Carl von Clausewitz, the great Prussian general and military theorist, famously wrote that ‘war is the continuation of politics by other means.’ In this sense, in the context of a ‘culture war’—another fin-du-siècle Prussian semantic invention that has, incidentally, became an Anglo-American favourite—it would not be wrong to rephrase Clausewitz’s maxim as ‘aesthetics is the continuation of politics by other means’.
This has certainly been the case throughout European history. In Central Europe in particular, the 19th century was a defining period in the strengthening of the ties between the political and the aesthetical. Aesthetic preferences, whether in the arts, crafts, architecture, couture, music, and literature, were often influenced, if not outright dictated, by one’s political, ethnic, and societal affiliations. The periods of national revival experienced by most Central European peoples brought to the fore the entirety of the region’s political anxiety, cultural genius, and artistic virtuosity. Palatial buildings, often in a historicist style, were erected across Europe to serve the needs of new capital cities and the sensitivities of the revivalist spirit in existing ones. In the applied arts, the mélange of aesthetic vanguard and political sensitivities found further echoes in the British Arts and Crafts movement and, in Central Europe, resulted in the rediscovery of folk art and its resignification into a prestige form of artistic expression.
In few countries was this period more productive than post-Compromise Hungary, where the national-cultural revival was accompanied by a period of economic prosperity and renewed political prominence. And, within Hungary, no other building complex captures the spirit of this era, and its intertwining of the aesthetic, the historical, and the political, as the Buda Castle.
An Abode of Kings and Palatines
The National Hauszmann Programme is named after Alajos Hauszmann, one of the most important architects in Hungarian history, and the author of the projects of several of the country’s most iconic buildings, notably in the capital. Hauszmann, alongside his predecessor Miklos Ybl, was the chief architect in the renovation of the Royal Castle of Buda that took place from the 1870s, by order of Emperor Franz Joseph. The renovation was as much a political decision as it was an aesthetic one. The Castle had been redesigned and expanded a few decades earlier, giving a Neoclassical mélange to the Baroque style imprinted on it a century prior by Empress Maria Theresa. The deciding factor in the Emperor’s decision was not motivated by any new needs of the Castle, but rather of the Hungarian Monarchy itself. As a result of the Compromise of 1867, Hungary was restored as a de jure equal entity to that of Austria, in an arrangement designed to end the policy of Austrian direct rule in Transleithania, imposed in the aftermath of the suppression of the Revolution of 1848, and restore the Hungarian Constitution and Diet. To symbolise the equality of the two Crowns he wore, and to raise Budapest’s—and Hungary’s—status as a Royal centre, Emperor Franz Joseph decided to renovate the Buda Castle in the style and splendour of the Imperial Palaces of Austria.
The plans stipulated that the Castle was not only to become a Royal residence worthy of comparison with the other great Palaces of Europe: it was also to become a monument to Hungary and the Hungarianness, designed and decorated by the best architects, painters, sculptors, applied artists, and craftsmen in the nation. The choice for Hauszmann was made due to Ybl’s personal recommendation, as the former chief architect considered him to be the only professional in Budapest to be capable of continuing the complex work. Of Bavarian origins and having studied in Germany and Austria before returning to his native Budapest, Hauszmann was, by the time the works in the Buda Castle were initiated, a well-known architect with an eclectic portfolio comprising neo-Baroque, neoclassical, historicist, and other styles. The architect envisaged the Castle as the centre of a lively district, consisting of the political centre of the Kingdom and the focal point for the Royal court. The Castle district was, thus, to reclaim its role as the locus of power and prestige in the Lands of the Holy Crown. The nearby Sándor Palace, nowadays the Presidential Palace, was allocated to the Prime Minister. Several buildings, adjacent to the Castle, were commissioned to house government ministries and Honvéd (military) command structures. Renovations in the Buda Castle itself lasted for over 15 years, with the result being highly praised by the Emperor and the Hungarian population alike. Hauszmann’s oeuvre suffered significant damage during the World Wars, notably during the 1944-45 Battle of Budapest that left much of the city in ruins.
Hauszmann Revived
The National Hauszmann Programme was established by the Hungarian government in 2014. The need for renovations in several of the buildings in the Buda Castle District had long been acknowledged, notwithstanding previous work in the past decades. What is remarkable about the Hauszmann programme is that it transcends the merely ‘renovative’ approach common to most Western states in their policies towards heritage and adopts instead a restorationist view. A significant part of the programme consists of the reconstruction of buildings that once formed an integral part of the Castle District, either as government offices, or as the homes of important dignitaries. Most of those buildings, damaged in the course of the Second World War, were demolished by the Communist authorities, for whom they were a symbol of aristocratic dominance, rather than of Hungarian genius. The Castle District was thus not merely intended to receive a long-overdue renovation, but to experience a political, aesthetic, and cultural rebirth, reclaiming its traditionally held centrality in Hungarian political life. Gergely Fodor, the Government Commissioner responsible for the programme defined the Castle District as ‘a bastion of Hungary’s public and ecclesiastical life, culture, citizenship, and freedom, [embodying] the values which continue to define our national identity’.
Over a dozen buildings, spread across the Castle District, are contemplated by the programme. One of the first, and most notable, buildings to be completed under the aegis of the programme is the former Carmelite Monastery—universally known in Hungarian as the Karmelita—that serves as the Office of the Prime Minister since 2019. Former government buildings, such as the neo-Gothic Finance Ministry, designed by Sándor Fellner, and the National Defence Headquarters, are undergoing reconstruction, some of which are expected to welcome the institutions they were once designed to host, while others will serve cultural purposes. Other buildings, such as the Palace of Archduke Joseph, built in a historicist style adjacent to the Defence Headquarters, are being rebuilt from the ground up. This palace, itself a fin-du-siècle reconstruction of an earlier building, had been the personal residence of two Archdukes of the Palatine branch of the Habsburg family who played important roles in the political and military life of Hungary.[1] The largest beneficiary is the Buda Castle itself, whose extensive restorations include the rebuilding of its Western wing, and the restoration of several rooms in its interior according to the Hauszmann era plans.
The Hauszmann programme is one of the earliest, yet most remarkable initiatives of Prime Minister Orbán’s neo-traditionalist political approach to cultural, aesthetical, and historical topics, particularly insofar as the interplay between the Communist period and the decades and centuries preceding it were concerned. Destruction of historical buildings, which were replaced by modern ones, and neglect for national heritage were two sad constants of the Communist regime. Traces of this destructive approach can still be found throughout the country, in the many dilapidated and abandoned historical houses, manors, and once-palatial buildings. Over the past decades, however, this sight has often been twinned with that of restoration: as tradition took centre stage in the Hungarian government’s approach to culture, so did the attention dedicated to its tangible and intangible heritage. It is, therefore, no coincidence that the flagship programme in the aesthetic dimension of Hungary’s neo-traditionalist approach should have been unfolded in Buda. Its buildings, which tower over the mostly flat Hungarian capital, are, par excellence, the symbol of power and statehood in Hungarian history.
The Endurance of Tradition
The Hauszmann Programme epitomizes Hungarian neo-traditionalism aesthetically and politically. It would be incorrect to define it as purely an expression of political or aesthetic conservatism. despite the common use of the term to refer to revivalist movements in art and architecture. The programme seeks to restore much of Buda’s architectural heritage, lost during the World Wars and the second half of the 20th century. From an aesthetic point of view, it is a rejection of both the socialist modernism that was imposed on the historical Castle district, and of the post-War trend of ‘intervention’ in pre-modern spaces with modernist or postmodern buildings that neither dialogue with their surroundings nor are in harmony therewith. Neo-traditionalism is, thus, an active, rather than passive stance. It is not limited to preserving or conserving what was inherited, but rather to restoring what was lost, through the use of records, pictures, and projects from that time.
Politically, neo-traditionalism elevates into a category of prestige the notion of the traditional and the inherited, whether that be, in this case, a still extant tangible building or as a memory thereof, to be rebuilt by the present generation. It is not, per se, a rejection of modernity or a rebellion against it, but rather a conscious choice to mend and cultivate a nation or a locality’s temporal, cultural, and spiritual links with its past, and to anchor the historical element in an era that many would have desired to be ahistorical. The Hauszmann Programme’s raison d’être can, thus, be summarized by the popular saying, often attributed to the Venetian mayor who initiated the reconstruction of St Mark’s Campanile after its destruction in 1902: ‘dov’era e com’era’. Where it was and as it was.
Within the Castle itself, the most remarkable project of the Hauszmann programme—and the one that best exemplifies the political-aesthetic intertwining—is the restoration of St Stephen’s Hall. In its first incarnation, the Hall was designed as a testament to the excellence of Hungarian applied arts and an ode to the history of the Hungarian monarchy. The Hall was named after St Stephen, the first Christian King of Hungary, of whom a bust was made by Alajos Strobl and placed on top of a fireplace decorated in majolica produced in the Zsolnay factory, one of Hungary’s most important porcelain manufacturers. Its walls were decorated with portraits of the nation’s early kings, while majolica, tapestry, and woodwork completed its intricate interior. In its restored version, Zsolnay majolica still decorates the fireplace, and a new bust of the Saint-King, a replica of Strobl’s masterpiece, lies in its centre. Beyond the original symbolism of the Hall, its restoration was an intrinsically neo-traditionalist action. Therein, as in every detail of the Hauszmann programme, the elevation of Hungarian art and history are intermingled with that of the return of the traditional and the cherishing of the inherited. As Hauszmann, himself fond of historicism, had envisaged.
[1] Lt-Col. A.L.P. Johnson, ‘The War Memoirs of Archduke Joseph of Hungary’, The Journal of Modern History 7, 4 (1935,), 455–464.
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