Lighthouse

 
The parish church of St. Michael in Angyalföld, on the night of blizzard dawning to March 15, 2013

Since the 1910s, the wider area was in the focus of the social building of the capital, initially mainly with barracks serving as makeshift housing. The Catholics living in the neighborhood first went to Mass to the gym of the Tomori street barrack school. The congregation was founded in 1923, and the gym was transformed into a permanent chapel.

The St. Michael’s Church designed by Ernő Foerk, the architect of the Szeged Cathedral, was built a few years later, in 1929-30, directly next to the small housing estate which would soon become infamous under the name “Tripolis”. In 1933, the local ministry was elevated to the rank of parish. The church is not that pretty, but a good-proportioned, pleasing building with a brick revetment which has well resisted the vicissitudes of the past decades, and with some scattered decorative elements. The community center and the parish building next to it were finished in 1940 on the basis of Gáspár Fábián’s plans. The church is a popular landmark of this neighborhood which does not abund in beauty, its illuminated tower can be seen far from all directions. Which is good, because for example this is how my bike, like an old horse, finds back home in the evening when I’m tired.

Look, here below, how nicely the children, all six, posture in the photo, they certainly did not think that they would appear only a tiny pinhead. If any of them is still living, he or she must be about eighty.

 
The church in the year of its completition, in 1930. It can be clearly seen that on the tower, in the now empty square fields, there was a clockwork showing the precise time in all directions.

And it also happened

in the last week, when, you see, it was still spring, that I have checked the last year’s tulips which we planted here and there as guerilla guardeners. And they grew out again! Ok, still it is not that spectacular, but there’s a supporting evidence from next to the Cella Trichora.

Our efforts hitherto done for Budapest, the City of Tulips can be found here with a detailed documentation.
 

However, last year we planted them too late, which is bad because they need cold to produce flowers, plus the bulb gains strength in the ground, I guess, filtrating the energy into itself in the form of minerals. I mean it <i>would</i> gain strength, had we planted them at a good time, sometime between August and October. Actually, we planted them in early December, as far as I remember. Since all tulips know that they would be judged on their flowers, therefore they have compensated the late planting by growing very efficient stubby litle stems, as they could just afford, and they developed the flowers on the top of them. I’m curious whether this year they would be slim giants. Keep with us.

Finally spring, finally garden!

Flash news:

The day after tomorrow, Wednesday morning we will talk to the gardener on behalf of the local government, we want to get money for the garden around the transformer at this year’s application. Earlier works here. If you have any idea or wish, feel free to write us now! The joint work is scheduled for the weekend of March 23-24. Hopefully the weather will be good, and maybe we will even get some help. More details soon!

Cutting all trees

On Saturday civilians organized a protest demonstration on the Római Part (Roman Bank, named so after the ancient Roman settlement of Aquincum that extended here) in the north of Budapest, where the Danube enters the city. This tree-covered bank of the Danube is a natural floodplain for the annual flooding of the river, but in the last twenty years more and more investors have built houses and even hotels here illegally and with the tacit complicity of the district government. Now, as the head of this latter became Mayor of Budapest, he announced that a hundred million euro of public money will be poured in the building of a dam all along the Római for the protection of the same illegally built investments, which will lead to a total destroyment of this last natural river bank within the city.

Those who do not know the Hungarian capital, will be probably surprised to notice that in a city with such a large river there is hardly any possibility to approach the coast. Even this last remnant  is rather neglected, nevertheless, along with so many others, I really love the Római.
Here you can walk down to the Danube, teach the kids to dap the stones, look for snail houses and shells, walk and swim the dog, go in kayak or canoe, meet friends, eat fried fish, dance in the music gardens, have a beer or a wine in a sun bed down at the coast, in the night watch the reflections of the illuminated boats, listen to the ensemble of Albert Márkos in the open restaurant Fellini, or mostly just watch the big, slow water. At once inside and outside the city, an easily available entertainment, even on a simple weekday evening.
Lots of recreation facilities, with which such a powerful river enriches the inhabitants of the settlements along its coasts. Budapest has always taken a very poor advantage of what other cities, which manage their natural endowments in a smarter way, would just leap at.

We say thanks to the several thousands of people who indicated with their presence that they do not want this popular natural coastline being transformed as designed by the Major’s office in the interest of the properties built on the floodplain.


Literature on the topic, in Hungarian, non-exhaustive, and in the belief that the story is far from over:

– Facebook page of the Picnic for the Római Coast event, organized by the Protect the Future Association, the City and River Blog, and the Association of Hungarian Landscape Architects
– The community supporting the survival of the natural coastline: Let the trees rest in the Római
– A video of the portal Index on the demonstration (and counter-demonstration) of March 2
– A summary of the Danubian Islands blog on the demonstrations pro and against the building of the dam
– “A floating trunk can destroy the dam” – an article in NOL on the problems of the planned mobile dam
– Sándor Bardóczi’s article Requiem for the Római Coast in the Architects’ Forum
– A commentary on Mayor István Tarlós’ press conference, again by Sándor Bardóczi

Update: Recent developments on the Protect the Future Association’s site – the Mayor, three days after (!) passing the decision on the building of the dam promised that the city would nevertheless have prepared the still missing impact studies. I don’t think we are wrong to believe that this step was also influenced by the inhabitants of Budapest called together by the civil organizations.