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New York Firm Tapped for Restoration of Budapest Landmark

The New York firm of Beyer Blinder Belle, responsible for the restoration of Grand Central Terminal, has been selected to develop “an adaptive reuse and restoration plan” for Exchange Place, a historic building on Budapest’s Freedom Square (Szabadság tér). Exchange Place was built in 1905 for the Budapest Stock and Commodities Exchange, and includes a number of ornamental details in the Hungarian style of the Secession architectural movement. After the Soviet conquest of Hungary, the building became the Lenin Institute before being given over to the state television broadcaster.

The main entrance stairway and the central rotunda will be restored to their former glory, and ground-floor shopfronts will return to accommodate sidewalk cafés along the Nádor utca and Szabadság tér.

Aside from Grand Central Terminal, their most famous rehabilitation, Beyer Blinder Belle are known for their restoration work at the Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore (the first cathedral in the United States), the New York Yacht Club, and Hoboken Terminal. BBB helped transform Stone Street (above) in lower Manhattan from an ordinary tarmac lane into a stone-paved pedestrian street with several bars and restaurants. The firm also restored the Sun Building (below), the original home of the New York Sun. The renovation was so successful that when the Sun was revived in 2002 after a fifty-year absence, it found its original offices too expensive to rent.

Published at 12:41 pm on Thursday 19 February 2009. Categories: Architecture Hungary Tags: , , .
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