Address: 1051 Budapest, Széchenyi István sqr. 9
Postal address: 1245 Budapest, P.O. Box 1000
Phone: +36-1-411-6100
The building of the Academy, inaugurated in 1865, was built at a turning point in the urban and architectural history of Budapest as one of the first yet most mature and valuable historicising examples of the neo-Renaissance style. This architectural trend, which virtually dominated the construction boom in Budapest that started in the 1870s, had been an alien, controversial new tendency in Hungary only a decade before.
The Prussian king's architect, Friedrich August Stüler, who, after long debates and against much protest, was commissioned to design the palace, brought to Hungary a blend of the Renaissance style of Northern Italy and the Neo-Renaissance tendencies of Berlin. In addition to designing the main facade and the floor plan, he played a decisive part in the selection of the architectural and sculptural ornaments that have become a distinctive feature of the building.
On Stüler's suggestion, the terracotta statues of scholars were ordered from Berlin. The Berlin sculptor Emil Wolff made the molds for all of the statues except for the statue of the Hungarian philologist, Miklós Révai, which was made by Miklós Izsó.
Images / gallery: here