Párisi Udvar: A Palace Built on Flour Money
Why is it significant?
Stand back on Ferenciek tere and take in the corner building opposite: arches that look borrowed from a Moorish palace, Gothic tracery, glazed ceramic tiles and a facade so busy that the eye never quite knows where to rest.
Key Facts
| Place | Párisi Udvar: A Palace Built on Flour Money |
|---|---|
| Address | Ferenciek tere 10, 1052 Budapest, Hungary |
| Geo Coordinates | 47.49300, 19.05550 |
| Part of Walk | Coffee, Cake & Paprika: A Budapest Food Walk from Gerbeaud to the Great Market Hall |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand back on Ferenciek tere and take in the corner building opposite: arches that look borrowed from a Moorish palace, Gothic tracery, glazed ceramic tiles and a facade so busy that the eye never quite knows where to rest. It is called the Párisi Udvar, the Paris Court, and it is one of the most extravagant buildings in Budapest.
It was built between 1909 and 1913 for the Inner City Savings Bank, to designs by Henrik Schmahl, and it took its name from an earlier arcade on the site that had been modelled on the covered shopping passages of Paris. Inside, a glass-roofed passage runs through the building, lined with shopfronts, a covered street where people could shop, meet and sit over a coffee whatever the weather.
Where did the money for this kind of splendour come from? Partly from bread. Around 1900 Budapest was one of the greatest flour-milling cities on earth, by some counts second only to Minneapolis. Grain from the Great Plain came in by river and rail, and huge steam mills along the Danube ground it with steel rollers into a fine white flour that bakers from Vienna to London asked for by name. Banks like this one grew fat on that trade.
The good times did not last. After the First World War Hungary lost much of its grain land with the new borders, and the mills declined. Under communism this palace grew shabby, the passage half empty and the decoration grey with soot. A long restoration has brought the tiles and the glass back to life, and the building has reopened as a hotel.
Remember the flour as you walk, because the cakes, the strudel and the bread of this city were built on it. Now cross the square and step into Károlyi utca. Just around the corner waits a café with enormous windows, where literature used to be edited over coffee.