---
title: "Budapest's Palace District"
chunk: 2/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest's_Palace_District"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T16:01:32.329935+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Pre-1945 history ==
The two-metre great flood of 1838 caused the collapse of 900 buildings in the Józsefváros, with only 250 surviving. The few buildings in the Palotanegyed which survive from before 1838 include the Szent Rókus-kápolna (Chapel of St Roch – the patron saint of plague sufferers), built in 1711 in the hope of warding off the plague then devastating Pest, on the site of an early Christian, possibly 4th century, chapel. The oldest known building in the Palace District, it was rebuilt in 1945 after being destroyed in World War II – and then was damaged badly again in 1956. The Szent Rókus Kórház (St Roch Hospital) next door – was opened in 1796, but in its current incarnation offers few clues to its antiquity. The major impetus for the area's development after the great flood was the construction at its western end of the magnificent neo-classical Hungarian National Museum between 1837 and 1847, designed by the Viennese-born architect Mihály Pollack, after whom the square behind the museum is named. Meetings of the upper house of the Hungarian parliament, established as part of the compromise which founded the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867, were held in the National Museum until the opening of the new Hungarian parliament building in 1904. The rest of Hungary's original parliament was established next door to the museum at Főherceg Sándor utca 8 (Archduke Alexander Street), named in honour of Hungary's Habsburg Palatine, or Viceroy, during the years 1790–95, Archduke Alexander Leopold of Austria, in 1840. (In 1946 it was renamed Bródy Sándor utca – see below). The building, completed in 1866, was designed by one of 19th century Budapest's great architects, Miklós Ybl, who also designed the Opera House and the Basilica, as well as five of the Palotanegyed's palaces (Festetics, Pálffy, Károlyi (on Pollack Mihály tér), Bókay and Odescalchi/Degenfeld-Schomburg). Today the old parliament building houses the Italian Cultural Institute. Until the outbreak of the First World War, these two buildings provided the impetus to members of the dual monarchy's aristocratic and mercantile elite – many of whom were members of parliament – building around 40 city palaces or mansions in the same area. The Károlyi family alone built four palaces in the district, Count János Zichy and his family three, while the Bánffy and Wenckheim families each built two. The district's palaces were mostly constructed in the streets surrounding the Museum (today's Bródy Sándor utca, Pollack Mihály tér, Múzeum utca, Reviczky utca, Ötpacsirta utca and Trefort utca.) A number were also built further east, including on today's Lőrinc pap tér, Gyulai Pál utca, Horánszky utca and Szentkirályi utca. The other residential buildings constructed in the Palace District around the same time were designed mainly for middle or upper-middle class occupants. The term 'palota' ('palace') is used more elastically in Hungary (and in much of Continental Europe) than in the English-speaking world. In the Palotanegyed it refers to everything from genuine palaces (such as the Wenckeim Palace, now Szabó Ervin Library) for aristocratic families, to buildings with generously proportioned apartments for the wealthy upper-middle classes (such as the Emich Palace on Horánszky utca). The Palace District is also notable for one of Budapest's two surviving buildings designed by the famous Viennese architects Fellner & Helmer, the István Károlyi or Károlyi-Csekonics palace at Múzeum utca 17. (The other is the Vígszínház on the Szent István körút). One of the great classical architects of Pest, József Hild, designed one of the earlier buildings in the district, the 1842 Virágfüzéres ház (‘Garland House’) at Baross utca 40. After long being dilapidated, it was restored in 2021. Most of the Palotanegyed's architecture echoes that of the Viennese Franz-Joseph era from the 1840s until World War One. However, there are also buildings in the Hungarian Secession style, championed most famously by Ödön Lechner, notably the striking Gutenberg Otthon, designed by two of his most prominent disciples, the Nagyvárád-born brothers József and László Vágó and constructed in 1905-6 (there are restoration/renovation plans for the building) There are several other buildings in the Hungarian Secession style on Vas utca, Baross utca and Krúdy utca. Lechner's Jewish student Béla Lajta's designed the 1912 Count Széchenyi School of Trade on Vas utca, a striking contrast to most of the Palace District's architecture, fusing modernism, art deco and folk motifs. Its rich interior decoration, remarkably, survived World War II. A well-known Hungarian-Jewish architectural team also designed Hungary's first department store, the Corvin Áruház, on Blaha Lujza tér. The architect was Zoltán Reiss, who designed many buildings in Budapest and elsewhere in Hungary during the first decades of the twentieth century, and who also served as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army in the First World War. Construction of the classicist building began in 1915, with the department store finally opening in 1926 (five years later it incorporated Hungary's first escalator). It was owned by M.J. Emden and Sons, Hamburg. The external sculptural reliefs were the work of the famous Hungarian-Jewish sculptor Ödön Beck, who vanished on 31 January 1945 during the Siege of Budapest. One of the lesser-known architects who designed buildings in the Palotanegyed's pre-World War One boom period was another Jewish architect, Adolf Greiner (born Losoncz, now Slovakia, 1847, died Budapest 1931). He designed the Újpest synagogue, built 1885–86, and a number of inner Pest apartment buildings in the 1890s, including the four-storey building at Horánszky utca 27, built in 1892. The Palace District contains important educational and cultural institutions. Between the Múzeum körút and Puskin utca is the Humanities Faculty of Budapest's Eötvös Loránd University, built 1880-3 by Imre Steindl, also the architect of the Parliament building. The central administration and many of the departments of the city's Semmelweis University (of medicine) occupy the block between Üllöi út, Baross utca, Mária utca and Szentkirályi utca. They had appeared on maps by 1896 and are of a similar style to the nearby Eötvös Loránd University buildings. In addition, the Semmelweis University's Faculty of Health Sciences and the Hungarian Society of Therapists are housed in the former sanatorium and medicinal baths at Vas utca 17 (see photo). The Pázmány Péter Catholic University occupies two buildings on Szentkirályi utca and is in the process of expanding into the block bounded by Pollack Mihály tér, Múzeum utca, Szentkirályi utca and Bródy Sándor utca. This will involve a major new building, restoration and use of the Eszterházy and Károlyi Palaces and integration into the university of the former Hungarian radio headquarters on Bródy Sándor utca. Another part of the university’s campus is the charming 1850s now-restored ‘Chimneysweep’s House’ (‘keménysepröház’). The Pázmány Péter university’s expansionin the Palace District has involved the demolition of two unsympathetic communist-era Hungarian Radio buildings on Pollack Mihály tér. The German-language Andrássy University Budapest is housed in the Festetics Palace. The Arts and Humanities Faculty of the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church of Hungary is housed in the former Károlyi palaces between Reviczky utca and Múzeum utca.