Beyond Budapest
Hungarian Architecture: Castles, Bridges & Grand Buildings
Course 1 · Chapter 9 · Beyond Budapest
Budapest is where most visitors begin and where most of this course has been set, but it is a nineteenth-century capital, and much of the older country has survived elsewhere. The provincial towns, abbeys and villages keep layers that the capital lost: medieval and early Christian remains, Ottoman fragments, Baroque centres, and rural building that has little to do with the grand styles. This chapter looks at a handful of them. Names, dates and attributions are given from general knowledge and flagged where they should be checked. Several of these places are on the World Heritage List, and the details of each listing should be checked against the current register.
Why the Provinces Matter
Budapest was rebuilt repeatedly and grew very fast, so little of its early history is visible (Chapters 2 and 4). Smaller towns grew slowly, were often bypassed by new money, and sometimes kept their older buildings simply because nobody could afford to replace them. For a student of architecture, this means that the provinces show what the country looked like before the capital took over.
Five Places
| Place | What to look for | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Eger | The Baroque centre, the castle and the minaret | Three layers in one town: the 1552 defence, the Ottoman period and the Baroque rebuilding (Chapters 3 and 4) |
| Pécs | The early Christian burial chambers, the cathedral and the Zsolnay quarter | The Roman-era necropolis is on the World Heritage List (check the date and wording); the cathedral was heavily rebuilt in the nineteenth century (check); the Zsolnay quarter links to Chapter 7 |
| Pannonhalma | The Benedictine archabbey on a hill | Traditionally founded in the 990s and still a working monastery with a school (check); a mix of medieval, Baroque and later parts (check) |
| Hollókő | A village of traditional timber and plaster houses in the north | On the World Heritage List as a living village (check); much of what stands was rebuilt after a fire in the early twentieth century (check) |
| Keszthely | The Festetics Palace by Lake Balaton | A large country palace of the nobility, with a famous library (check); Gödöllő (Chapter 4) is a comparable example |
Layers in one town
Eger and Pécs each hold buildings from several periods side by side. Reading the town means reading the layers in order.
Religious centres
Pannonhalma shows how a monastery could remain at the centre of a region for a thousand years, and rebuild itself repeatedly (check).
Vernacular building
Hollókő keeps a rural architecture of wood, plaster and tile that the grand styles never touched.
Country houses
Palaces such as Keszthely and Gödöllő show how nobles built for themselves away from the capital.
The Great Plain
The Hortobágy, in the east, is a flat grassland traditionally used for herding (check the details), and its most famous structure is a long stone bridge with many arches across the Hortobágy river, dating from the early nineteenth century and often called the nine-arched bridge (check the date and the number of arches). It is a plain, functional structure in a landscape of few buildings, and it is a reminder that much of the country's architecture is practical rather than grand.
Exercises
Explain why the provincial towns often keep older buildings than Budapest does, and name two places that show this.
Choose Eger or Pécs and list the layers of building a visitor can find there, in order of age.
Describe the problem of protecting a living heritage village such as Hollókő, and give one argument for and one against strict rules.
Quick Reference
- Why it matters: slower growth kept older layers
- Eger: Baroque centre, castle, minaret
- Pécs: early Christian necropolis, cathedral, Zsolnay quarter
- Pannonhalma: Benedictine archabbey, working monastery
- Hollókő: living village on the World Heritage List
- Keszthely and Gödöllő: country palaces
- Hortobágy: the long stone bridge on the Great Plain
- Check: listings, founding dates, what is original and what is rebuilt
Next chapter: Capstone: Rebuilding the Past, which follows one thread through the whole course: destruction, reconstruction, and the arguments about authenticity.