Manó Mai House, 20 Nagymező street

Source: maimano.hu

The significance of the roads, not just leading out of the district, but also the ones crossing it, wasn't as big until the mid-19th century. It only gained more after Theresatown expanded and became autonomous. The only really significant crossing street of the olden days was the wide Nagymező street, which also wrapped around the church building as a square. This street was already known since the 1720s as a named dirt road - basically the border on the northeast side. Its shape and width was fixed in the 18th century, its name stayed, then from 1874 it was officially recognized as Nagymező street. Although we know it as a street, it has operated as a marketplace until the beginning of the 20th century: our ancestors referred to it as a street, but thought of it as a square.

Manó Mai in officer uniform (1895)
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Manó Mai (also known as Emmanuel May), Imperial and Royal Court Photographer, and his wife, Etelka Rothauser, bought the one-story residence on 20 Nagymező street for 35 000 forints on 30th January 1892. A year later, on 5th January 1893, Manó Mai owner and commissioner applied for a building permit to the Honorable Council of the Royal and Capital City, asking their permission to demolish the old house and build in its place a new three-story studio-house. It has eight levels, which is not inconsistent with the three stories: it has a basement, a ground floor entry, a mezzanine for the Kis Manó Gallery, an exhibition hall on the first floor, a glass studio on the second floor, a library above that and the top is divided in two. This way the eight levels look like a three-story house on the outside. After some complications with the permit and multiple modifications in the plans, all these documented in the remaining files in the City Archives, our photographer was finally given the approval to build.

  
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Plans were drawn by Rezső Nay and Muki Strausz, the construction was lead by József Mann build master, and after a quick year and a half, on 31st July 1894, the residence permit was granted by the officials. The different scenes of the photography studio and the apartment of the owner was in the streetside wing, while the courtyard-side mostly had rentable flats, so the housekeeping staff could be rentable, as well. The studio-house was richly decorated with a neo-renaissance, historical facade: statues, reliefs, ornaments and frescos painted on terracotta tiles. The allegorical female figures that symbolize the arts of painting and photography hold objects characteristic of the two branches of art in their hands, signaling the kinship of imaging procedures as is customary in the photographic iconography of the age. These still need some renovation, but can be viewed better from the other side of the street and the two balconies attached to the library.

 
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The entrance hall lead to the courtyard and the main staircase. (In the '30s, it was built in for the Arizona Club.) Despite the renovations since, the entry in the gateway welcomes people with the still legible "Salve" written on the terrazzo floor tiles, just like back then. On the side walls of the staircase, the old showcase cabinets remained. The decorated glass cupboards under the gypsum stucco had once held Manó Mai's best photos of famous socialites, aristocrats, elegant women of Budapest and, of course, the most adorable children, which could be viewed by visitors, who at the same time were able to choose the background, setup, props and lighting they wished for.

The entrance halls of turn-of-the-century studio-houses were for the advertising of the photographer's work, not just here, but everywhere else, too. This gave the base mood for the visit and represented the diversity of the master to passersby. It's not that different in current days, either. Now you can also find out more about the exhibitions, programs and services in Manó Mai House and the Museum of Photography.

The photos of Manó Mai
Source: Wikipédia, maimano.hu

Hugó Weisz from Arad - who took over the operating of the house from the widow after Manó Mai's passing - gave an exact description of the professional needs of the era in his article "Milyennek kell lenni egy modern műteremnek" (How To Create A Modern Studio - ed.): “I give emphasis to the display windows. The visitor can view many various concepts and executions in every cabinet. Pigment, gum print, platin print, sepia enlargements... interior shots, etc. come one after the other, letting the viewer see the variants of photographic methods. Naturally, I also emphasize the environment of the displayed images, because milieu has a large role in the enhancement of the effect." ("A Fény" The Light, 1907, issue 7 p. 181–184, 1907, issue 8. p. 207–212) Manó Mai had the same idea.

Source: welovebudapest.com

Marble stairs lead up to the gallery on the mezzanine, the initials "MM" in the wrought-iron rails. Back in the day, the way up was a symmetric two-armed staircase, but only one arm survived to stand today. However, if one is paying attention upwards, too, they can glimpse the oil panel painting of puttos in a golden frame, painted by Albert Raudnitz, Viennese painter, in 1894. Why was it necessary to decorate this building so lavishly, unlike other houses in Pest? Because the photographer needed to make his clients believe that this is a place of gentlefolk-like behaviour, that they're in a house where the walls, the ornaments, the furniture give the framework of the proper behaviour when it comes to recording the clients in the most fitting posture for posterity.

In the gallery on the mezzanine, which now operates as a small gallery and bookshop since the end of 1995 as the first place acquired during the new conquest, and which earned twice the title of Best Gallery of the Capital City on the voting of foreign journalists working in Hungary, a thin staircase lead up to the photographer's first floor office. This was - and in some places still is - covered in oak wood. The etched glass panes of the three-paned window overlooking the courtyard can still be seen in the first-floor hallway, and, of course, the initials of the photographer can be made out of its intricate design. In this mezzanine office, the staff, the so-called "greeting ladies", greeted the client and discussed with them whether they wanted to get a portrait or a family photo, how many and in what size, what the costs are, what the deadline of delivery is, etc. The photographer was the host the whole time and greeted the visitors in his extraordinary home, in the parlour room furnished just for this purpose. And even photographed them, but this was the least time-consuming part of the visit.

 
Source: welovebudapest.com

Currently, a huge Venetian mirror and the etched, glass panes of the doors repeatedly bearing the initials of Manó Mai remind onlookers of the pomp of the old studio. In the doorway between two halls is a two-winged, copper-framed, cut glass sliding door, which is a rare beauty in other common apartments. These three rooms and the attached balcony held the residence of the owner, his wife and his son. Today, it functions as an exhibition hall, bearing the name of André Kertész.

From the former office - still in use - a carved oak staircase takes us to the reception hall on the second floor. The rails were created before the invention of welding, so the metal decorations were spliced together and riveted to each other. The parlour room is defined by the stained glass windows of Miksa Róth. The footing of the hall is covered in ornamented wood, the walls are partitioned with pillars, stuccos of putto heads on the top of them. It was furnished as a parlour room interior: with a sofa, a coffee table, rugs, curtains, a clock, statues, flowers and, of course, photos on the walls. On the table there were picture frames, albums and even a small bookcase was placed in the room, filled with illustrated photography journals and yearbooks.

 
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„The parlour room has a function like the greater lords' (ministers, cardinals), or the railway station waiting rooms, where we spend our time until we get to our turn (…) We have seen in many similar parlour rooms goldfish, birds, etc. These all enhance the beauty of a waiting room.” wrote dr. Aladár Sárffy in an article titled "A fényképészet aesthetikája (Folytatás)" (The aesthetics of photography (Continued) - ed.). ("Magyar Fényképészek Lapja" Hungarian Photographers' Paper, 1899 issue 5 p. 98-99) The former parlour room now also functions as an exhibition hall.

To this “parlour room” dressing rooms were attached, where clients could straighten their clothes and hair before the shoot, and they could change their regular selves as they would've liked. „Setting aside the fact that photographers have to communicate with all manner of people, they need to have a social intelligence and taste to understand their habits and wants, to recognise those, accommodate to them, and even use them to the advantage of the business." (Excerpt from the speech of Manó Mai on the ball of the Photographer Circle on 14th March 1889)

  
Source: welovebudapest.com

The space of the dressing rooms is now taken by exhibition rooms, which were named after George Eastmann by the current operators of Manó Mai House. Streetside on the same level as the parlour room is the most beautiful part of the building: the Sunlight Studio. In the historic double-door, we can once again find the etched glass panes with the "MM" initials. The light reaches the room through the glass of the closed balcony and its slanted glass roof, brightening up the large space fit for group photos. The amount and direction of the light can be regulated with two curtain systems. On both sides of the iron structure on the facade, there's a niche with a bronze female figure standing inside each. The niches are made of Zsolnay pyrogranite elements in neo-renaissance style, with typanums and seashells on the top. Both from the street and by the glass wall it is visible that the house and the decorations are in need of restoration. In the studio, on the end walls there are two frescos, which not only enhanced the decoration of the room, but could be used as specific backgrounds for photos.

 
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The studio had a dry laboratory, which was exclusively used for the loading of cassettes and the changing of discs. They stored the different lenses, props and backgrounds here, as well. Now it is opened up and joined with the studio. In the corner on the left, behind a small door, a side staircase leads up to the entrance hall of the library and the rooftop studios. This ensured the direct connection between the studio and the workrooms two floors above, where retouchers, colourists, copiers and mounters did their work in the sunlit rooms. The apprentices and assistants were not allowed to disturb the discussion between the photographer and his clients, the technical background was hidden from them by separating the workrooms, the staircases and doors from the rooms reserved to welcoming guests.

Even now, we can find the small elevator connecting the whole building, which was used to deliver the finished works, the display pictures and the equipments to the correct levels. The photographer of the time thinks of everything, since the creation and constant maintaining of the illusion is just as important as the technical background. In the June issue of the Hungarian Photographers' Paper, dr. Aladár Sárffy gave a detailed description, as well, since, as the photographed commonfolk, he has a view of the customer's side, and as the student, colleague, friend of Ferenc Veress photographer from Kolozsvár for years, has a view of the professional side.

 
Source: welovebudapest.com

One level above, technical rooms, now offices and the József Pécsi Photography Library, can be found. The building can only be viewed by visitors up to this point, although further up even more interesting things await for the few hundred millions of renovation money. In the top two levels, overlooking the street, was the copying room, where the contact-printing and occasional enlargement of the developed negatives took place, and the painting studio, where the originally brown-coloured pictures were getting closer to the colours of the real world - if requested -, and also the retouch studio, where the dames were rid of their pluses without pain and suffering and all the pockmarks disappeared and crooked noses were straightened out without plastic surgery. Behind these rooms were the laboratories and copying rooms, where all the now well-known, intricately created portraits, family and group photos, filled with peace and harmony, were basically made.

Although it's an obvious thought that a photography studio is for making better and better pictures, but that's not the case. The main goal of the ornate building was the make-believe, which was to be created and kept up for the client: they have nothing to do with their everyday selves, they are more, better, cleverer, more beautiful, richer, worthier, etc. than they are on the other days of the week, when there are no photoshoots of them. And everything, all the space, furniture was conformed to this belief, and the behaviour of the photographer and his staff strengthened it - everything.

  
Source: maimano.hu

The previously mentioned regular, summarizing photography-aesthetics author writes this: „The polite greeting and considerate guiding of the guests invoke sympathy, creates a pleasant mood and ensures a devoted leniency, so during the act we are going to be the one, whose artistic taste the client is going to pay attention to. (…) We pay special attention to each step of the setup, starting from the examination of the face, up until we call "Now!" and the picture is taken.” (dr. Aladár Sárffy: The aesthetics of photography (Continued), Hungarian Photographers' Paper, 20th April 1899. Volume III, Issue 4 p. 73-76.)

In 1931, Sándor Rozsnyai composer and his wife, Mici Rozsnyai née Senger (stage name "Miss Arizona") bought the house from the photographer's son. They built the three-floored Arizona Club in the empty courtyard. This was open until 1944, which is when the owners were taken away. After the war, the building served very different purposes: school, showroom, then the Budapest branch of the Hungarian Car Club used it for 30 years.

In 1996, the Foundation of Hungarian Photography started to buy the lease rights from the tenants at the time. The Manó Mai Gallery opened on the mezzanine in 1995, and the House of Hungarian Photography on the first and second floors on 18th March 1999.

Source: maimano.hu

Sources: maimano.hu, maimanohaz.blog.hu, ilyenisvoltbudapest.hu