Travel Hungary
The Four Seasons Gresham Palace at the end of the Szechenyi Chain Bridge.
Back in Time
Finding the glory days at Budapest’s the Four Seasons Gresham Palace By Tim Johnson
T
he turn of the century—the illustrious fin de siècle—was a heady time for Hungarians. Created in 1873, the city of Budapest brought together the previously separate communities of Buda, Obuda, and Pest, and quickly became a cosmopolitan national capital. It attracted people from across Europe and grew in wealth and power to become a full, named partner in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1896, Budapest became the first city on the continent to open an underground rail system, beating the Paris Metropolitan by four years. Europe’s largest parliament building rose from the banks of the blue Danube, its grand domes and spires still gracing that river to this day. Subsequent years weren’t so kind to this Central European nation. Two world wars, the collapse of empires, and especially the four decades of serving as a Soviet satellite state wore down the once-magnificent place. Budapest has recovered,
58 I N S I G H T July 8–14, 2022
economically, since the fall of communism, and newly polished remnants of those glory days are everywhere, from the parliament building to the heights of Fisherman’s Bastion, completed in 1902. But today, there’s no place to fully experience the fin de siècle than at Muzsa and the Gresham Palace. The latter rises on the Pest side of the Szechenyi Chain Bridge—the first bridge to span the Danube in Hungary, and once one of the longest spans in the world. As Hungary’s fortunes rose and fell, so did those of the palace. Designed by two Hungarian architects, Zsigmond Quittner and Jozsef Vago, it opened in 1906 as the opulent headquarters of the Gresham Life Assurance Company. It was an Art Nouveau masterpiece, a place of business, but also a residence— the home of senior staff. However, hard times were ahead. In the Second World War, the Red Army commandeered its hal-
Budapest
HUNGARY
Budapest was created in 1872 when Buda, Pest, and Obuda became a single borough.
