Léderer Mansion, 42 Bajza street

Source: MESZL Budapest Collection

In Budapest, under nr. 42 Bajza street, the commissioners and namesakes of the Lederer Mansion was the very wealthy brothers, Artúr and Károly. They wanted to build on the relatively small corner lot from their wealth, made from mostly farming, an impressive mansion for themselves, but also an apartment house for bringing in profit. This eventually was designed by the architect duo, Zoltán Bálint and Lajos Jámbor in 1902. On the façade of the third floor, built into the outer layers, a mosaic friese can be seen wrapping around the building, made in Miksa Róth’s workshop from the designs of Károly Kernstok, the same man responsible for the glass windows, as well. The frieses depict dancing women and men, and a deer hunt with panthers.

Zoltán Bálint and Lajos Jámbor, the duo designing the building
Source: szecessziosmagazin.com

The unique building has garnered the attention of architects and the city even during its construction. The journalist Ödön Gerő wrote this about the building in the paper “Művészet” (Art – ed.) in 1908: „the two architects satisfied the requirements of both an apartment house and a mansion. They did not have to build a mansion-style apartment house, but they had to incorporate the requirements and their necessities in the same construction, so the two can be united in the same framework, yet be distinguishable inside from each other as an apartment house and a private mansion. […]The three-story building has a separate section for the owner’s own residence, while the rest will be a delicately created apartment house. The one-story mansion is incorporated into the three-story corner house, its different style highlighted, yet not only does it fit into the structural and ornamental unity, but it is the base of this union. Highlighting both styles yet uniting them is one of the most impressive artistic ideas.”*

   
The interior of the house - then
Source: kitervezte.hu

Indeed – the building is actually 2 in 1: it has the residence of the wealthy owners and an elegant apartment house filled with rentable apartments, built to give all the comfort of the time. The mansion had its own fancy entrance, while the tenants could enter the house on Aradi street through a simpler gate. The two buildings are joined on the second floor. The interior was beautiful, the architect duo made a magnificent Gesamtkunstwerk creation.

  
Source: IMM, MESZL

Even the facades show the difference between the private house on the corner and the apartment house. The ground and first floors are lit up through a joint opening, which is made up of multiple tall, narrow windows in the representative rooms. These curve in at the corner. The ground floor had originally the owner’s room, with a winter garden above it. The dining room was on the right of the gate. The parlour roon faced Aradi street, its three windows by the gate blending into the façade of the apartment house. The hall was long and narrow, the wooden stairs by the back wall, now closed off with a wooden wall, with the booth of the porter in front of it.

   
Source: MESZL, kitervezte.hu

From the hall, three sliding doors lead to different rooms: one bigger on the right, two smaller to the left.

     
The hall
Source: IMM

The right side leads to the dining room, which still has its wood paneling, fireplace and a built-in cabinet opposite the windows. The fireplace was originally decorated with a bronze relief by Miklós Ligeti.

    
The dining room
Source: IMM

On the left side of the hall, the first door lead to the owner’s room, where the original chandeliers are hanging from the Gypsum vine-decorated ceiling. The lower half of the walls had wood paneling, which can still be found but only on the wall towards the parlour room. This room can be accessed through the other smaller sliding door in the hall, and in there another, larger sliding door leads to the owner’s room. The lower half of the parlour room’s wall is covered with stone tiles, and its original parts are the fireplace, the glass cabinet on the wall opposite the sliding door and a trapezoid-shaped mirror.

    
The parlour and the owner's room
Source: IMM

The Budapest Archives is keeping the layout plans from 1903, which shows the apartment house and the private residence together. This also has the layout of the basement and a crossed out mezzanine. The other plans (basement, ground floor, first, second third and attic floor and a façade design) have no dates on them. Each page has the label “Bálint és Jámbor műépítészek” (Bálint and Jámbor architects – ed.), and multiple pages have been signed by Bloch and Holitscher build masters. According to the labels, the plans were drawn up for the apartment mansion of the Honorable Artur Lederer.

 
The layout of the ground floor (left) and the the basement (right)
Source: Hungaricana Cultural Heritage Portal**

In the basement of the apartment house is the apartment of the caretaker. You can also clearly see the entrance, the hall, the parlour room, the owner’s room and the dining room in their finished forms on the ground floor layout plan. Even the fireplaces and the sliding doors are indicated. In the center is the large staircase of the private residence, starting from the hall, an oval-shaped staircase next to it for the apartment house. There’s also a door hidden in the wall, opening from the dining room into a sideboard, with a dumbwaiter and an elevator. On the ground floor of the apartment house has only one apartment.

 
The cross-section (left) and the facade (right) drawing of the building
Source: Hungaricana Cultural Heritage Portal**

The second and third floors of the private residence are drawn as separate apartments, with a hall, a parlour room and bedroom in each. There was only a smaller staircase leading up to the attic from the laundry room. The façade design shows the building from the Bajza street side in its almost completely finished form. However, the corner of the second and third floor is rounded down and a triple window on each level (the rounded corners can be seen on the drawing). Between the two top floors there is no ledge, the windows joined vertically, the lower halves divided in three, and the roof had a short battlement in front of it.

The building today houses the Trade Representation of the Russian Federation
Source: Wikipedia

The Lederer family had the building leased out in 1935 to the USSR. Nowadays, the Trade Representation of the Russian Federation is operating here.

Source: MESZL

Source: IMM (Museum of Applied Arts – ed.), meselohazak.hu, kozelestavol.hu, *”Művészet” Volume 7, Issue 2 (1908)
**The rest of the plans can be found on the website