After the recent birth of our new little baby, my wife Krisztina and I flew our boys Christopher & Benji for an extended stay to Budapest - where my wife grew up and her relatives now live.
It's wonderful to experience daily life with them in an intact cosmopolitan European city built largely before the automobile.
Budapest achieved much of its current "
UNESCO World Heritage Site"- designated built form during a dramatic expansion that occurred between the 1870s and the onset of World War I. During this period Budapest was a twin capital, along with Vienna, of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Of note for those interested in urban design:
- The city is comprised almost entirely of 4 to 6 story mixed-use courtyard buildings with apartments and offices on upper floors, and street-facing commercial on many of the ground floors.
- Most buildings have no front setback and are built right to the edge of the sidewalk.
- Gorgeously proportioned and articulated architecture ensures that street spaces feel good, and not "canyon-like".
- Wider streets tend to have regularly-spaced trees.
- Narrower street achieve their shade from the adjacent buildings and typically feature only occasional trees.
- This relatively intensely built transit-served city functions well with virtually no parking other than on-street parking.
My Daily Commute from Home to Work:
We found a great little apartment on the top floor of one of the many courtyard apartment buildings in the city's historic core close to the Danube. I'm working every day in a nearby co-working office about a half kilometer away.
What follows is a brief photo journey of my daily 10-minute walking commute to work:
1. Just stepping out our front door onto the walkway around our courtyard. I love the light and airy feel of the glass canopy and intricately curved metalwork:
2. Looking back toward our front door. The subtle modeling of the stucco surfaces gives the walls of the courtyard a more intimate sense of scale:
3. The double door across the courtyard in this view leads to a grand stairway (and tiny elevator) to the ground floor:
4. Budapest's beautifully-detailed historic courtyard buildings provide a wonderful standard of living while achieving an astonishingly efficient use of land. Historically, the designs of Budapest's courtyards were closely regulated to ensure they were dimensioned to provide plentiful access to light and air. Budapest's courtyard buildings were conceived as a way to build humanely at city densities, and were partially a corrective reaction against the older notoriously dark and unhealthy historic tenements of New York City. These courtyard buildings in Budapest were considered the architectural state-of-the-art at the time they were built:
5. Our elevator lobby at the top of the grand wrought iron-railed staircase. That's Krisztina with Christopher in the front-carrier. Benji's already on the elevator. (A woman living in the building told us the story of how the beautiful original wrought iron and wood elevator was unfortunately bought by a collector renovating another apartment building. He replaced the historic elevator with this fairly bare bones modern one - which we were told is slower than the original!):
6. Broad steps, large windows, lovely iron scroll work and sculptured stucco details make using the staircase a grand experience:
7. The floor of our courtyard. Elegantly carved masonry brackets support the walkways encircling each floor above:
8. Virtually all of Budapest's historic courtyard buildings feature a grand vaulted passageway leading to the street entrance:
9. Looking from the main street entrance back down the passageway into the courtyard:
10. The gorgeously articulated architecture of the street outside our front door:
11. A few steps to the corner unveils a view of the stunning
Vigszinhaz theater across the street:
12. Our block has an amazing diversity of business facing the street. In just this view are a convenience store in the far left shopfront, a youth hostel and the entrance to one of Budapest's biggest nightclubs in the center doorway, and the corner of a Thai restaurant visible in the foreground:
13. Continuing down the street, this same block face also accommodates two coffee shops, a vintage book shop, a couple of additional small convenience stores, a pharmacy, an art gallery and a seller of historic military collectibles!:
14. The historic buildings of Budapest are beautiful from far away, and also up close. These architectural details are 'visual gifts to the pedestrian' and play a critical role in making such an intensely-built urban environment so pleasurable to walk through:
15. The Szent Istvan Korut - a four lane urban arterial with on-street parallel parking / bus stops on the sides, plus two dedicated center lanes for light rail. Building-to-building width across the street is about 125 feet. The street is well-shaped with street-oriented architecture fronting onto wide sidewalks. Street trees help separate pedestrians from the vehicular travel lanes. It all adds up to an environment so comfortable that my 3-year-old son Benji (in the tan vest) is confident strolling along looking at the fruit for sale, without having to hold his mother's hand.
16. Benji loves discovering the different architectural sculptures on each building facade!:
17. The light rail system in Budapest is called the "Villamos", pronounced [villa-mosh]. As we reach the end of the block I drop Krisztina, Benji and Christopher off at the stop for the Villamos line that they'll take to go visit some friends. They'll ride past the beautiful Hungarian Parliament building whose dome is visible in the distance:
18. Turning from the Villamos stop, I can see the embankment forming the approach ramp of the Margaret Bridge that crosses over the Danube. The way the bridge meets the city's edge is quite seamless for pedestrians and cyclists:
19. A small park at the foot of the Margaret Bridge:
20. Looking across the Szent Istvan Korut toward my office, I can see what must be in the running for 'Most Beautiful McDonald's in the World'! It's in a gorgeous 6-story mixed-use building with no parking, built right up to the sidewalk. The transit stop in the foreground is for the Villamos line that runs down the Szent Istvan Korut and crosses the Margaret Bridge over the Danube:
21. Before I cross the street, I step into a bakery and grab a coffee and a snack to eat at the office:
22. Crossing the Szent Istvan Korut. Rossmann is a drug store which is the European equivalent of a CVS or Walgreens in the United States. Here, like McDonald's, it sits quite happily in the ground floor of a 6-story mixed-use courtyard building with no parking or drive-through:
23. Looking down the Szent Istvan Korut, the fences in the foreground are construction barricades that are in place while the tracks of the Villamos line are being repaired:
24. More gorgeous, people-friendly urbanism:
25. Walking down the wide tree-lined sidewalk in front of the Rossmann drug store:
26. One more view down the Szent Istvan Korut before I turn the corner to my office. This is one of the biggest, busiest thoroughfares in the entire city, but its thoughtful combination of design elements makes it completely comfortable for mothers with strollers - civilization!:
27. More sculptural 'visual gifts to the pedestrian'!:
28. Budapest is famous for its sidewalk flower vendor kiosks, overflowing with colorful merchandise:
29. The Secession-style building housing my co-working office fronts another small park on this side of the approach ramp of the Margaret Bridge:
30. The small park on this side of the Margaret Bridge has a docking station for
Bubi, Budapest's bike sharing network:
31. That's a protected bike lane or 'bike track' up on the sidewalk behind the bollards, leading to the Bubi bike share docking station:
32. Finally, after 10 minutes of walking, I arrive at the entrance to my office!
Kubik is a great co-working facility here in Budapest:
33. Kubik's main work space. My desk is in the far corner at the window. Its always fun to see all the interesting things everyone is working on:
I hope you enjoyed a glimpse of commuting on foot from home to work in beautiful Budapest - thanks for joining me!
BTW: If you're interested in finding out more about the fascinating urban and cultural history of Budapest, I just read and highly recommend the very well-written book (in English) Budapest 1900: A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture (by John Lucacs) available on Amazon.
