Buda Castle is the historical castle and palace complex of the Hungarian kings in Budapest, first completed in 1265. In the past, it was also called Royal Palace and Royal Castle. It is linked to Clark Ádám Square and the Széchenyi Chain Bridge by the Castle Hill Funicular. The castle is part of the Budapest World Heritage Site, declared in 1987.
Buda Castle was built on the southern tip of the Castle Hill, bordered to the north by what is known as the Castle District (Várnegyed), famous for its mediaeval, Baroque and 19th-century houses, churches and public buildings.
Nowadays, Buda Castle houses several institutions of great importance to Hungarian culture and heritage. Those include: the Budapest History Museum, the Hungarian National Gallery, and the National Széchényi Library.
The Budapest History Museum is located in the southern wing of Buda Castle, in Building E, over four floors. It presents the history of Budapest from its beginnings until the modern era. The restored part of the mediaeval castle, including the Royal Chapel and the rib-vaulted Gothic Hall, belongs to the exhibition. The highlights of the exhibition are the Gothic statues of Buda Castle and a 14th-century silk tapestry decorated with the Angevin coats of arms. Small gardens were restored in the mediaeval wards around the oldest parts of the building.
The Hungarian National Gallery is located in Building A, B, C, and D. The museum presents the history of Hungarian art from the 11th century until the present, with a special exhibition concentrating on Gothic altarpieces (housed in the former Baroque Ballroom). The only surviving interior from the pre-war Royal Palace, the Palatinal Crypt, belongs to the museum.
Building F is occupied by the National Széchényi Library, the national library of Hungary. Its collection of rare and antique books, codices and manuscripts contains 35 Corvina pieces from the famous library of King Matthias Corvinus. The original Bibliotheca Corviniana was housed in the mediaeval Royal Castle of Buda.
The first royal residence was built by King Béla IV in the 13th century. It survived the Turkish occupation, but was destroyed in the great siege of 1686 when Buda was captured by allied Christian forces. In 1715 a small Baroque palace was built, but burnt down 8 years later. In 1849 it was damaged again, and finally regained its lustre in 1896.
The first royal residence on the Castle Hill was built by King Béla IV of Hungary between 1247 and 1265. The oldest part of the present-day palace was built in the 14th century by Stephen, Duke of Slavonia, a younger brother of King Louis I of Hungary. Only the foundations remain of the castle keep, which was known as Stephen’s Tower. The Gothic palace of King Louis I was arranged around a narrow courtyard next to the keep.
King Sigismund of Luxembourg significantly enlarged the palace and strengthened its fortifications. Sigismund, as a Holy Roman Emperor, needed a magnificent royal residence to express his primacy among the rulers of Europe. He chose Buda Castle as his main residence, and during his long reign it became probably the largest Gothic palace of the late Middle Ages. The basement of the Broken Tower, on the western side of the cour d’honneur, was used as a dungeon. The top floors were probably the treasury of the royal jewels.
The last phase of large-scale building activity took place under King Matthias Corvinus. During the first decades of his reign the king finished the work on the Gothic palace. The Royal Chapel, with the surviving Lower Church, was probably built at that time. After the marriage of Matthias and Beatrice of Naples in 1476, Italian humanists, artists and craftsmen arrived at Buda. The king rebuilt the palace in an early Renaissance style. Only fragments remain of this Renaissance palace: red marble balustrades, lintels and decorative glazed tiles from stoves and floors.
In the last years of his reign Matthias Corvinus started construction of a new Renaissance palace on the eastern side of the Sigismund Courtyard. The Matthias Palace remained unfinished because of the king’s early death. After the death of Matthias Corvinus, his successor, King Vladislaus II, carried on the works on the Matthias Palace, especially after his marriage with Anna of Foix-Candale in 1502. Under the reign of King John Zápolya, the last non-Habsburgian ruler of Hungary, the palace was repaired.
After the Battle of Mohács, the mediaeval Kingdom of Hungary collapsed. The Ottoman Turks occupied the evacuated town on 11 September 1526. Although Buda was sacked and burnt, the Royal Palace was not damaged. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent carried all the bronze statues away with him to Constantinople. The statues were destroyed there in a rebellion a few years later. The Sultan also took many volumes from the Corvina library.
In 1529 the Ottoman army besieged and occupied Buda again, and the palace was badly damaged. On 29 August 1541 Buda was occupied again by the Ottomans, who encountered no resistance upon entering. The city became part of the Ottoman Empire. Although Turkish travel writers wrote enthusiastically about the beauty of the palace of the Hungarian kings, the new Ottoman government let the palace decay. It was partially used as barracks, a storage place and stables. Otherwise it stood empty.
In the era between 1541 and 1686, the Habsburgs tried to re-capture Buda several times. Unsuccessful sieges in 1542, 1598, 1603 and 1684 caused serious damage. The Ottoman authorities repaired only the fortifications. According to 17th-century sources, many buildings of the former Royal Palace were roofless and their vaults collapsed. Nonetheless, the mediaeval palace mostly survived until the great siege of 1686, when, in a heavy artillery bombardment of the city, many buildings burnt and collapsed.
The Stephen’s Tower, used as a gunpowder store by the Ottomans, exploded when hit by a single cannon. According to contemporary sources, the explosion killed as many as 1,500 Turkish soldiers and caused a tidal wave on the Danube that washed away artillery batteries and guards standing on the opposite shore.
Habsburg military engineers made several plans and drawings of the buildings in subsequent decades. Although the walls mainly survived, the burnt-out shell rapidly decayed from a lack of maintenance. Between 1702 and 1715 the Stephen’s Tower totally disappeared, and the palace was beyond repair. In 1715 King Charles III ordered the ruins demolished and the surviving marble statues, antiquities, inscriptions and coins spared. There is no evidence if the royal decree was fulfilled. The main part of the palace and the Broken Tower were totally demolished, the hollows and moats were filled, and a new flat terrace was established. The southern fortifications, wards and rooms were buried under tonnes of rubbish and earth.
In 1715 a small Baroque palace was built according to the plans of Johann Hölbling. This very simple rectangular building had an inner court and a shorter side wing, which was later demolished. The Hölbling palace is identical with the core of the present-day palace, where the Baroque Court of the Budapest Historical Museum is now located. The interior of the palace was left unfinished when work stopped in 1719. Four years later, the palace accidentally burnt down, and the windows were walled up to stop further deterioration.
In 1748 Count Antal Grassalkovich, President of the Hungarian Chamber, appealed to the public to complete and restore the derelict palace by means of public subscription. Palatine János Pálffy called upon the counties and cities to award grants for the project. The moment was favourable because relations between the Hungarian nobility and the Habsburgs were exceptionally good. Hungarians supported Queen Maria Theresa in the dire need of the War of the Austrian Succession. The queen was grateful, and the new Royal Palace became the symbol of peace and friendship between the dynasty and the nation.
The foundation stone of the palace was laid on 13 May 1749, the queen’s birthday. The work continued at a good pace until 1758, when financial difficulties caused a seven-year break. By that time only the interiors were left unfinished.
In 1764 Maria Theresa visited the palace, and allotted 20,000 thalers a year for the work, which recommenced in 1765 according to the plans of Franz Anton Hillebrandt. In 1769 the St Sigismund Chapel was consecrated and the palace was finished the same year. According to the aggregate statement of Grassalkovich, the costs were 402,679 forints.
The future of the complex was uncertain; the queen had no intention of using it as a royal residence, because she did not spend much time in Buda. In 1769 she gave one wing to the Sisters of Loreto from Sankt Pölten. The building was handed over on 13 May 1770, but the elegant Baroque rooms were unsuitable for a nunnery. In 1777 the queen decided that the University of Nagyszombat should move to Buda. The nuns moved out and the palace was hastily adapted to use as a university. Classrooms, teacher’s cabinets, museums, a library and a university press were built.
In 1778 a new chapel for the Holy Right of Saint Stephen of Hungary, the mummified right hand of the first Hungarian king, was built. The Chapel of the Holy Right was situated near the St Sigismund Chapel, in the middle of an inner court.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony of the university was held on 25 June 1780, the 40th anniversary of Maria Theresa’s coronation. The throne room became a splendid auditorium decorated with frescoes depicting the four faculties.
Functional problems of the university remained unresolved, so in 1783 the faculties were moved to Pest. In 1791 the palace became the residence of the new Habsburg Palatine of the Kingdom of Hungary, Archduke Alexander Leopold of Austria. After the early death of the palatine in 1795, his younger brother Archduke Joseph succeeded him, followed by Archduke Stephen. The palatinal court in Buda Castle was the centre of fashionable life and high society in the Hungarian capital.
In 1810 the palatinal palace was damaged by fire. In the following decades, plans were made to raise the building with an upper storey, but they were not implemented, although the observatory tower, which had hindered the work, was removed. In 1838 the crypt of the St Sigismund Chapel was rebuilt. The Palatinal Crypt was the burial place of Palatine Joseph and his family. The crypt is the only part of the palace that survived the devastation inflicted during World War II.
On 4 May 1849 Artúr Görgey’s Hungarian army laid siege on Buda Castle, defended by General Heinrich Hentzi. On 20 May the Hungarians captured Buda with a great assault. The palace was the last stronghold of the Austrian troops and became a site of heavy artillery fighting. The ensuing fire consumed the central and southern wings; they were completely burnt and their interiors were destroyed.
The palace was rebuilt between 1850 and 1856. The former Viennese Baroque palace of Maria Theresa became a more austere neoclassical Baroque building. On the western side of the cour d’honneur two smaller buildings were added in 1854.
Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria visited Buda Castle in 1856 and 1857. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, Franz Joseph was crowned king of Hungary. The palace played an important part in the lavish ceremony, again symbolising peace between the dynasty and the nation.
In the last decades of the 19th century Budapest experienced rapid economic development. Ambitious urban planning projects were carried out to express the growing wealth and higher status of the Hungarian capital. Special attention was paid to the rebuilding of Buda Castle. The autonomous Hungarian government intended to create a royal palace to match any famous European royal residence. Rebuilding spanned forty years between 1875 and 1912, and caused sweeping changes in the topography of the whole area.
First, the Royal Garden Pavilion was built on the embankment of the Danube, at the foot of the Castle Hill, between 1875 and 1882. This neo-Renaissance gateway was designed by Hungarian architect Miklós Ybl. In 1882 Prime Minister Kálmán Tisza charged Ybl with drawing a master plan for rebuilding the palace. In his 1885 plan, Ybl preserved the old Baroque palace but mirrored it on the western side of the cour d’honneur, doubling the size of the residence.
The façade was clad with stone slabs, while the old parts are stuccoed; hence, the difference between the original Baroque and the neo-Renaissance wings is obvious. The formerly open cour d’honneur became a closed court with a splendid arched gateway guarded by four lions by sculptor János Fadrusz. The court is called Lions Court.
The work began on 1 May 1890, but Ybl died on 22 January 1891. His successor, Alajos Hauszmann, slightly modified the plans of the Krisztinaváros wing. In 1896 the building reached the level of the court, and King Franz Joseph ceremoniously laid down the foundation stone of the palace, which was soon completed.
In 1893 the 25th anniversary of Emperor Franz Joseph’s coronation was celebrated in the Royal Palace. The old banqueting hall proved to be too small, so Hauszmann enlarged the room by knocking down and reconstructing the wall towards the cour d’honneur.
In the western forecourt, Hauszmann designed a new neo-Baroque guardhouse and rebuilt the old Royal Stables. The Royal Gardens on the southern hillside were famous for their precious plants, glass houses and picturesque terraces. In the middle of the gardens stood the Swiss House of Queen Elisabeth, furnished with Hungarian folk art objects. The house was built above the ruins of the mediaeval gatehouse, partly making use of them.
The Royal Palace was officially inaugurated in 1912. Contemporary critics praised it as the most outstanding Hungarian building of the turn of the 19th to 20th century. Indeed, it was a magnificent amalgam of architecture, sculpture, applied arts and gardening.
The Hauszmann palace existed for only three decades. On 30 December 1916 the building played a part in the coronation ceremony of the last Hungarian king, Charles IV. After the 1918 revolution and the removal of the Habsburg dynasty, the Royal Palace became the seat of the new regent of the Kingdom of Hungary, Miklós Horthy. Horthy lived in the Krisztinaváros wing with his family between 1920 and 1944. In this era the palace was the centre of Hungarian political and social life. The regent’s garden parties were especially fabulous. Famous guests entertained by Horthy in the palace included King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy in 1937 and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) in 1938.
On 16 October 1944 a German commando led by Otto Skorzeny occupied the Royal Palace and forced the regent to abdicate. Buda Castle was the last major stronghold of Budapest held by Axis forces (Germans and Hungarians) during the siege of Budapest between 29 December 1944 and 13 February 1945. The defenders of the castle attempted to break the Soviet blockade on 11 February 1945, but failed, leaving 90% of the soldiers dead on the streets of Buda. Allegedly the Russians knew about their plans and had aimed heavy weapons at the possible escape routes hours earlier. This is considered one of the biggest military catastrophes in Hungarian history.
Heavy fights and artillery fire turned the palace once again into ruins. All the furniture disappeared, roofs and vaults collapsed, and the southern and western wings burnt down. The destruction was comparable to that of the great siege of 1686.
Immediately after the war, archaeological research was begun to unearth the remains of the mediaeval castle. The research, led by László Gerő (1946–1966) and László Zolnay (1967–1979), was probably the biggest castle excavation in Europe. The former Royal Gardens, with their turn of the 19th to 20th century stairways, pavilions and glass houses had to be sacrificed. Important parts of the former Sigismund and Matthias Palace had survived under the thick earth fill.
The government made a decision about reconstruction only in 1948. According to contemporary photos, all the important interiors were damaged, but their restoration was technically possible. The new communist leaders of Hungary considered the Royal Palace a symbol of the former regime, but, unlike the East German leaders who ordered the demolition of the Stadtschloss in Berlin, they chose to thoroughly modernise the interior and exterior of the palace.
The first restoration plan of the mediaeval remains was written by László Gerő in 1950 and finalised in 1952. Contrary to the generally accepted principles of historic reconstruction, the mediaeval fortification system was rebuilt in its entirety. Important elements like the 16th-century Great Rondella and the mediaeval Gatehouse, the Mace Tower, the walls and the wards were restored according to the results of the archaeological research and contemporary pictorial evidence. The low-lying southern wing of the Gothic palace was also reconstructed, together with the vaulted Gothic Hall and the Lower Church of the former Royal Chapel. Mediaeval-style gardens were planted in the wards. The foundation of the Stephen’s Tower was unearthed, but lacking enough archaeological evidence, the tower was not refurbished. The remains of the Broken Tower were covered again.
The large-scale reconstruction of the mediaeval fortifications substantially changed the cityscape of Budapest. At the time it was considered a highly successful project, reconciling historical authenticity with urban planning demands.
During the 1950s the palace was gutted and all the interiors were destroyed. Important exterior details – the main entrance, the Habsburg Steps, the dome, the Royal Stables, the guardhouse and the riding school – were demolished. The remaining façades were simplified. In Lions Court the ornate gates of the King’s Stairs and Diplomat’s Stairs were pulled down. The doorway of the castle church disappeared, as did the church. The detailed neo-Baroque roofs were simplified and plain new windows were installed. The allegorical sculpture group of the tympanum was destroyed.
The modernist dome was designed by Lajos Hidasi in 1961 after Italian Baroque models. The palace was rebuilt by 1966, but the interior spaces were ready only in the 1980s. Buda Castle became a cultural centre, home to two museums and the National Széchényi Library.
In the 1970s archaeological research continued on the northern and western side of the palace, led by László Zolnay. It produced many important achievements, including the Late Gothic Buda Castle Statues. The Karakash Pasha Tower, in the Újvilág Garden, was a Turkish-era tower demolished at the end of the 19th century. Photographic evidence made its reconstruction possible, but the new tower is only a copy of the original, and the details are not authentic.
In March 2006 the National Office of Cultural Heritage finalised the long-term development plan of Buda Castle. Asserting that the modernisation in 1952–66 caused irreversible damage, they proposed a partial reconstruction of the façades, including the dome and the Habsburg Steps. No decision has been reached concerning the realisation of the development plan.
In 2008 an international consortium began to build an underground garage for 700 cars under the former Csikós Court. The developer was granted permission to knock down a 4.5-metre-long section of the 15th-century castle wall. The demolition was carried out in spite of criticism from archaeologists and the public. The area had been previously excavated by archaeologists, who discovered many important finds, including mediaeval children’s toys and a tooth from the pet leopard of King Matthias Corvinus. Financial difficulties interrupted the construction of the garage in 2009; work resumed for a short time in November 2011 but stopped again after a concrete basement slab was completed.
The interior from the time of Maria Theresa and Franz Joseph was mostly destroyed during World War II and the post-war reconstruction, except the Palatinal Crypt, which survived both. Between 1958 and 1962, the façades of the Gothic castle facing the narrow southern, western and eastern courts were partially restored.
Little information is available about the interiors from the mediaeval and Baroque eras. However, the palace built at the turn of the 19th to 20th century was meticulously recorded, with detailed descriptions, photographic documentation and grounds plans.
A series of rooms from the mediaeval castle were unearthed and reconstructed during the post-war rebuilding of Buda Castle in 1958–62. They are now part of the permanent exhibition of the Budapest History Museum in Building E of Buda Castle.
In 1958–1962, architect László Gerő partially restored the façades of the Gothic castle facing the narrow southern, western and eastern courts. When it comes to the floors, only the ground and first floor were reconstructed; the castle was originally much taller. The unfinished façade stops at the level of the Baroque terrace above. Two windows open towards the southern court and another two open towards the eastern one. The four almost identical windows are square, four-panel stone constructions of very fine Gothic craftsmanship. Their outer frames are decorated with small columns. One window, which had been walled up, was discovered in situ during archaeological research, and the others were reconstructed from fragments by sculptor Ernő Szakál. The ground floor openings are simpler. An arched stone doorway gives access to the southern court from the cellar under the Gothic Hall.
The façade was originally plastered. The whitewashed surface was decorated with a painted pattern in a rusty hue, resembling rustication. Fragments of painted geometrical decoration, a common feature on the mediaeval buildings of Buda, were discovered on the eastern façade, but it was not restored.
A Gothic balcony tower projects from the wall at the end of the eastern façade. It is the only second floor part of the mediaeval palace to be recreated in 1958–62. Its restoration was a much debated issue because the balcony tower goes above the level of the Baroque terrace, disturbing the harmonious panorama of the palace. On the other hand, it clearly indicates that there are missing higher floors.
The balcony tower is a two-storey structure standing on a wide stone basement. The first floor is a solid stone wall without any openings. The niche behind it belongs to the Gothic Hall. The second floor has a balcony with three windows; it is now closed off by a glass wall. The balcony is in the shape of half an octagon. The three Gothic double lancet windows are the most important architectural elements of the tower. The profiles, frames and mullions were restored in a simplified form, using many of the original stones. The tower is covered with a flat metal roof.
The Gothic Hall is connected to Stephen’s Castle on the western side. It was named after Prince Stephen, Duke of Slavonia, a younger brother of King Louis I of Hungary. Built in the 1340s–1370s, it is the oldest part of the mediaeval royal palace. Only the foundation and three interconnected barrel-vaulted rooms survive.
Stephen’s Tower was the keep of Stephen’s Castle. It was destroyed by an explosion in 1686. Its turreted spire can be seen in every old picture of Buda Castle. The ground floor walls were discovered after 1946. It was a square building erected upon the rock surface of the Castle Hill. The walls are 2.31 to 2.7 m thick, with narrow arrow slits on the southern, western and northern sides. The original doorway, on the eastern side, was walled up after the Gothic Hall was built in the 15th century.
Stephen’s Tower was originally a free-standing structure, sited differently from later buildings. The triangle in front of it was walled up to create a continuous southern façade for the palace. During the post-war restoration this part of the façade (with a broken stone doorway) was not rebuilt. A vaulted room on the ground floor was still intact in 1820, according to a contemporary drawing. Although ribs, corbels and key stone were discovered during archaeological research, the room was not refurbished. A spiral stairway had connected the room with the missing higher floors.