The Millennium Capital

Hungarian Architecture: Castles, Bridges & Grand Buildings

Course 1 · Chapter 6 · The Millennium Capital

Most of the buildings that give Budapest its famous look were put up within a few decades of each other, in the late nineteenth century, by a city that had just been united (Chapter 5) and was preparing to celebrate a thousand years since the Magyars settled in the Carpathian Basin. The year 1896 was chosen for the celebrations (check the reasoning, since the date of the arrival is itself approximate). This chapter looks at the capital that those celebrations produced. It is a story of confidence, historicist styles and a great deal of planning, and it is also a story of buildings that were meant to make an argument about the nation. Names, dates and attributions are given from general knowledge and flagged where they should be checked.

Why 1896 Mattered

The millennium was a national festival with an exhibition, new monuments and a long list of public works. The state wanted to show that Hungary was a modern, European country with a long history, and the capital was the stage. Many projects were finished for the occasion or timed around it (check which were actually completed by 1896, since several were not). The result is a city whose centre is dominated by buildings of one generation, in a handful of borrowed styles, which is why it feels so coherent.

The Grand Set Pieces

BuildingArchitectStyle and note
ParliamentImre SteindlNeo-Gothic, on the Pest bank of the Danube; building ran from the 1880s into the early 1900s; often compared with the Palace of Westminster in London (check the comparison and the dates)
State Opera HouseMiklós YblNeo-Renaissance, opened in 1884 (check); on Andrássy Avenue
St Stephen's BasilicaJózsef Hild, then Ybl, then József KauserNeoclassical in plan with later changes; the dome collapsed during construction and the building took decades (check the details)
Heroes' SquarePlan by Albert Schickedanz, with sculpture by György ZalaStatues of Hungarian rulers and leaders around the Millennium Monument (check)
Vajdahunyad CastleIgnác AlpárBuilt for the 1896 exhibition as a temporary collection of copies of Hungarian buildings, then rebuilt in lasting materials (check)

Andrássy Avenue

A long boulevard from the inner city to the City Park, laid out in the 1870s and lined with townhouses, the Opera and other buildings (check). It is part of a World Heritage listing together with the Millennium Underground and nearby areas (check the date and the exact description).

Millennium Underground

An electric underground line below the avenue, opened in 1896. It is often described as the first on the European continent, which depends on how "underground" and "continent" are defined (check).

Fisherman's Bastion

A white terrace of turrets and arcades on Castle Hill, designed by Frigyes Schulek, built around the turn of the century in a Romanesque style (check). It was never a real fortification.

Matthias Church

The medieval church on the hill was heavily restored in the nineteenth century, also by Schulek, including its colourful roof (check the details).

Historicism is a choice Why did one city use neo-Gothic for its Parliament, neo-Renaissance for its Opera and a Romanesque look for a terrace? Each style was picked to suggest something: parliamentary tradition, culture, a national past. When you look at a historicist building, ask what it is trying to remind you of, and whether that memory is accurate. That question runs through the rest of the course.

The Dohány Street Synagogue

Built in the 1850s to a design by Ludwig Förster in a Moorish-influenced style, the Dohány Street Synagogue is often described as the largest in Europe (check the claim and the dates). It belongs to the same period of confidence, when the Jewish community of Pest was a large and prominent part of the city. Its later history includes the wartime ghetto and, in the grounds, memorials to the Holocaust. The chapter notes it here as a building of the period, and as a reminder that the capital's confident architecture was not made by one group alone.

A city built to be looked at The Millennium buildings were meant as a stage set for national self-image, and many of them were built quickly, with decoration that is partly imitation. That does not make them fake. It means that when you look at the Parliament, the Bastion or Vajdahunyad, you are looking at a nineteenth-century idea of the past as much as at the past itself.
Check the details "First", "largest" and "oldest" claims are the ones most likely to be wrong in guidebooks, and the attribution of designs often hides teams of architects and later alterations. Confirm dates, completion years and superlatives, and note that several of the buildings above were finished after 1896.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Explain why the year 1896 mattered for Budapest's architecture, and name four buildings or projects connected with the celebrations.

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Exercise 2

Match the Parliament, the Opera and Fisherman's Bastion to their architect and style, and say what each style was meant to suggest.

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Exercise 3

Choose one "first" or "largest" claim from this chapter and describe how you would test it.

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Quick Reference

  • 1896: millennium celebrations; many projects finished around it, some later
  • Parliament: Imre Steindl, neo-Gothic
  • Opera: Miklós Ybl, neo-Renaissance, opened 1884
  • Basilica: Hild, then Ybl, then Kauser
  • Heroes' Square and Vajdahunyad Castle: Schickedanz and Zala; Alpár
  • Andrássy Avenue and the Underground: World Heritage listing; "first on the continent" to be checked
  • Fisherman's Bastion and Matthias Church: Frigyes Schulek
  • Dohány Street Synagogue: Ludwig Förster, 1850s; "largest in Europe" to be checked

Next chapter: Lechner, Secession and a Hungarian Style, which covers the search for a national style in architecture.