Index – Culture – A thousand meter high pyramid was designed to replace Gellért Hill

At the dawn of the Reformation, it first emerged to transform Gellért Hill and the banks of the Danube in Buda into a sculpture garden representing our great nationals. The proposal of the sculptor István Ferenczy and the narrator Alajos Mednyánszky gave rise to an important social debate, which was soon adopted by Count István Széchenyi. However, the lord believed that statues and graceful buildings should not be built on high, but

He first pointed to the “hall of Germanic heroes” near Regensburg as a noble patron, and it was not until 1843 that he thought that a replica of London’s Westminster Abbey on the hill would be far better than a copy of King Louis’ grand edifice. . I from Bavaria. The first planning phase of the national cemetery, called Üdvlelde, broke down when Vienna built the Citadel here in 1852, fearing another Hungarian revolution.

Necropolis and second funicular

The structure of the Gellért Hill national pantheon was converted and may once again be a national issue after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise. Architect Gyula Berczik won the national design competition announced in 1871.

The building, which was taller than the church of San Esteban in Lipótváros, was based on the thick walls of the citadel, which the architect wanted to cut in four places so that a room of columns ending in a tympanum leading to the four Ecuador could lead to the huge dome.

Although the contest was a success, in 1872 he came up with a completely different idea on the subject of Ferenc Novák. It’s at the top of the hill over

which wanted to connect with the Döbrentei street terminal not only by a panoramic view but also by a “rack railway” equipped with windowless cars due to the height of the passengers. The travel time of the second cable car from the capital was set at three minutes. Several large and ornate taverns would have been built on top of the hill, and half a dozen castle ruins would have been built midway under the influence of English romanticism. Once again, the plan of the small railway turned out to be nothing, but the architect’s idea became so ingrained in the mind of the subconscious that many see the best opportunity to approach the Citadel again in a funicular, next to the Rác Bath, which is now sells for five billion guilders.

Referring to the lack of money, the Metropolitan Council of Public Works finally swept away Gellert Hill’s ambitious dreams in 1873 to be able to plant the barren rock with three hundred thousand seedlings instead of construction sites. Since a decade later, the Kerepesi út cemetery officially became the national cemetery of our greats, the idea of ​​rebuilding the mountain into a cemetery was finally dropped from the agenda. Parallel to the draconian decision of the parliamentarians, a heated debate broke out over whether the eastern end of Andrássy Avenue would be closed with a triumphal arch or, in Hungarian, only with an artesian well, following the model of Paris. The Walhalla project on Gellert Hill has only appeared once in the course of history: in István Medgyaszay’s examination plans, which have been revised several times. In 1906, for example, he proposed that the Feszty panorama be permanently displayed in the “Citadel”, which is even larger than Berczik’s tender and is covered with concrete from the Holy Crown.

Sleeping Beauty Fairy Tale Palace

Although, due to politicians, it was no longer possible to have a national pantheon on Gellert Hill, the architects did not give up on incorporating the pediment. They were also encouraged by the fact that, although Parliament issued the legal, material and practical regulations for the millennium celebrations in 1892, the venue for the exhibition has not yet been chosen. Many in City Park would have preferred to see the millennium celebration site, but others would have made the zoo part of the exhibit. Certain political and economic circles highlighted the Plaza de la Carrera de Caballos, Pékliget behind the Kerepesi út cemetery for this purpose, but Népliget, Lágymányos, Isla Margarita and again Gellért Hill were also mentioned.

They visualized several illuminated vaulted corridors, waterfalls, fountains, Gothic artifacts in the rock, which would have been connected by a tram line. In addition to the exhibition pavilions, of course, several orphanages, a dance palace, a mining system and several underground markets would have been enabled.

The Hungária lighthouse

Wilhelm Adolf, the superintendent of Mutual Life Insurance Company in Budapest, envisioned a completely different architectural attraction on top of the mountain. The German knight would have rebuilt the citadel into an Acropolis of Turan, which would also have included the artistic and industrial sights of the past, as well as statues of our kings and national heroes. Under the pediment of the building, they wanted to capture the most significant events in the country’s history in frescoes and mosaics. In front of the museum there is a huge

that not only would it have been six feet taller than the Statue of Liberty in New York, but in the torch he held in his right hand, a real fire would have been lit in place of the bronze-studded camulan of his American counterpart. The Acropolis in Budapest was essentially meant to be a combination of the Colossus of Rhodes and the Faroe Lighthouse, spiced up with a touch of American life.

The Gellert Hill Pyramid

As each era has one or dozens of court fools, it came as no surprise to Prime Minister Sándor Wekerle’s office in 1896, when he was approached by an architectural project that was never registered due to its absurdity and was illegible by his signature. who suggested that the government demolish Gellert Hill to build a thousand meter high pyramid divided into ten levels in its place. The great idea grew out of international practice that at previous world exhibitions, each organizer presented a major architectural attraction from London to Vienna. Although Budapest did not organize a world exhibition in 1896, but “only” a millennium exhibition, the standard of this was not poorer than that of other cities in Western Europe or America.

We too can secure the memory of our millennial existence for unpredictable times only by means of a pyramid; and for a truncated pyramid of 3 or 4 sides with a height of 1000 meters, the length of each of its sides would also be 1000 meters. Ten pieces divided into sections 100-100 meters high; each section is built with different domestic granite stones; with a triangular window per side and section, with the 3-4 largest doors on the ground floor: 100 meters wide and 100 meters high; those of the second stage are 90 meters high; and so on, each subsequent section would be 10 to 10 feet smaller, while the last window would be 10 feet wide and 10 feet high.

Under the proposal, 12 steam-glazed freight elevators in the Hollow Pyramid of Buda would have been constantly moving between the entrance and the top. Visitors were able to see large-scale masterpieces from a century of Hungarian history on every floor. On the ground floor, 100 meters high, they wanted to present Hungarian industrial and agricultural developments, products, works of art and intellectual masterpieces from the period 1796 to 1896. The second level, but much smaller in area, was intended to present the “historical” era from 1696 to 1796. The upper level wanted to present the period from 896 to 996 with the help of archeology. At the top of the truncated pyramid, the goddess Hungária, who led her racehorses, would have contemplated the silhouette of Pest.

Its height of a thousand meters is almost seven times, its floor area would be almost nineteen times, while its cubic content would have been more than one hundred and twenty-nine times that of the Pyramid of Cheops, which is the largest pyramid in Egypt. ! Obviously, its incompetent dimensions were justified by the magic number one thousand of the millennium, as well as the thousand days allotted for its construction. If we looked at the construction of the Hungarian pyramid today, 200 workers could build it with modern technologies from 40 billion US dollars in 35 years, of course, only after another 25 billion were demolished on Gellert Hill in 15 years. . Let’s not give up on our shared dreams! With this nationwide collaboration, with a higher public charge than today, this millennium dream can finally come true!