, the great Hungarian statesman and leader of the 1848 Revolution against Habsburg rule.
At one end is a reflecting pool where, if you’re lucky, a tousle-haired lad may appear at the water’s edge.
Old World Style
The Hungarian State Opera exudes old-world charm, and its Café seems the perfect place to dine on our last day. Is there any point in travelling the world if one eats nothing but burgers and fries?
