New building in Pest
The new building ( Hungarian Újépület ) was a building complex in the Hungarian city of Pest , which took up the entire area of today's Szabadság tér , including its peripheral buildings, in Budapest. The new building temporarily functioned as a prison and was most recently a royal artillery barracks designed for 18,000 men. Since the building complex stood in the way of urban development, demolition began on October 22, 1897 after it was acquired by the city of Budapest.
history
The design was created in 1786 by the Viennese architect Isidore Canevale on behalf of Emperor Joseph II . The construction work was initially in the hands of János Hild . His son József Hild , later a renowned architect, made his first professional experience here. The originally intended use of the building as a fortress was kept secret, so that there was speculation among the population. The construction of the 3-storey main building proceeded rapidly at first. The longest bricklayer of the main building was 100 fathoms (about 183 m) long, and the inner courtyard enclosed by it had an area of almost 10,000 square fathoms (about 3.3 hectares). The square-structured extensions at the corners that were connected to it had four floors and in turn encompassed an inner courtyard. In 1789 the third corner extension was already in use. The entire building complex, which covered an area of 22,725.40 square fathoms (7.6 hectares), was, apart from its impression of sheer size, of no particular architectural value.
When Joseph II died, the work was not yet completed, and the Napoleonic Wars that broke out further delayed completion. After the building served as a prison for French officers from the First Coalition War between 1793 and 1796 , it was to be sold in 1802 to Jewish merchants from Prague , who had made a corresponding offer. Count Ferenc Széchényi , the court's spokesman, had spoken out against the planned sale, so that it ultimately did not materialize. Afterwards, funds from Joseph II were made available for further construction, which came from confiscations at the Hungarian church. The construction was completed in 1814 and then served as barracks for the reorganized Fifth Artillery Regiment.
The building complex as an execution site
Lajos Batthyány , the first Prime Minister of the independent Hungarian state after the Hungarian Revolution of 1848/1849 , was executed in the courtyard of the new building on October 6, 1849 . It was the same day that the 13 martyrs of Arad were executed . In the northeast corner of Szabaság tér , the Batthyány memorial was inaugurated to commemorate the execution on October 6, 1926 at the execution site in the former inner courtyard of the new building. In a bronze lantern it keeps the "Eternal Light of Batthyánys" (Hungarian: Batthyány Lajos-örökmécses). The completion of the monument, designed by Móric Pogány in 1905 , had been delayed considerably by the beginning of the First World War and the turmoil after the war.
Furthermore, on October 10, 1849, next to the new building, the government commissioner and Minister of Transport, László Csányi, and on the morning of October 24, Zsigmond Perényi, the second president of the chamber, were executed. On October 20, the Polish Prince Mieczysław Woroniecki , Lieutenant Colonel Peter Giron and the Polish nobleman Karol Gustaw d'Abancourt de Franqueville were executed on the nearby Fa Square (today near the Ministry of Agriculture) .
literature
- Pesti építőmesterek munkássága 1809–1847 . In: Tanulmányok Budapest múltjából . ISSN 0238-5597 ( epa.oszk.hu [PDF]).
- László Berza: Budapest lexicon . 2nd Edition. tape 2 : L-Z . Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest 1993, ISBN 963-05-6411-4 , p. 554 .
- Magyarország és Erdély eredeti képekben . Darmstadt 1856, p. 131 ( archive.org ).
- Újépület. In: Magyar Katolikus Lexikon. ( lexikon.katolikus.hu ).
Web links
- When the demolition of the new building began (Hungarian)
- Site plan of the new building on the current street grid
Individual evidence
- ^ Description of the free royal city of Pesth. From the Hungarian. ... transl. and presumably by Carl Patisz . Landerer, 1833, p. 79 ( books.google.de ).
- ↑ Latest Conversations Lexicon; or, General German Real Encyclopedia for educated states . F. Ludwig, 1831, p. 561 ( books.google.de ).
- ↑ The removal of the new building . in: Supplement to "Pester Lloyd" of November 29, 1891 ( Anno digitalisat )
- ↑ The Polish Wikipedia states October 16, while the Hungarian Wikipedia states October 20.
