The oldest building on Bem Square is back in its full glory

The reconstruction of the former Radetzky barracks will soon be completed. As we have reported on several occasions here, the Market Építő Zrt. will be built on the valuable plot of land, preserving the façade of the 19th-century building. On the side of the area facing Bem Square, Hungary's first five-star luxury lifestyle Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant will be located, behind which the BEM Center Office Building will occupy most of the block.

Now that the scaffolding has been removed from the façade, the ornaments and details of the façade are visible, which gives us the opportunity to learn about the characteristics of the façade and the difficulties of reconstruction. The details are presented on the basis of plans and research by sculptor-restorer Attila Kovács and architectural historian Dr. Attila Déry.

A clear message

It is exciting that the turn-of-the-century man could "read" the buildings of his time: the U-shaped barracks building is a conventional, monarchy-era military building, and this was already clear to his contemporaries from the facade.

The neo-Renaissance eclectic architectural elements of its façade express its purpose: a typical barracks building with a simple but plastic façade design and a simple, signpost-like main parapet.

Typical solutions include the strong rusticity of the ground floor, the wall banding of the floors, the quatrefoil on the semicircular main entrance, or the mullioned, tongue-and-groove framed and capped windows of the upstairs wall openings. The barracks buildings of the Dualism period were characterised by the use of truncated rusticated windows in the rhizalite or alternating straight and triangular pedimented eyebrow sills on the first floor, which can also be seen here, as well as the second floor window frames set into the plain Ionic main sills in the two-storey wings.

The strong rusticity and simple Renaissance forms were expressions of "power" and "menace", the austerity of which was not relieved by the first floor window-eyebrow masques of the central arch of the main façade and the segmental arched enclosures of the third floor window.

For the renovation, the original façade plan from 1895, the floor plans and sections from that time were available, and the designers were aided by some old photographs. However, not all of the ornamentation on the façade as shown in the plans was still present, so the restoration was aimed at preserving the original articulation and decoration, with the restriction that only those elements that had been part of the townscape for the last half century and that could be formally documented should be preserved.

It helped a lot that, although the plaster on the façade as a whole was in a generally poor state of repair from several layers of painting and stone dusting, some of the original pieces of the decorative elements were still intact and could be sampled in silicone. Some of the decorative elements on the façade were made by traditional handicraft techniques using plaster strokes, while others were prefabricated from samples taken.

The construction was also supported by a temporary prefabrication workshop set up in the underground car park, where part of the work was carried out.

Contemporary and authentic

No quality photographs or plans of the large corner ornament on the corner facing Bem József Street have survived, but the contractor managed to recreate the period atmosphere with the help of an art historian, using motifs and analogies typical of the period. It was possible, however, to preserve the three large figural ornaments on the main façade in their original form and reconstruct them on site (they were also sampled to be on the safe side).

"The building will also have decorative lighting, so we hope it will become a dominant jewel of the Danube bank in the evening and the crown of Bem Square" - said Dr. Attila Déry.

Another interesting feature is that, due to the terrain of the square, the rainfall in front of the façade during heavy rainfall from higher parts of the building causes flash floods (this also happened during construction). To protect against this, profiles to support a mobile barrier have been placed in the limestone plinth in front of the ground floor portals, on which flood protection elements can be quickly mounted in case of danger.

The handover is near

The pavement around the building is currently under construction, where the designers have chosen a high quality granite paving that could later define the appearance of the entire Bem square.

The construction of the hotel, which is scheduled to open in the summer of 2024, is still at the technical stage, with most of the mechanical and electrical installations already completed, but the implementation of the unique interior design concept is a complex task for the professionals.The interior design is being carried out by the world-renowned firm Marcel Wanders. And as this building will be one of the firm's last projects, it is likely to attract considerable international interest, which will require particular attention from the contractors.