Special roof solutions on the Archduke Joseph Palace

A little over a year ago, we reported that the topping-out ceremony had taken place at the highest point of the Archduke Joseph Palace, and now it is time to clad the facades and roof. The palace, which once dominated the view of Buda Castle, is being rebuilt as part of the National Hauszmann Programme by the general contractor Magyar Építő Zrt. as the general contractor under the National Hauszmann Programme.

In 1789, József Teleki, the chief bailiff of Uzhhorod, had a two-storey, 12-apartment tenement palace built in the Buda Castle with a panoramic view on a U-shaped plot in the Buda Castle with the Bratislava architect Anton Fisches, in the Copf style. This is the name of the Teleki Palace, which was bought in 1902 by Archduke Charles Louis, son of Joseph the Prince Archduke. Already then, in 1902, he started the reconstruction in the historicist style, based on the designs of Flóris Korb and Kálmán Giergl, which was completed by 1906. The building was damaged during the siege of Budapest in 1944, its western façade was hit by several shells, and afterwards the palace was converted into a workers' hostel in 1951, before being blown up and completely demolished in 1968.

The first phase of the reconstruction of the palace on Szent György Square began in July 2021 by Magyar Építő Zrt, and its exterior appearance will be identical to the original historic building. The monument protection and restoration work is being carried out by Sycons Építőipari Kft., the structural work by Épszerk-Pannónia Invest Kft., the insulation work by Pentasystem Kft., and the temporary energy and mechanical engineering work by L-Build Kft..

Two technologies, one approach

"The construction of the façade of the Palace is a special task, since it is a reconstruction of a façade known only from photographs", Tamás Csengel, contract engineer of Magyar Építő Zrt., told us.

Hence the fact that the contractor had to almost blindly reproduce the texture and colour of the former plastered, carved stone surfaces with painted moulded ornamentation. In addition, the Archduke's Palace will have a ventilated façade cladding system installed. One of the characteristics of these cladding systems is that the type of element always has a grid pattern, a joint pattern, but here, due to the nature of the façade, a homogeneous surface had to be created.

"With the joint layout, we had to adapt to the articulation of the façade: the division of the lenses, window frames, cornices", he explained.

In addition to the fact that there are parts of both the façade panels and the stone decorative elements that had to be reconstructed from photographs, the parallel placement of the modern, paneled façade and the stone elements on the façade of the palace, which give the building its character but require traditional construction methods, required particular difficulty and much negotiation.

"It was a big question how to harmonize these two different work plans so that they would not clash and could be built at the same time, but fortunately we managed to find a solution", the business engineer pointed out.

Heterogeneous surfaces

The Archduke Joseph's palace, which recaptures the original form of the turn-of-the-century roofing variety, is a condensation of this.

As part of the roof construction work, which is being carried out by HOREX Kft., work has now started on the sheet metal roofs with decorative tiling.

A major task is the addition of ornamental tiling to the varied roof design - ridge ornaments, peak ornaments, splitter sills and a total of fifteen skylights will be added to the structures. Whatever is possible will be brought to site prefabricated with a stand-alone support frame, but many elements will have to be fabricated by the contractor in their final location.

Higher pitched roofs (above 25°) are typically clad with a scaly metal sheet covering, while lower pitched roofs are covered with a double sealed standing seam. These are made of pre-patinated and original gloss titanium zinc sheet, typically 0.7-0.8 mm thick.

Although the original roof structure still bordered empty attic spaces, the new roofs are typically built over built-up spaces, which essentially determines their layering and structural design. On roof sections with small elements, the building will be covered with a metal sheet rhombus roof, in accordance with the "Rules for the design and construction of metal sheet roofs" developed by the Hungarian Association of Insulation, Roofing and Tinning Contractors. These are complemented by decorative tiled structures made of 0,8-1,0-1,2 mm thick Quality Zinc certified Rheinzink titanium link sheet. For edge-bent elements, a 'general' grade of plate can be used, but for pressed edge-drawn elements, the builder should use soft plate (Rheinzink Ornament).

Multiple coverings, special quality solutions

The building's roof structure is composed of twenty-seven different planes, giving a projected surface area of more than 3000 m².

The palace will therefore have a very complex geometry of high roofs, consisting of a combination of hipped roofs, mansard roofs, curved roofs and low-pitched roofs, all requiring different types of sheet metal roofing. Although the palace will typically have a high roof, terraces will also be constructed with flat roof insulation and a glass roof over the roofs. In addition to the use of materials that are appropriate to the building's period, the structures used are therefore designed to be durable and to be built using modern technologies.