The story of Hazai Bank began over a hundred years ago. This was the period of the Hungarian industrial revolution, which developed rapidly in the political stability of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy after 1867. The food, steel and engineering industries expanded quickly, as did the railways. Hungarian banks provided the finance for this age of investment and growing prosperity.

 

In 1892 the Pesti Hazai Elsõ Takarékpénztár Egyesület (the Pest National First Savings Bank Association – PHETE), decided to create an independent subsidiary of the sort once described as crédit mobilier, specialising in commercial lending. So Hazai Bank came into existence. It began its activities in the exquisite palace designed by Miklós Ybl and owned by PHETE at the corner of Egyetem utca (now Károlyi Mihály utca) and Reáltanoda utca. On 1 May 1894 the bank moved to its own office building at Dorottya utca 3.

 

From the beginning Hazai Bank thrived. It was founded with a capital of ten million crowns, a substantial sum in those days when the average daily wage was only 1.8 crowns in industry and even less in agriculture. The two largest Hungarian financial institutions at the time were the Magyar Általános Hitelbank (Hungarian General Credit Bank) which had a capital of 48 million crowns and the Pesti Magyar Kereskedelmi Bank (Pest Hungarian Commercial Bank) with 30 million crowns capital. Hazai Bank's capital was raised progressively to 40 million crowns by 1913. Its profits grew too, exceeding two million crowns in 1906 and subsequent years. It invested heavily in the development of railways throughout the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, but also in other industries, from brewing to steel. By 1910 it had become a medium-sized bank by the standards of the times. It branched out into retail banking, establishing its first branch in Nádor utca in 1900. Others followed. As business grew the offices at Dorottya utca became too cramped. The Bank needed its own building. In 1911 the management settled on the chance to build its own headquarters on the site at the corner of Harmincad utca and Erzsébet tér.

 

 

The architect Károly Rainer was commissioned to design the new building. Rainer was born in Szeged in 1875 and graduated from the Budapest Technical University in 1897. After working in Vienna and in Hungary he opened his own architectural practice in 1906 in Budapest. His best reference for the design of Hazai Bank was probably his success in the 1909 competition for the Luczenbacher Apartments at 1-5 and 2-6 Haris köz. Rainer won the competition and the apartments were completed in 1911. (The decoration of the entrance doors to the Luczenbacher Apartments with plain Doric columns is reflected in the porch of Hazai Bank.) Rainer also designed the apartments at 18 Móricz Zsigmond körtér (completed in 1910), the interior of the Café Emke (together with Sándor Skutetzky) and the headquarters and apartments of the Timisiana Bank at Temesvár (now Timisoara). There were other splendid buildings too, but the headquarters of Hazai Bank is probably Rainer's finest work.

 

The characteristics of Rainer's style are easy to recognise. The shaped gables with colonnaded loggias on the upper floors and the high pitched roofs reveal his interest in Art Nouveau. His later work shows the strong influence of Neo-Classicism, and occasionally Empire Style.

 

The design for Hazai Bank was published in 1911. The final building differed in several ways from the original proposal. Most importantly a 6.5 metre strip was added to the Bank's site, taken from the plot lying to the north, so making it almost square. This made it possible for Rainer to design the interior of the building, especially the Banking Hall, more generously. There were other deviations too. The design shows the ground floor windows rounded and arched, headed by keystones, not the rectangular windows that were built; the roofs of the corner towers are lower than the originally planned pyramidal ones. Balustrades were built above the main cornice rather than the planned dormer windows. Interestingly, the architect also proposed a canopied side entrance on the Harmincad utca side, which was not included in the finished building.

 

The final drawings, with which Rainer applied for the building permit, were signed off on 12 April 1912. They are exceptionally detailed. The floor plans for all floors, including the basement, are meticulously drawn, showing the detailed location of lamps, the numerous telephones and the 21 stations of the pneumatic post. The drawings mark the furniture and even the names of the people who were to use the various rooms. Plugs for the central vacuum system, a device invented in Hungary in 1904, are also indicated.

 

Construction began in 1912. The builder was Mann József és Fia (Joseph Mann and Son) Haas és Somogyi built the glass roof of the Banking Hall. Károly Knuth installed the boiler house. Work finished in the middle of 1914. Hazai Bank was to use the building with only minor alterations until 1946.

 

 

No sooner were the new bank headquarters completed than war broke out. The context of banking changed dramatically. Hazai Bank was compelled to invest 75 million crowns in war bonds issued by the Austro-Hungarian authorities, an investment that was never repaid. Inflation rocketed. The value of securities fell sharply. Hazai Bank joined with other banks in Budapest to buy securities in an effort to end the fall in values. These difficulties were however overshadowed by the final defeat in 1918 and the terms of the Trianon Treaty of 1920. The break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the loss of 60% of Hungary's historic territory meant the rupture of economic and financial links established over centuries. Many of Hazai Bank's investors suffered serious damage as their properties – railways and industries– fell into new, foreign territories. Runaway inflation and the chaos of the immediate post-war period destroyed the remaining value of securities and money.

 

Somehow normality returned and the new government of the sovereign, but smaller, Hungary established order in the country. The Bank too recovered. Rigorous management and ventures into new sectors, including mortgage lending, helped. A new currency was introduced in 1926, the pengõ, which replaced the crown. At this time, Hazai Bank's market value was about 18% of its pre-war worth. But in the last half of the 1920s the economy strengthened and business grew. Then the international financial crisis of 1929 broke. Hazai Bank was immediately affected. Domestic depositors withdrew their funds; 85% of international deposits and loans were withdrawn too. Income fell sharply. In 1934 profits were 25% of those in 1930. Recovery was slow and difficult. By the time it was in sight another war was looming.

 

By 1938 Hungary was rearming. The government raised one billion pengõ for the armed forces by compulsory loans. Hazai Bank's contribution was 2.7 million pengõ or nearly five times the profits for the year. Inflation grew, stimulated by high government borrowing. The Bank's attempt in the same year to raise its equity was frustrated by the effect on the money market of fear of war.

 

The Bank was also caught up in the politics which were driving Europe to war. Count Pál Teleki, whose government in 1920 had introduced a law limiting the percentage of Jewish students in Hungarian universities, was by this time a member of the Bank's board of directors. In 1938 he became the Minister of Education and Culture, and was responsible for new legislation designed, over five years, to reduce the number of Jewish people in white collar jobs to 20% of the total. He introduced further restrictions for Jews after becoming Prime Minister in 1939.

 

When the war began the Bank was subjected to many new difficulties: government interference grew, lending was strictly controlled and monitored, and international financial transactions all but ceased. All banks had to provide loans to finance the government deficit. These were repaid but with no allowance for the impact of inflation on the value of the loan. In 1942 the interest rate was limited by the government to 4%. The situation worsened dramatically with the German occupation in March 1944. One of the first acts of the new, German controlled government was to restrict the withdrawal of cash from banks (Hazai Bank's deposits had been halved as anxious clients withdrew their funds) and to sequester their security deposits. Under Nazi pressure the government also restricted the financial activities of Jews. Their bank accounts were blocked and shares and other valuables were first frozen and then (mostly) confiscated. Several Hazai Bank customers were affected. Restrictions on the employment of Jews in banks were introduced. Hazai Bank's staff included 37 Jews, among them the Managing Director Jenõ Rapoch, and several senior staff. The Bank sought the deferral of this measure for six months, but their request was refused. Dismissals began. Rapoch was one of the first to go, on 30 April. His successor, Ferenc Benes, was arrested shortly afterwards, charged with assisting Rapoch to escape from Hungary. Fortunately he was released.

 

 

In spite of the enormous pressure the Bank was under it tried to help its Jewish customers to save their valuables from total confiscation by the authorities. It was also able to make a wider gesture towards Hungary's threatened Jewish community. The Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg was active in Budapest at this time, engaged in a brave effort to save Hungary's Jews from deportation and death. He needed safe houses in which he could shelter Jews, and where he could work. In the autumn of 1944 conditions for Jews worsened under the Nazi-backed Szálasi government. In November the Bank leased the third floor of the building to the Swedish Legation, initially as office space. Wallenberg was frequently there. During this period the Arrow Cross (the Hungarian Nazis) increased their own attacks on Jews, including the raiding of Swedish safe houses, from which the inmates were taken to the banks of the Danube and murdered. Emergency calls were taken continuously at the Bank. Eventually some people were granted refuge there.

 

By the beginning of December 1944 the advancing Soviet Army was close to Budapest. Many items of value were being removed from Hungary to other countries. Hazai Bank, like other banks, was obliged to hand over its deposits of gold, foreign exchange and cash to the National Bank. These were then sent on to Austria and to Germany. But before this process was complete the Soviet Army had trapped the German forces in the city and the siege of Budapest began. Many people took shelter in the Bank's vaults. Wallenberg is alleged to have said: "Have you ever seen a vault like this? This one keeps things more precious than money – this one keeps people." In the worst days of the siege up to 50 people were sheltering there, including Bank employees and their families, and Jews under Swedish protection. In the course of the fighting the Bank building was seriously damaged. It was struck by at least twenty shells or bombs, mostly Russian but some probably German too. On three occasions the Bank caught fire. None of the Bank staff were killed or even seriously injured. But a Hungarian working as Wallenberg's driver, Tivadar Jobbágy, was hit by shrapnel and died on 2 January 1945. The Bank was almost flooded in one bombardment but the staff managed to stop the flow of water by turning off the stopcocks between Andrássy út and Váci utca. Wallenberg himself left the Bank on 11 January 1945, just before he began his last known journey, to Debrecen. Among his final recorded remarks were references to the presence in the Bank vaults of diamonds, to be used to continue his work with the Jews.

 

On 18 January Soviet troops arrived at Hazai Bank. Those people sheltering in the building were able to leave. The fighting, at least, was over. But the Bank's troubles were to continue. At the end of January a Soviet army officer demanded that the management open the vaults, threatening that he would shoot them if they refused. He left only when satisfied with the loot taken from other banks in Erzsébet tér. The systematic looting of Budapest's banks was now pursued in earnest. Hazai Bank's turn came in early February. The Bank's management had decided to make no attempt to resist but opened every safe and vault. The Soviet officers who came stole four million pengõ and emptied the vaults of the remaining valuables stored there.

 

 

After the fighting the work of reconstruction began. The Bank was badly damaged and required considerable work, especially to the roof and the glass roof of the Banking Hall. Interestingly, the restoration of this roof was carried out by the builders of the original, Haas és Somogyi. The Bank was able to readmit those Jewish employees dismissed in 1944 under Nazi pressure. Of 35 dismissed, 22 were re-employed, three did not wish to return and ten had disappeared. Jenõ Rapoch returned as Managing Director. In May 1945, in another happy development, Luca Lindner bore the son of Wallenberg's driver, Tivadar Jobbágy who had been killed during the siege. The Bank set about rebuilding its business. Together with the other banks Hazai Bank in vain asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help in securing the return of the money and valuables stolen by the Soviets. Without real funds the Bank was unable to honour any term deposit or current account opened before 1 March 1945. Hyperinflation and strict government control made the conduct of business difficult. The Bank looked for ways of strengthening its base, through combining with other banks. But this was blocked on political grounds. Finally, in August 1946 a General Meeting of the Bank approved the merger of Hazai Bank with its parent, the Pesti Hazai Elsõ Takarékpénztár Egyesület (PHETE). The overlapping sections and departments of the two banks were merged. The business investment, loan agreement and deposit departments of the united bank moved to the Harmincad utca building. The Swiss-Hungarian Chamber of Commerce also moved in. In 1947 the foreign held shares of PHETE were nationalised. Then in 1948 the government reorganised the whole banking system. The operations of PHETE were transferred to other banks. The dissolution of Hazai Bank began. As of today the process of dissolution is still not complete.

 

 

Britain has only had an Embassy in Budapest since 1963. Until then the British government maintained a Legation headed by a Minister. Between the wars the British Legation was on the Várhegy (Castlehill), in Táncsics Mihály utca. It provided both the residence for the Minister and the office for him and his staff. The last Minister here before the Second World War, Sir Owen O'Malley, left in 1941, when Hungary entered the war on the side of the Axis powers. As soon as the Soviet Army had driven the German forces out, and shortly after the signing of the Armistice with Hungary in February 1945, the British Government sent political and military representatives to Hungary. They began their work in Debrecen, the seat of the Provisional Government. In April the British representatives received permission from the Soviet authorities to move to Budapest. The former Legation building had been severely damaged during the siege of Budapest. It was, according to a report to the Foreign Office, "a complete wreck, only three or four rooms on the ground floor being habitable".

 

The British representatives took temporary accommodation at 57 Stefánia út. Here the Military and Political Mission assumed the status of a Legation at the signing of the Peace Treaty with Hungary on 10 February 1947.

 

But the British needed more suitable long-term accommodation. It was decided not to try to return to the Táncsics Mihály utca building. Their search for accommodation ended when PHETE offered them the use of the old Hazai Bank offices on Harmincad utca. On 30 June 1947 the British Ministry of Works signed a lease for 15 years, to take effect on 31 December 1947. A new era had begun for Károly Rainer's magnificent building, although he had probably never considered that the building would be anything but the Bank for which it had been designed.

 

The first Minister to head the new Legation was Alexander Knox Helm. He and his small staff faced all the difficulties of life in post-war Hungary, as the Communists took control. They had to adapt the former bank building (rather larger then they needed) to the purposes of an Embassy, especially to provide secure storage for documents and communications equipment. This involved in particular some alteration of the first floor (above the present mezzanine).

 

The alterations were designed by István Sárkány, a local architect. But in spite of the effort made to restore the former Bank's architectural fineness, the building was not prepossessing. Sir James Cable, who arrived as first secretary in 1956, recalls it without enthusiasm: "Diplomats learn to expect unusual offices but my first glimpse on 23 October 1956, of the Chancery in Budapest still surprised me. The entrance, by a dilapidated shop, would have been inconspicuously drab if it had not been guarded by two uniformed ÁVO (State Security Department, or Államvédelmi Osztály) sentries armed with submachine guns. Once past these deliberately daunting figures the atmosphere of the entrance lobby, where a British and a Hungarian member of the Legation staff were in attendance, seemed cosier, if scarcely impressive. A lucky visitor might be invited to use the small creaking lift, but many had to embark on flight after flight of the steep, hard, uncarpeted staircase. The ground floor, still cluttered by the counters and partitions of this requisitioned bank, was only occasionally used: for badminton or a film show, or, in December 1958, for my son's third birthday party. The work of the Legation was done on the floors above, which also accommodated a canteen and club-room for the staff as well as an infant school for their children and those of other Western legations. In common with most other Budapest offices at that time the once respectable interior decoration and furnishings had undergone little change but some decay since the thirties. Later British additions were strictly utilitarian: desks, chairs, filing cabinets and safes."

 

 

The two ÁVO guards outside the Legation were designed to discourage Hungarians from entering the building. For the British staff contact with Hungarians other than those approved by the regime was limited. It was therefore difficult to sense the coming storm in October 1956. Indeed, on 23 October Sir Leslie Fry, the Minister, and his wife went to visit a scientific laboratory outside of Budapest. Hardly had they begun their tour when the director was called away. His deputy took over. It was apparent to Sir Leslie and his wife that due to some extraordinary development their presence, although very welcome at first, had become inconvenient. On their way back to the city they saw large numbers of people, many carrying Hungarian flags with the communist emblem cut out of the middle.

 

Suddenly barriers to contact with Hungarians fell away. The telephone at the Legation rang incessantly, with callers conveying one report after another of developments. Sir Mark Russell, then third secretary in the Legation, recalls events: "The lights in the Legation burned late that night. By the time that most of us went home at about midnight the demonstrations were out of control. Soviet intervention in the early hours of 24 October did not come as a surprise. What followed most certainly did. After the lifting of the curfew at 9.00 that morning all the staff, British and Hungarian managed to get to work. The presence of Russian armour on the Danube bridges and in the main streets suggested that all would be swiftly over. However fierce firing broke out again. Movement became dangerous. The bridges were blocked. We were forced to stay in Harmincad utca for a week while our families were marooned in their houses and flats widely scattered over Buda and Pest."

 

It now proved fortunate that the Legation building was so big and so well equipped. In the next few tumultuous days the families were brought into the Legation. The consul Joan Fish, with considerable courage, gathered in the British community. Among these was Edith Bone, former correspondent of the Daily Worker (the British Communist Party's newspaper) who had been imprisoned in 1948 for spying but was now released by the Freedom Fighters, and Sefton Delmer, the correspondent of the Daily Express. The latter implored Sir Leslie Fry, the Minister, to allow him to transmit his reports to the Express through the Legation's wireless link with the Foreign Office in London. The Legation shop in the old bank vaults, established to supply the mission at a time of austerity in Hungary, came into its own. Tinned goods from the shop were a mainstay for the inmates. Stocks of whisky and Hungarian champagne ran down. Bread and milk were obtained at some risk from outside. Mercifully, water and electricity were maintained throughout the revolution. Sleeping accommodation was arranged on the top two floors. Rotas were prepared for the few bathrooms. Sir Mark Russell's son, Neil, who had been born on 3 October in the Sport Hospital was the youngest of the inmates.

 

As evidence of a Soviet withdrawal mounted the joy of the Hungarian staff could not be contained. It was not to last. By the morning of 1 November the Legation was receiving reports, too persistent to be ignored, of Soviet forces pouring in from the east. It was decided to evacuate the British community and the wives and children of the Legation staff. The Legation truck was fitted with seats. The families were to go in their own cars. On 2 November Mark Russell's family car led the convoy away, the bonnet of the car draped in the Union Jack. The road to the frontier was clear and the border still held by the revolutionaries. They reached Vienna that evening.

 

Soviet forces re-entered Budapest on 4 November. Sir Leslie Fry decided to offer refuge to Commonwealth citizens, the families of the Legation's Hungarian staff, and domestic staff of British members of the Legation. He also decided to attend to any wounded persons. On instructions from London he refused appeals for asylum by other Hungarians except for two small children whom he apparently took in.

 

The staff who had gone to Vienna returned on 13 November. They found the mood in the Legation understandably sombre. The Legation building itself had been relatively unscathed in the fighting. There were one or two broken windows and several bullet marks on the walls. But the staff had not known this would be all. They had burnt confidential papers and prepared for the worst. They remained living in the Legation for several more days. They then moved out, some to live together in the Head of Chancery's house until after Christmas, when the general strike which followed the revolution was finally broken. László Regéczy-Nagy, one of the Embassy drivers, was arrested and imprisoned. He was charged with being an intermediary between István Bibó and Árpád Göncz, and Christopher Lee Cope, a first secretary at the Legation. István Gál, József Molnár and István Zalatnay were also arrested.

 

Dr. Gál, the librarian, was fortunately released after five days, but Zalatnay was sent to a forced labour camp. In January 1957 the Legation wives and children returned and life began to assume again a sort of normality.

 

 

The period after the Revolution was a grim one. Peter Unwin, who succeeded Mark Russell as Third Secretary in 1958 spent much of his time logging rumours of trials and executions of freedom fighters. The Legation staff were under close observation, as were all those with whom they came into contact. The agent for surveillance was the ÁVO (State Security Department, or Államvédelmi Osztály). As early as 1945 staff at the Allied Officers' Club on Stefánia út had been approached and coerced to spy on the British and Americans. Soon, Hungarians working for the British as domestic staff, or in the Legation itself, were being targeted. The record is telling: in spring 1951 26 Hungarian staff were arrested; Leslie Fry's 1956 Annual Review reported the release of a number of staff arrested between 1949 and 1953 on charges of espionage. Press translators at the Legation were especially vulnerable. The authorities regarded this work as tantamount to spying for a foreign country. They consequently came under very heavy pressure, were harassed, arrested and interrogated. Some were driven to trying to flee the country. Domestic staff were obliged to write reports on their employers, including providing lists of guests who came to parties. A further group of informants were the friends and acquaintances of British diplomats, sometimes quite senior, who would report their encounters. In addition the authorities kept a running file on every British member of staff. And they and their wives could go nowhere, certainly in the 1950s, without an ÁVO "escort".

 

Ordinary Hungarians were aware of the interest taken by the ÁVO in those who dared to visit the Legation. It was commonly believed that the ÁVO had a camera hidden in the letter "O" of the Patyolat (a dry cleaning shop) opposite the Legation building main entrance. The uniformed guards and plain clothes police outside were also designed to intimidate people from entering. Professor Béla Kádár was among those who, even during the Stalinist period braved the ÁVO guards and plain clothes officers in order to watch the films regularly shown in the Old Banking Hall of the Legation. "For the visitor these evenings were a challenging combination of learning and a kind of confrontation. One was not too eager to make friends or give one's name in the Legation building. The risks of the occasion were however diminished by a joint venture by the visitors and the Legation staff. At the end of the film a sortie order was formed. The doors were suddenly opened wide. The stampede of up to 100 young men rarely gave the plain clothes officers a chance to make a good catch. At the worst somebody in the last row might be unlucky. The nearby squares increased the hope of successful escape. My running performance was, perhaps, best in those years."

 

The British Council, which had opened an office in Budapest after the war, was expelled in 1950. The authorities claimed it was engaged in espionage. Cultural work therefore fell to the Legation. This provided an important opportunity to build bridges to Hungarians. At the beginning of the 1960s the Legation began a series of lectures in the Old Banking Hall. The actor Sir Michael Redgrave and the conductor Sir Colin Davis came from Britain. Peter Unwin remembers that László Lajtha, the prominent musician, volunteered to give a lecture. An audience of 100, all afraid they were being photographed from the building on the other side of Harmincad utca as they entered, gathered. Lajtha concluded his lecture "and so we see, Hungarian music is timeless and classless"– a forbidden word when Hungary was in the midst of the class struggle. A hush fell on the room – would they all get arrested? Nobody did, but it was a brave remark.

 

 

Efforts to inhibit contact between the Legation and Hungarians outside continued for many years. But the British noticed the new policies developed by the regime of János Kádár in the early 1960s, of national reconciliation and a gradual, relative liberalisation. By this time the status of the British mission as a Legation not a full Embassy was becoming anomalous. The Foreign Office therefore proposed to raise the status of its missions in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria to full Embassies. Ivor Pink, then Minister in Budapest noted to the Foreign Office that upgrading would cost Her Majesty's Government nothing but would gain a great deal of local credit.

 

The Americans, who were in a similar position, were consulted. They urged the British to move slowly, being reluctant to change the status of their own mission until the question of Cardinal Mindszenty (who had taken refuge in their premises in 1956) was resolved. Pink urged the Foreign Office to proceed without waiting for the Americans, emphasizing that Britain had no particular problems with Hungary to argue for delay. After some deliberation the Foreign Office decided that rapid action was required, in accordance with the British "policy of encouraging the current advance towards diversity and independence among the satellites. The upgrading of our Missions would demonstrate that we have seen with approval Romania's defiance of Russia in COMECON and Hungary's continued internal relaxation".

 

After further exchanges with the Americans and much consultation in London it was decided to go ahead. On 2 December 1963 the Foreign Office announced that the Legation in Budapest would be raised to a full Embassy. The Hungarian Legation in London was to be similarly upgraded. On 21 December Ivor Pink presented his credentials as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to President István Dobi. Pink thus became Britain's first ambassador to Hungary. During the discussion that followed they both agreed that this change marked a new era in Anglo-Hungarian relations. Pink told London not to expect too much in the way of immediate results.

 

In this year too, The British Council was allowed to re-enter Hungary under a cultural agreement renewable every three years. The Council operated as part of the Embassy until, in 1987, a revision of the agreement allowed it to function in its own right and name. It moved to its present site in Benczúr utca in 1992.

 

 

Throughout this period the fabric of Harmincad utca was in decay. The British had acquired a new landlord in 1956, when the Hungarian state became the owner of Harmincad utca 6. But they found the state a parsimonious landlord. The Foreign Office itself was reluctant to spend scarce funds on a building it held at that time only on an annual lease. The demands of security, and the extraordinary range of activities carried on in the building (the school was there till the mid 1980s, three security officers lived in flats on the top floor, the shop, the British Council) all took their toll.

 

In 1990 the arrival of a non-communist and democratic government in Hungary seemed to offer a chance to do something about the building. Sir John Birch, then Ambassador, opened informal discussions with the new government about the purchase and subsequent refurbishment of Harmincad utca 6. He had no authority from London to do so but was hopeful that an attractive deal could be put together. But the Foreign Office was not attracted by the Hungarian proposal of a sale for about ten million pounds. Eventually, and after much effort by Sir John, a compromise was struck in the form of a 25 year lease. This gave adequate tenure to justify spending money on the fabric. Nothing happened for a further two years. Even when work began it was divided into two: the Banking Hall and the upper floors.

 

Part of the delay was due to debate about what should happen to the British Council. They were much attached to the Embassy's central location and facilities. But for financial reasons they decided finally to move out. John Birch says "thus came to an end over four decades of cohabitation and we removed all the Council's partitions and bookcases, not to mention the snug video booths that had become so popular with courting students. The Banking Hall looked dark and desolate. The glass roof was black with dirt. Cracked blue lino covered the floor. Neon strip lights glared down. I was determined that it should be restored as an open space for exhibitions, meetings, and receptions."

 

Royal visits helped the work along. A visit by TRH The Prince and Princess of Wales in May 1990 was a stimulus to a preliminary clean-up. The State Visit by Her Majesty The Queen in May 1993 became the deadline for completion of the refurbishment of the Banking Hall and the opportunity for an upgrade in its specification. Sir John insisted on the restoration of the original lighting, wood floors, and re-polished bronze. The Queen officially opened the splendidly restored Banking Hall on 7 May that year. It was a turning point in the story of the former bank's life.

 

The restoration of the upper floors began in September 1994. Wherever possible the original design was to be enhanced. There was not enough money to do everything. The wiring and plumbing were only partially renewed. It proved too expensive to remove all the rubberised green paint with which the exterior walls had been coated in 1983. Sir John Birch chose the final colour scheme of yellow walls and green window frames "after much observation in the 5th district."

 

The contractors were British but much work was done by Hungarian subcontractors, whose skills proved essential to the final touches. The end result is a glorious building, close to that conceived by Károly Rainer in 1912.

 

 

The building today is, as designed, a five storey block on an almost square site (31.56 x 32.71 metres) at the corner of Harmincad utca and Erzsébet tér. The style can be described as Neo-Classical Revival, characteristic for several bank buildings at the beginning of the 20th century. There are other former bank buildings in Budapest which bear similar features: the present Finance Ministry, the OTP Bank in Nádor utca, and the Ministry of the Interior were all designed on similar principles and have fine glass roofed banking halls.

 

The wings of the building are organised around a courtyard, at the bottom of which is the Banking Hall. Apart from the porticoed entrance in Harmincad utca the two street fronts are identical. The building is solid with a steel frame. Reinforced concrete was used in the basement as a precaution against fire, flood and burglary. The marble, extensively used in the public areas and on the staircase, came from Hungarian quarries. The furniture for the Bank was made by the Thék factory. Unfortunately almost none of the original furniture remains.

 

The Banking Hall remains the finest feature of the building, with its coffered glass ceiling, the central part of which can be lowered to permit ventilation. There are four bronzed chandeliers, a gilded clock, a black, white and red marble floor, pillars with bronze capitals, and a fine doorway. But the building enjoys many other features worthy of note: the main staircase; the vestibule; the bronze-framed, glazed doors throughout the ground, mezzanine and first floors; the panelled board room and main offices (now used by the Ambassador and his deputy) on the first floor; and the basement in which the old vaults stand – they still bear the emblems of their manufacturers, Arnheim S. J. and Schnabel Frigyes; the basement corridor which is rectangular with chamfered corners, each originally bearing a mirror and so enabling a guard to see at one glance the whole corridor. There was great attention to every detail. There are pleasing recurring motifs – the sphinxes, the Hungarian tulips on the doors, and of course the "HB" monogram which occurs everywhere. This is a building to delight the eye. The overall impression is of a rich, successful institution, a veritable "temple of money". This is what Rainer intended. The British Embassy is proud to be the occupant of this building today.

 

 

We would like to thank many individuals and institutions for their invaluable help in preparing this publication and the accompanying exhibition.

 

Materials were used from the following sources: Budapest Historical Museum Photographic Archive - Kiscelli Museum - Hungarian National Museum Photographic Archive - Hungarian National Archives - Budapest Collection of the Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library - Museum of Fine Art- Museum of Trade and Catering - Bank Museum of the National Bank of Hungary Budapest City Council - Bureau of Contemporary History - Susan Laffey, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

 

Personal contributions: Sir John Birch - Sir James Cable - Professor Béla Kádár - Mrs Luca Lindner - László Regéczy-Nagy - Sir Mark Russell - Peter Unwin plus conversations with many others