On-site Architects' Offices in Major Construction Projects of Budapest in the Second Half of the 19th Century

Abstract

During the 19^th century, the most renowned architects considered a permanent presence on the site of their larger construction projects necessary. Some of them even maintained several on-site offices close to their construction sites, where architects and designers were contracted for the duration of the construction. This study presents two on-site offices in detail (office of the Palace of Justice and the Parliament Building) while outlining a further four examples in Budapest (office of the Parish Church of Lipótváros, the Ministry of Agriculture, the enlargement of the Royal Palace and the Technical University).
There were three practices used to settle these offices: I. using an older building, before its demolition, near the site; II. in a temporary building set up for this purpose; III. in rented rooms in the surrounding buildings. Examples for the use of existing buildings are the building of the Palace of Justice (A. Hauszmann), the extension of the Royal Palace (A. Hauszmann) and the building of the campus of the Royal Joseph University (A. Hauszmann, Gy. Czigler, S. Pecz). St. Stephen's Basilica (M. Ybl), the Parliament (I. Steindl) and the Krisztinaváros wing of the Royal Palace (M. Ybl, A. Hauszmann) are examples where newly constructed buildings were used, and we assume rented apartments as on-site offices in the case of the Opera House (M. Ybl) and the Museum of Applied Arts (Ödön Lechner). The large public building's on-site offices have great significance in architectural history as well as being theoretical and practical workshops.