At its meeting on Wednesday, the Metropolitan Assembly voted to declare twenty-six properties in 1st District protected. According to the explanatory memorandum, placing under protection prevents the destruction of architectural values and interventions that would interfere with the realization of architectural values.

The main building of the Southern Railway Station has been protected (photo: Júlia Kozics / pestbuda.hu)

Back in January, the Budapest local council announced that it planned to place nearly one hundred and eighty buildings in Budapest under local protection, which would have to be protected and used as part of the architectural heritage in the future. Most of them were built between 1945 and 1980.

Protected building is now the residential building at 41 Úri street (photo: googlemaps.com)

As stated in the application on the shaping and protection of the built environment LXXVIII of 1997 law gives authority. The local government decree 30/2017 on the protection of the settlement image provides an opportunity for local protected buildings to be granted local protection based on the exploration and inventory of the architectural heritage according to special professional criteria, and according to the local government there are many such buildings all over Budapest. 

The building at 28 - 30 Tóth Árpád avenue is now also protected (photo: googlemaps.com)

The buildings in the 1st District, now declared protected, were erected mainly between 1956 and 1978, during the period of socialism, with the vast majority in the one-party Kádár era, including the main building of the Southern Railway Station, the modern Hilton Hotel and residential buildings such as 2 /A Aladár Street, 71. Batthyány street, 14–18 Csalogány street, 3 Dárda street, 12 Döbrentei street, 1–3 Fazekas street, 15 Fortuna street, 29 Gellérthegy street and 31 Hegyalja road, 41 Hunyadi János road, 14 Kosciuszkó Tádé street, 37–39 Krisztina boulevard, 15–17 Lánchíd street , 13 Szentháromság street, 2 Tárnok street, 20 Táncsics Mihály street, several residential houses on Tóth Árpád avenue (24., 25., 28–30.) and Úri street.

Among the twenty-six protected buildings, there are three residential houses that were built before the Second World War: 29-31 Gellérthegy street, 14 Kosciuszkó Tádé street and 15-17 Lánchíd street.

Source: pestbuda.hu, MTI

Cover photo: The Hilton hotel building has also been protected (photo: Both Balázs / pestbuda.hu)