UNGER HOUSEPOL PENSI HISTORY OF HUNGARIAN ARCHITECTURE

UNGER HOUSE Ybl MiklS

POL PENSI CASARESNeptun: PTZLHK

UNGER HOUSEPOL PENSI HISTORY OF HUNGARIAN ARCHITECTURE

The Unger-House is a building from the middle of the 19th century, located in Budapest and it is exactly placed in the Pest side, in Museum Boulevard 7, near from the National Museum. It was built between the years 1852 and 1853 and it is one of the first works of Ybl Mikls. This important hungarian architect was licensed in classicist architecture but, during the Unger-House period, Mikls style was romantic, being this the style of his first period; otherwise this building was his first project in Pest.

Ybl Mikls was the architect but Henry Unger was probably who built it. The Unger family was dedicated in smithy and, after earning money from it, they made this apartment house in Museum Boulevard. The edifice first functioned as a housing building but, allegedly, later became a brothel. Nowadays it is a resi-dence building and it also gives place to several stores.

Image 2: Museum Boulevards facadeImage 1: Unger House location

UNGER HOUSEPOL PENSI HISTORY OF HUNGARIAN ARCHITECTURE

The Hunger-House is a two-story building. One of the most characteris-tic things of this house is that it has a passage which leads to 12 Magyar Street, an area of the city that is more quiet compared to the bustling Boulevard.

The most important facade of the building is the one that is facing to Museum Boulevard. This facade is completely simetric and its the more rich. In the ground level there are seven arches which are very decorated and measure almost 5 meters high x 2,5 meters wide. Be-tween them we can see narrow columns, which are connected to the arches by carved leafy capitals. The arch in the middle belongs to the door of the building and the others are the entrance of different locals which are facing the street.

The first floor is the most representative and it features Romantic, Byz-antine, and Moorish elements. There are seven balconies that are spe-cial because they are holded by two griffins, which are touching their wings. Also, in the middle of them, there are ornaments alluding nat-ural elements. The balconies, which are little, have much presence be-cause they are built with a heavy material (concrete), even the railing, which is very solid and contains moorish star motifs as decoration. Fur-thermore, the openings in this level are also made by arches, but they are almost 1 meter less high than the ones in the ground floor. The second-story is the more different. The openings are not arches; all the windows are rectangulars and, as all the facade, the ornaments are present. In addition, their ledges/sills give an important ending for the openings.

Finally, on the top of the facade we find the cornice, which is made by a repetion of vaults. The narrow columns that are grown on the ground floor end here, also with carved leafy capitals.

Image 3: Main access

Image 4: Archs decoration

Image 5: Griffins, pillar and capital

Image 6: Cornice Image 7: First and second level Image 8: Second level openings

UNGER HOUSEPOL PENSI HISTORY OF HUNGARIAN ARCHITECTURE

The acces to the building is a 2,5 meters wide passage. Its paviment is one of the most precious parts of the building. It is made with wooden cubes. In the past they were useful becasue they made less noise when horses walked on them.

5 meters inside the passage we find the entrance space, which is built by big octogonal columns, con-nected by arches. Coming from Museum Boulevard, on the right side of the passage there are 3 marble steps that allow to the stair case. The pavement is made by clourful ceramic (blue, red and white). How-ever, on the other side of the passage ther are also 3 steps, but they allow to a little space that is useless. Maybe it had some banches in the past and was done to rest.

Image 9: Passage (photo taken from the acces in Museum Boulevard)

Image 10: Passages pavement

Image 11: Passages pavement Image 12: entrance steps

Image 13: Passages ceiling Image 14: Entrance space columns

UNGER HOUSEPOL PENSI HISTORY OF HUNGARIAN ARCHITECTURE

The passage leads to a comfortable courtyard which measures 6 x 8,5 meters. This place transmits a charm feeling because it has a perfect proportion and also because it is isolated from the chaos of the city, being a peaceful and quiet space. Here the pavement changes, the wooden cubes desapear and the floor is covered by irregular cobble-stones.There are two types of interior facades facing the courtyard. One one hand, the facades that are perpendicular to the main street are composed by 4 rectangulars windows which are the same in both first and second levels. These windows are not decorated, except the ledges. Furthermore, the ground floor is a repetition from the street facade because it has the same type of high and ornamented arches.

On the other hand, the facades that are parallel to the main street are built by five narrow arches (approximately 1 meter wide x 4 meters high) located in the first and second floors. Be-hind these arches, which are covered by glass, there are galer-ies. In addition, the ledges of the arches receive the same deco-ration than the other facade. The ending of all four facades is the cornice which becomes very important. It is decorated by circular elements that surround all the space.

Finally, we can deduct that the Unger-House is composed by two parts which are connected by the courtyard. One one side there is the building that has the entrance in the passage men-tioned before, and on the other there is an other whose access is located in one corner of the courtyard.

Image 15: Courtyard

Image 16: Interior facades

UNGER HOUSEPOL PENSI HISTORY OF HUNGARIAN ARCHITECTURE

The exit of the courtyard, which allows to Magyar Street, is a continuity of the other passage, and its also made by wood covering. When you arrive to Magyar you can notice a big difference from the other street. Apart from the tranquility of the area, the facade has a noticeable change. Unlike the facade that is facing Museum Street, this one is not symmetric. The building extends its shape from one side and it becomes larger. Here also we can apreciate more simplicity and a lose of decoration.

In fact, the only element that attracts the atention is the entrance. This is the only part that is decorated, even though it is more sim-ple than the other facades. Also, we can no-tice the simplicity of the cornice separating the ground floor from the first level, which is made by a repetition of rectangular patterns.The openenings of this facade are small and non-decorated arches, except the second lev-el where, as in all project, the windows are rectangular.Moreover, to keep uniformity with all the building, the top of the wall is finished by ex-actly the same cornice than the main facade.

As a conclusion, this building has a historical character and has the potential to be an important building of the city, being one of the most beautiful ar-chitectonic examples in the area. However, its a shame that a building with this characteristics is partially destroyed and have lost almost all the charm by carelessness. In 1956, the house achieved a plaque, which indicated its importance but, un-fourtunately, nowadays the palace definitely deserves a completely renova-tion.

Image 17: Magyar Street facade

Image 18: Plaque

UNGER HOUSEPOL PENSI HISTORY OF HUNGARIAN ARCHITECTURE

Bibliography

Photographs:

Farytale. Unger-hz, Mzeum Krt. 7. Budapest, Te csods! N.p., 30 July 2011. Web. 18 Dec. 2014. .

Budapest Bug. N.p., 23 Sept. 2014. Web. 18 Dec. 2014. .