A budapesti Országház művezetőségének tagjai
The Foremen of the Construction of the Parliament in Budapest

Summary/Abstract: The construction office of the Parliament in Budapest led by Imre Steindl was located in a puritanical, two-story building on the current Kossuth Square between 1885 and 1902, coordinating the work of architects, draftspersons, designers, and foremen. Contemporary sources allowed us to identify more than thirty people working on the project. The first section of the study attempts to demonstrate how the office functioned as a workplace. To do so the results of our monographic research regarding these individuals is also presented here, in more or less detail depending on the significance of the person’s role in the project. The careers of Steindl’s two deputies, Ottó Tandor and István Santhó are discussed in detail. We examine how they joined the construction of the Parliament, and how their careers progressed after its conclusion. The core of the construction office was formed by the generation born in the 1850s, who were Steindl’s students at the Budapest University of Technology in the 1870s. Many of them had become significant figures of the nascent Hungarian heritage preservation, while others took on office positions or worked as prolific designers. Besides Ernő Foerk and Ede Toroczkai Wigand, other like Ferenc Jablonszky, Gyula Sándy, Ottó Sztehlo, Ferenc Schömer, and Gyula Schweiger also deserve to be mentioned. The final section of the study examines the unrealized projects of Steindl and his associates, to see if the office serving this huge construction project also functioned as a think tank. How did it influence its members? Could the country’s largest Neogothic construction project launch a new school of architecture?

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