Famous Landmarks in Budapest
Castle Hill's Baroque terraces and Pest's neo-Gothic towers, both rebuilt after war.
Budapest's landmarks sit along the Danube, where the old town of Buda faces Pest across the water. On Castle Hill, Buda Castle's Baroque palace and the Neo-Romanesque terraces of Fisherman's Bastion stand in pale stone above the river, both rebuilt more than once after war. Below them, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge's cast-iron chains formed the first permanent crossing, linking the two halves of the city. Across on the Pest bank, the neo-Gothic Hungarian Parliament Building and the Neoclassical St. Stephen's Basilica rise within a few years of each other around the turn of the twentieth century, when the city built at a scale to match its new standing as a capital.
Hungarian Parliament Building
1902 · Imre Steindl
Its long riverfront facade is dominated by a central dome flanked by two virtually identical wings, dozens of turrets and Gothic Revival spires lining the roofline in pale stone.
The Hungarian Parliament Building is the seat of the National Assembly, standing on Kossuth Square on the eastern bank of the river in Pest. Imre Steindl designed it in neo-Gothic style, drawing on Vienna's city hall for its silhouette and a Viennese church for the Renaissance-influenced cupola over its central dome. It opened in 1902 and has remained the largest building in the country ever since. Steindl died in 1902, the same year his building was completed.
- Imre Steindl died in 1902, the same year the building he designed was completed.
- Its neo-Gothic design drew on Vienna's city hall for its overall form and a Viennese church for the Renaissance-style cupola.
Photo: Source: User:Godot13 Derivative: User:MathKnight (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Buda Castle
1265–1769 · Jean-Nicolas Jadot de Ville-Issey
The palace occupies the southern tip of Castle Hill above the Danube, a long pale Baroque range topped by a dome, enclosed by walls that continue north around the whole medieval Castle Quarter.
Buda Castle is the historical castle and palace complex of the Hungarian kings, first completed in 1265 on a fortified hill above the river. The Baroque palace seen today, largely the work of Jean-Nicolas Jadot de Ville-Issey, was built between 1749 and 1769; Miklós Ybl and Alajos Hauszmann enlarged it further in the nineteenth century. Severely damaged in the Siege of Budapest during the Second World War, it was rebuilt in simplified Baroque form under the state communist era. It now houses the national gallery, a history museum and the national library.
- Its defensive walls extend north to enclose an entire district of medieval, Baroque and neoclassical houses collectively known as 'the Castle.'
- A funicular linking it to the square below also connects to the base of the Chain Bridge.
Photo: Jakub Hałun (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Fisherman's Bastion
1895–1902 · Frigyes Schulek
Its Neo-Romanesque terraces run about 140 metres along the hilltop facing the river, punctuated by seven high, conical stone towers and a decorative central parapet, all in pale white stone.
Fisherman's Bastion stands beside Buda Castle on the same fortified hill, its terraces offering a panorama over the city below. Its original walls date to the 1700s, when a guild of fishermen was said to have defended this stretch of the castle fortifications from Fishtown below. The current Neo-Romanesque structure was built between 1895 and 1902 by architect Frigyes Schulek, who also restored the neighbouring walls; its seven towers symbolise the tribal chieftains who founded Hungary in 895. It has formed part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.
- Its seven stone towers stand for the seven chieftains said to have founded the country in 895.
- A guild of fishermen who lived below the walls in the Middle Ages is thought to have given the bastion its name.
Photo: TUX (CC BY-SA 2.5 hu)
Széchenyi Chain Bridge
1849 · William Tierney Clark
The roadway hangs from heavy iron chains slung between two stone pylons on each bank, its cast-iron ornament original to its construction as the first fixed crossing linking the two halves of the city.
The Széchenyi Chain Bridge spans the Danube between Buda and Pest, opened in 1849 as the first permanent bridge across the river in Hungary. It was designed by the English engineer William Tierney Clark, and built by the Scottish engineer Adam Clark, an unrelated namesake. Considered a marvel of modern engineering at the time, it still carries cast-iron decoration from its original construction. It takes its name from István Széchenyi, a major backer of the project, though it is usually called simply the Chain Bridge.
- Its designer, William Tierney Clark, and its builder, Adam Clark, shared a surname despite being unrelated.
- At the time of its construction it was regarded as a marvel of modern engineering.
Photo: Alireza Javaheri (CC BY 3.0)
St. Stephen's Basilica
1905 · József Hild
As the largest church in the city and third largest in the country, it is built in a restrained Neoclassical style and stands within the buffer zone of the city's UNESCO World Heritage listing.
St. Stephen's Basilica is a Roman Catholic basilica named for Stephen, the first King of Hungary, whose preserved right hand is kept inside as a relic. Built in Neoclassical style, it was begun under József Hild and continued after his death by Miklós Ybl, with construction finishing in 1905 — after both architects had already died. It serves as co-cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Esztergom-Budapest, and is the largest church in the city and the third largest in the country, standing within the buffer zone of the city's UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- József Hild began its design and Miklós Ybl continued it, but both architects had died before the building was completed in 1905.
- Its reliquary holds the preserved right hand of the king it is named for.
Photo: Prolete (CC0)
Elisabeth Bridge
1961–1964 · Pál Sávoly
A slender, unornamented white suspension bridge in a stark modern style with no decorative ironwork, its main cables hexagonal rather than round in section; a bronze statue of the assassinated Austro-Hungarian empress the crossing is named for stands in a small garden near one of its approaches.
This bridge crosses the river at its narrowest point and takes its name from Elisabeth of Bavaria, empress of Austria-Hungary, assassinated in 1898. An earlier decorative chain suspension bridge opened here in 1903 after a corruption scandal over land needed for its approach roads; retreating German sappers destroyed it in the last days of the Second World War, the only bridge in the city that could not be rebuilt to its original design. The current slender, unornamented bridge, designed by Pál Sávoly after Cologne's Mülheim Bridge, opened in 1964; tram tracks were removed in 1973 after cracks appeared.
- Its main cables are hexagonal rather than circular in cross-section, an engineering shortcut adopted partly because computers of the day could not calculate a solution for a round cable made from several different wire gauges.
- Japan funded part of the bridge's distinctive lighting scheme, installed by designer Motoko Ishii to mark an anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
- A statue of the assassinated empress near the bridge took 32 years and five design competitions to complete, then was damaged when the bridge was destroyed in 1945, removed again in 1953, and not fully restored to its present spot until 1957.
Photo: mandoft from El Campello (Alicante), Spain (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Margaret Bridge
1872–1876 · Ernest Goüin
Two long straight spans meet a short middle section at a wide, distinctly non-perpendicular angle, the bend needed to reach an island whose connection was added to the design only after the main structure was already planned; steel latticework, barriers and floodlights added in a 2009–2011 renovation closely follow the crossing's nineteenth-century appearance.
Designed by French engineer Ernest Goüin and built by his own firm between 1872 and 1876, this was the city's second permanent bridge, after the Chain Bridge. Its two main spans meet a short branch to a nearby island at an unusual 165-degree angle, added to the plan after the main design was fixed. In November 1944 a spark from a passing tram accidentally detonated explosives German sappers were fitting to the bridge, destroying one span and killing at least a hundred people; workers later salvaged the original steel for the rebuild. A 2009–2011 renovation restored its original appearance.
- A poem about a wave of suicides from the bridge shortly after it opened, "Bridge Inauguration" by János Arany, was widely circulated as an illustrated leaflet.
- Among those killed by the 1944 explosion was Endre Kabos, an Olympic champion fencer, who was riding across the bridge in a truck with other Jewish forced labourers at the time.
- The 2009–2011 renovation uncovered human remains later identified as mostly Jewish victims of the fascist Arrow Cross regime, which briefly ruled the country in 1944–45.
Photo: Jotti63 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
History
Buda Castle traces to 1265, though almost everything visible today comes from a Baroque rebuild carried out between 1749 and 1769 under Habsburg rule. Its walls, and the Neo-Romanesque Fisherman's Bastion raised on their base between 1895 and 1902, were badly damaged in the Siege of Budapest during the Second World War and reconstructed afterward in simplified form. The Castle Quarter around them was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. The Chain Bridge opened in 1849 as the first permanent crossing of the Danube, built by an English designer and a Scottish engineer who happened to share a surname. Half a century later, civic ambition produced two of the country's largest buildings within a few years of each other: the neo-Gothic Hungarian Parliament, opened in 1902, and St. Stephen's Basilica, finished in 1905.