100 Unique Buildings in Budapest

Budapest's architecture spans Roman ruins and award-winning contemporary buildings, with plenty of treasures in between. Below, I've grouped them chronologically and included location links to each.

The city has an excellent architecture center, Fuga, also selling English-language books. The Walter Rózsi-villa, home to the Hungarian Architecture Museum, is located inside a wonderful modern building from the 1930s with original Marcel Breuer furniture on exhibition. The Center of Contemporary Architecture (KÉK) offers thematic walking tours led by competent locals.

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Roman ruins

In the 1st century CE, the Roman Empire extended to the Danube, with the river serving as its eastern border. In other words, the Romans ruled the western half of today’s Hungary, the region we now call Transdanubia. Aquincum, situated in the northern part of today's Budapest (Óbuda), was the capital of Lower Pannonia province with a population of 40,000 in its heyday. The Aquincum Museum is a good place to learn more.

#1 - Roman Ruins in Óbuda

No rival to the Baths of Caracalla, the Thermae Maiores was a bath complex in Aquincum used by the military and complete with several steam rooms and a gym (and today with a concrete overpass running above it). A 15-minute walk away stands the Aquincum Military Amphitheater, once a 13,000-capacity stadium – again, no Colosseum – used for gladiator combats and chariot races. One can visit Thermae Maiores for free from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (it's closed on Mondays); the amphitheater is accessible at all times.

Occupying what used to be the civilian neighborhood of Aquincum, the Aquincum Museum presents the excavated remains of this vanished town. There are two informative exhibitions but I also like to simply roam the spacious outdoor grounds sprinkled with torsos of long-ago baths, shrines, butcher shops, and markets. Location.

Middle Ages to 19th-century Neoclassicism

Few buildings in Budapest predate the 19th century for three main reasons. One, new constructions weren't a priority when Ottoman Turkey occupied the city (1541-1686) since Hungary was on the western fringes of the empire. Apart from putting up a few hammams, the Ottomans simply converted the existing housing stock to fit their needs, for example churches into mosques.

Two, many medieval buildings were destroyed during the 1686 siege of Buda when the Christian Holy League clashed with the Ottomans to retake the city. For example, both the wonderful Gothic-Renaissance Buda Castle and the Gothic synagogue of the Castle Hill were demolished.

Three, as part of a massive urban development program in the second half of the 19th century, whole downtown neighorhoods were reduced to rubble to make way for grander buildings and a more systematic urban environment (similar to Haussmann's remake of Paris). Many Baroque and other historical homes were knocked down along the way.

Still, the surviving Neoclassical housing stock of the Pest side – built in the first half of the 19th century – counts among the great architectural treasures of Budapest. This so-called Biedermeier period saw the rapid urbanization of the city with residential houses to match for the rising middle class. Mihály Pollack’s vast National Museum building crowns this period of enlightenment and burgeoning nationalism (Pollack was to Budapest what Karl Friedrich Schinkel was to Berlin and Leo von Klenze to Munich).

#2 - Church of Mary Magdalene (mid-13th century)

One of the first Gothic buildings in Budapest, Béla IV of Hungary commissioned the Mary Magdalene church in order to serve the city's Hungarian community (the German residents attended the nearby Matthias church). The white Neoclassical entrance portal was added for the 1792 coronation of Habsburg Francis as King of Hungary. After WWII bombings damaged the church, the hardline and anti-religion Communist regime of the early 1950s decided to tear it down instead of renovating it. Only the late-Gothic, four-story tower has remained, soaring above the city and offering stunning views (there's a small admission fee to go up). Location.

#3 - Residential Homes on the Castle Hill

Budapest's Castle Hill is split between the royal castle and the civilian quarters lined with residential homes. The countless battles waged on this small piece of land – most recently WWII – left many of the original buildings damaged, but the Baroque and in some cases modern facades stand on medieval walls. Many portals, for example, have retained their Gothic-style niches that are visible from the street level. The neighborhood's winding streets, such as Táncsics, Fortuna, and Úri utca, still exude a charming, historic air. Location.

#4 - Inner City Parish Church in Pest (4th century CE to 20th century)

Built on the foundations of a Roman fortification, this church is a palimpsest of architecture, reflecting two thousand years of history: the external buttresses, the arched windows with tracery, and the high-altar area come from the Gothic era; two tabernacles count among the most gorgeous Renaissance remains in Hungary; the 16th-century mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca) bears witness to the Ottoman rule when the church functioned as a mosque.

The towers and the facade were inspired by the Austrian and the Roman Baroque. The first side altar on the left contains a funerary monument by István Ferenczy, known, adoringly, ambitiously, as the "Hungarian Canova." The triptych of the high altar, from the 1940s by Pál Molnár C., reflects the influence of the Italian modernists, especially Giorgio de Chirico. There's a lookout point in the tower and a crypt displaying sheet music that Franz Liszt conducted in the church. Location.

#5 - Király Baths (1565?)

Built by Sokollu Mehmed pasha in the 16th century, Király Baths is one of the few remaining buildings in Budapest that dates back to the city's century-and-a-half occupation by Ottoman Turkey. The small openings on the hemispherical dome admit little daylight, lending a mysterious ambiance to the hammam beneath. Of Budapest's thermal baths, this one is popular among local residents, too (but currently under renovation). Location.

#6 - Tomb of Gül Baba (1548)

Gül Baba, "Father of the roses," was a muslim spiritual leader (dervish) who died in 1541, when Ottoman Turkey occupied Buda-Pest. His octagonal limestone tomb (türbe) is set on a quiet and thrillingly beautiful area with sweeping views of the city. For the best experience, climb up on Mecset Street through the rose garden and exit on the other side down the winding Gül Baba Street. Location.

#7 - Chapel of Saint Roch (1711; 1970s)

It’s easy to miss this adorable Baroque church amid the highway-like traffic of Rákóczi út. A chapel of gratitude raised after a plague epidemic, the building was placed beside the barack where the plague-victims were contained (hence its distance from the city center, and hence its patron: Saint Roch). A small marble sign on the side of the church shows the water-level during the great flood of Buda-Pest in 1838. WWII bombings exposed the early-medieval walls on which the chapel stands; today, a short flight of stairs descends from the nave to a mysterious sanctuary fitted in the 1970s.

The building abutting the church is the oldest hospital of Budapest, opened in 1798. “Pestanum Calamitosorum Domicilium“ still reads its entrance portal: House of the Misfortunate in the City of Pest. It’s the hospital where in the 1850s professor Ignác Semmelweis headed the maternity unit. Semmelweis became famous for successfully tackling childbed fever (puerperal fever) by demanding that obstetricians wash their hands before treating patients, a revolutionary idea then. Location.

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#8 - Plague Column on the Castle Hill (1713)

In front of the Matthias church on Szentháromság tér rises a late-Baroque plague column, which was a Habsburg specialty: as a token of gratitude following a plague, the surviving residents erected such oddly shaped monuments adorned with flying angels and the patron saints of plague victims such as Saint Roche and Saint Sebastian. The Holy Trinity is perched up top.

The most famous example of this kind is found along Vienna's Graben and served as a model for all subsequent plague columns across the Habsburg Monarchy including those in Hungary. It is worth perusing the relief panels on the base of the monument. One of them shows the plague-ridden city, another the erection of the monument itself! Location.

#9 - University Church (1723-1742)

Budapest's high-Baroque treasure, the Roman Catholic University Church, was built in place of a mosque after the city's Ottoman occupation. The soaring facade is Italian in style, the flanking “onion” towers are Viennese. Most captivating is the building's richly decorated interior, especially the tectonic main altar, the 1778 quadratura ceiling frescoes of the Virgin by Johann Wenzel Bergl (he painted the so-called "Bergl room" at the Schönbrunn Palace), and the exuberant pulpit loaded with gilded putti. Also note the carved oak details on the entry door and the pews.

The church was built by the Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit, the one and only monastic order that originates in Hungary. After Habsburg Emperor Joseph II dissolved the order as part of his sweeping religious reforms in the 1780s, the building complex became part of the university and has since functioned as the seminary's church. Location.

#10 - Budapest City Hall (1727-1735)

It is fascinating to picture what this huge building, still one of the largest in the city, looked like in 18th-century Buda-Pest surrounded by a few dozen flimsy houses. Built as a hospital and rehab facility for wounded soldiers, the complex was a city within the city complete with retail stores, schools, apartments, grain storage, and a beautiful church whose tower still rises high above. At the end of the 18th century the building became a military barrack and today it houses the City Hall and the Mayor's Office.

Take note of the three projecting entrance portals – the central one marked by the Atlas figure – flanked by wall reliefs that convey the heroic deeds of the reigning emperor, Habsburg Charles VI. Colossal pilasters and modest window surrounds break up the monotony of the immense facade. I know what you are thinking: a sweeping renovation is long overdue. Location.

#11 - Saint Anne Parish Church in Buda (1740-1764)

With its onion-shaped twin towers seen from afar, Baroque fans consider the Saint Anne church the pride of the Buda side. The centerpiece of the facade is a statue of Saint Anne, mother of the Virgin, holding the child Mary (the coat of arms of Buda is seen above them, before its union with Pest). Uniquely, the church has an elliptical layout topped by a dome, the only such example from this period. The dome’s Novecento-inspired fresco was made by two Italy-trained Hungarian painters, Béla Kontuly and Pál Molnár C., and shows scenes from the life of Saint Anne (1938).

The Baroque high altar is especially gorgeous – by the Hungarian sculptor Károly Bebó – as are Franz Xaver Wagenschön’s paintings ringing the central space. Originally a Jesuit church, in 1773 it fell to the local parish after Pope Clement XIV dissolved the order. Location.

#12 - Erdődy-Hatvany Palace (1750)

The Hungarian aristocracy preferred to do its socializing in Vienna, the empire’s capital, rather than the small towns that Buda and Pest were in the 18th century. This means that few Baroque residential palaces were built here and those were rather provincial.

The Erdődy-Hatvany Palace mirrors the arc of Hungary's political and social history: built by a Habsburg-friendly aristocrat (Erdődy family) in the post-Ottoman period; purchased by a Jewish industrialist family (Hatvany) in 1912; confiscated by the SS in 1944; then nationalized by the Communist state. Today, the Baroque palace houses the Institute for Musicology, while the Hatvany's coat of arms still adorns the twisted pediment. Location.

#13 - Copf Style Residential Houses on the Castle Hill (1796-1807)

The Baroque ran its course by the mid-18th century, a fact that showed itself also in architecture. The so-called Copf Style embodied the period between the Baroque and Neoclassicism, reflecting the emerging ideas of enlightenment and cool rationality: Facades became flatter, less tectonic, and with simpler entrance gates and rectangular window surrounds. Reliefs, medallions, and braided strings replaced the more expressive Baroque and Rococo sculptures and statues (copf, the motif after which this era is named, translates to braided hair in Hungarian and German).

József Grigely, a teacher of humanities and high school principal, lived in the building shown above (Bécsi kapu tér 7). He flaunted his classical education by commissioning portrait medallions of Virgil, Cicero, Socrates, Livius, Quintilianus, and Seneca, as well as reliefs depicting the allegories of arts and sciences. The house later went to Lajos Hatvany, scion of a wealthy industrialist family and himself a literary critic who socialized here with writers and poets. A plaque today lists his famous guests, including Thomas Mann and Sándor Márai. Location.

#14 - Lutheran Church of Deák tér (1799-1811)

Following the 1782 Edict of Toleration by Joseph II, non-Catholic churches were also allowed to be built across the Habsburg Monarchy. A somber elegance imbues the main church of Budapest's Lutheran community on Deák tér. The building is an early work of Mihály Pollack, whose name came to be associated with the thriving Neoclassical architecture of Buda-Pest in the first half of the 19th century. From the outside, a simple pattern of rectangular and thermal windows and a band of triglyphs and metopes wrap the building (the porticoed front is a later addition).

Inside, as with other Protestant churches, the great space plays off against the austere white walls and the church balcony. All attention is directed toward the priest and the high altar, which features a magnificent copy of Raphael's Transfiguration. The neighboring buildings also belong to the Lutheran congregation and include a museum and a high school, hence its moniker: Insula Lutherana. Location.

#15 - The Neoclassical Residential Buildings of Pest (1820s-1840s)

As mentioned in the intro, the first decades of the 19th century were a productive period in Buda-Pest. With support from the reform-minded palatine, Habsburg Archduke Joseph, and enlightened aristocrats, the city was rapidly urbanizing and expanding. The period’s two leading architects, Mihály Pollack and József Hild designed hundreds of residential buildings.

These houses weren’t as lavish as Tigris Szálló and the Festetics Palace (seen above, with a wonderful coffered vestibule and mythological statues made by the Austrian sculptor, Josef Klieber), but even the most economical buildings included some reference to the Neoclassical vocabulary – subtle motifs of triglyphs, metopes, and meanders. Many such examples survive in downtown’s Nádor and Arany János streets. Location.

#16 - Hungarian National Museum (1837–1847)

One of the great buildings of Europe in the first half of the 19th century, Mihály Pollack's Hungarian National Museum harks back to the time when ancient Greece and Rome inspired architecture – Neoclassicism. Hence the classical temple front supported by eight giant Corinthian columns and topped by pedimental sculptures (the central figure is the personification of Pannonia, the Roman-era province that became Hungary). There's even a coffered rotunda in the building to evoke the Pantheon, although its oculus is glassed in to protect the artworks. The building houses the oldest museum in Hungary, with a comprehensive permanent exhibition about the country's history. Location.

#17 - Károlyi Palace (1832-1840)

It’s the Baroque that usually symbolizes aristocratic glamor because by the time of Neoclassicism, blue bloods were on the decline, middle classes on the ascent. This makes the downtown winter palace of the Count Károlyi family a special treat even if the facade, presided over by the Károlyi coat of arms, isn’t too exciting. The coffered vestibule features fluted Doric columns made from stone, while the grand staircase showcases the kind of austere elegance that has earned Neoclassicism both fans and detractors.

In the 1920s the Horthy regime confiscated the palace from the Communist-sympathizer Mihály Károlyi before the city of Budapest bought it to exhibit its own painting collection. Today, the Petőfi Museum of Literature occupies the building but anyone can access the courtyard and peek at the staircase. What used to be the palace’s private garden is currently a public park (Károlyi-kert), one of the most charming in Budapest. Location.

#18 - Széchenyi Chain Bridge (1839-1849)

Those two triumphal arches soaring heroically from the Danube? They're part of the Chain Bridge, a major Budapest landmark and the first permanent connection to span the Danube between Buda and Pest. By 1830, the idea of linking Buda and Pest was pressing given that the city of Pest was rapidly growing and had become the commercial center of Hungary. There did exist a makeshift bridge but it was small and had to be dismantled during the winter months.

Led by William Tierney Clark, the Chain Bridge was designed by a group of engineers from England, given that Hungary at the time had almost no industry to speak of whereas England was riding high on its capitalist success and was the world’s leader in suspension bridge construction. As with the city's other bridges, German soldiers blew up the Chain Bridge in 1945 to slow the advancing Soviet army (it was rebuilt by 1949). Recently renovated and pedestrianized – and no longer with a toll since 1918 – it’s a great time to walk across the Chain Bridge! Location.

Revival Architecture (second half of 19th century)

In 1867, Budapest became the joint capital of Austria-Hungary alongside Vienna. The next half a century marked Budapest's golden era, when, inspired by Paris and Vienna, grand boulevards, monumental plazas, and eye-catching revival architecture sprung up at a head-spinning pace.

With money and political power came the desire for monumental representation: massive public buildings and open plazas emerged to parade Hungary’s newfound prestige. Down went the one and two-story flimsy houses – vestiges of a modest past many were eager to forget – and up rose the towering ministries and court buildings, immense bank headquarters, and gleaming hospitals, museums, universities, and national monuments.

Today, still, these buildings – a kaleidoscope of Neoclassical, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque Revival styles and combinations thereof – dominate Budapest's urban landscape.

#19 - Dohány Street Synagogue (1854-1859)

Jewish people played a crucial role in Hungary’s 19th-century modernization and in turn they obtained meaningful privileges from the aristocracy and the political leadership. By 1910, Budapest was the second biggest Jewish city in Europe with nearly a quarter of its residents being Jewish. This is the reason why the synagogue in Dohány Street is Europe’s biggest. When it was built, in the late-Romantic period, people believed that a national Jewish architecture should feature Moorish or Mesopotamian elements to evoke Jewish people's historical origins, hence the yellow-maroon bands and decorative motifs on the facade.

Commissioned by the progressive so-called Neolog community, the inside so much resembles a Christian church – for example the bima is placed not at the center but the front – that ultra-orthodox Jews avoid the building to this day. On the rear side of the complex stands a smaller, modernist synagogue from 1931 wrapped in travertine that honors Jewish-Hungarian soldiers who died in WWI. The famous Holocaust memorial, Emanuel Tree, is also there. Location.

#20 - Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1862-1865)

A fierce public debate preceded the construction of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Gothic versus Renaissance? The debate was about more than just styles – it was about values and Hungary’s view of itself (the Gothic exemplified national greatness whereas the Renaissance projected cosmopolitan values). An impressive group of architects were involved with the commission: Imre Henszlmann, Hungary’s first art historian; the Austrian Heinrich von Ferstel who designed the Votivkirche; and Leo von Klenze, the great architect of Munich.

But the winning entry came from the Prussian Friedrich August Stüler with a design that would not have been out of place along Venice’s Grand Canal! (The Academy initially housed the Esterházy painting collection – which later formed the Szépművészeti Múzeum – and rumor has it that Prince Paul Esterházy was in favor of Sansovino’s brand of Venetian Renaissance.) On the Akadémia utca side, one will find the bronze relief showing the 1825 moment when Count István Széchenyi announced that he would donate a year’s income to the founding of the Academy. Location.

#21 - Vigadó (1859-1865)

In the era of romantic nationalism (mid-19th century), architects across Europe occupied themselves with the idea of creating a national building style; Frigyes Feszl's Vigadó is regarded as the first attempt at establishing a Hungarian national architecture. Feszl's facade is a complete mishmash of elements from the past: Gothic tracery appears within the five central bays of segmental arch, which are flanked by basilica fronts with medieval battlements and columns. Stone statues of Hungary's history – including King Béla IV, Matthias Corvinus, Habsburg Maria Theresa – and Greek mythology are sprinkled throughout the oversized frieze. The inside is frescoed with themes from Hungarian mythology by Károly Lotz and Mór Than.

Liszt, Brahms, Debussy, Dvořák, and Bartók are among the notables who performed at this downtown concert hall, which still functions as a cultural complex. Location.

#22 - Rumbach Street Synagogue (1870-1872)

The Rumbach synagogue was built by Budapest's moderately orthodox Jewish community that considered the nearby Dohány Synagogue too modern for its taste, but was more liberal than those in the Kazinczy Synagogue. The young Viennese architect, Otto Wagner, who later became a pioneer of modern architecture, designed this wonderful synagogue in 1872.

The building is a good example for the search of a Jewish national architecture that occupied architects at this time: the Islamic ornaments – minaret-like towers and slender, Moorish-style Alhambra columns – evoke the medieval architecture of Sephardic Jews in the Iberian Peninsula. The construction itself was very modern, using a slender cast iron frame filled with thin masonry. Today, this congregation no longer exists and the building functions as a museum with opening hours limited to Sunday. Location.

#23 - Andrássy Avenue & the Grand Blvd. (1876, 1896)

Inspired by Haussmann's Paris and Vienna's Ringstraße, Andrássy Avenue and the Grand Boulevard are two major thoroughfares that have profoundly shaped Budapest's city fabric. The elegant Andrássy Avenue stretches from downtown to the City Park, while the Grand Boulevard is Budapest's main artery, connecting five neighborhoods.

They are lined with imitations of Medici-type Renaissance palazzos that were meant to broadcast the rising ambitions and their owners who usually occupied the first-floor (piano nobile) apartments and rented out the rest of the building. Similar to the buildings along Vienna's Ringstrasse, they were mainly commissioned by Jewish industrialists and the aristocracy. Location.

#24 - Nyugati Railway Station (1874-1877)

Prompted by London's Crystal Palace (1851), glass and cast iron construction became all the rage across Europe by the second half of the 19th century. People saw beauty in the exposed metal frames even without a masonry cladding. Budapest's Nyugati railway station was the first major iron structure in Hungary, designed, characteristically, by the office of Gustave Eiffel (together with the head architect of the railway company, the Austrian August Serres). There's a nice contrast between the skeletal central building and the brick-faced pavilions flanking it. Somewhat bizarrely, the historical dining hall, completely exquisite, became home to a McDonald's in 1990. It's one of their most beautiful and most popular locations. Location.

#25 - Hungarian State Opera House (1875-1884)

Erected during the great wave of opera-building in the second half of the 19th century, Miklós Ybl's lively Renaissance-Baroque (neo) exterior is a highlight of Andrássy Avenue. Five bays of deeply recessed loggias covered by gilded barrel vaults face the street. Jacopo Sansovino's Biblioteca Marciana in Venice and Gottfried Semper's Dresden Opera might have been inspirations. Statues of famous composers appear atop the balustrade – Palestrina, Monteverdi, Beethoven, for example. Franz Liszt, carved from stone, sits in the niche beside the entrance. The decorative program is even more dazzling inside, rich with marble, gold, and mahogany. It culminates in the grand stair hall, made for savoring spectacles and seeing and being seen.

An example of the friendly competition between Vienna and Budapest at the time: imperial authorities specified that the size of the Budapest Opera had to be smaller than the Viennese. Location.

#26 - Várkert Bazár (1875-1883)

In an effort to beautify the Castle Hill and its Danube bank, architect Miklós Ybl populated the hillside with a cluster of Renaissance buildings. Ybl, also in charge of the Opera House, connected the mixed-use pavilions with conspicuous pergolas that bring to mind the Berlin works of Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841). Várkert Bazár, today a popular hangout, provides spectacular open vistas to both the Royal Palace and the meandering river. The bronze statue at the center of the fountain depicts the Greek sea god, Triton. Location.

#27 - Keleti Train Station (1881-1884)

Opened in 1884, Keleti is Budapest’s grandest train station. The terminal was sited so that a long perspective view from the city center climaxes in the immense triumphal-arch-like facade of the train station – from Ferenciek tere, for example. In addition to the usual allegorical depictions of commerce and industry and travel and so on, two stone figures crown the main facade: those of George Stephenson, who perfected the steam locomotive, and James Watt, the steam-engine pioneer.

Inside Keleti, the enormous solids and voids and thermal windows evoke the bath architecture of ancient Rome. A temple of modernity, the whole of Keleti was illuminated from the start by electrical lighting. The side pavilions contained waiting halls for first, second, and third-class passengers, as well as restaurants, luggage handling, and offices (departures on the left, arrivals on the right; the royal waiting hall was on the far end of the arrival side). The main departure hub, the Lotz Hall, features eight wonderful frescoes painted by Károly Lotz. Unlike the rest of Keleti, which is in an embarrassing state of disrepair, the Lotz Hall was nicely restored in 2008. Location.

#28 - Saxlehner Palace (1884-1886)

I always get Palazzo Farnese vibes from this astounding Renaissance building right at the entry point of Andrássy Avenue. While the whole facade is clad in polished limestone, the piano nobile – the main floor with the principal rooms, originally inhabited by the owner – draws attention to itself with alternating peaked and rounded window pediments. Atop one of those rests a bronze copy of Michelangelo's Dawn and Dusk from the Medici Chapel. Architect Győző Czigler's building was commissioned by the Saxlehner family, wealthy industrialists in charge of a thriving mineral water company who hired the best craftsmen for the interior details too. Location.

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#29 - Batthyány Palace (1884)

If you have a hunch that you've already seen this heavily rusticated early-renaissance building somewhere else, you're correct: the Batthyány Palace is a near-faithful replica – although much smaller in size – of the 15th-century Strozzi Palace in Florence. The fact that people saw fit to erect an actual duplicate shows the extent to which historicism in architecture enveloped Budapest in the 19th century. Interestingly, the palace in Florence was designed by the same Benedetto da Maiano who also worked for Hungary's Renaissance king, Matthias Corvinus. Location.

#30 - Wenckheim Palace (1886-1889)

In the second half of the 19th century, wealthy Hungarian aristocrats drove a building boom in what's called the Palace Quarter (inner parts of District 8). When not in their countryside estates, they entertained lavishly in the fast developing capital city. A good example is the sumptuous Baroque Revival palace of the Wenckheim family. Today, the building belongs to the Metropolitan Szabó Ervin Library but parts of the fourth floor have retained their original splendor and can be visited for a small fee. It's a surreal sight: students cramming for exams in the former ballroom loaded with heavy chandeliers and gilded Rococo.

The Hungarian aristocracy is long gone – they fled from or suffered under the Communist regime – but more eye candies remain on the nearby Pollack Mihály Square, anchored by the former winter palaces of the Esterházy, Festetics, and Károlyi families. Location.

#31 - New York Palace (1891-1894)

The New York Palace symbolizes the excesses of Budapest's golden period in the late 19th-century. This outsized Baroque palace features a strong central axis carried by stone Atlas figures, lined with colossal Ionic columns, and topped by a soaring rooftop cupola. The New York Life Insurance Company commissioned starchitect Alajos Hauszmann to design this representative building, which still dominates the Grand Boulevard (there's a bronze Statue of Liberty inspiration over the corner facade). The iconic coffeehouse, New York Cafe, occupies ground floor, nearly collapsing under its rich decorative program complete with Solomonic marble columns and frescoed ceilings. Location.

#32 - Matthias Church (1255; 1896)

Little has remained of the modest medieval church that once stood on the Castle Hill and where people such as Matthias Corvinus and Habsburg Franz Joseph were crowned King of Hungary. Architect Frigyes Schulek reimagined the building into this exuberant Gothic Revival church whose colorful roof tiles preside over Budapest (similar to how Viollet-le-Duc "extended" the medieval Notre-Dame in Paris in the 19th century). The dim inside is coated in 19th-century frescoes and offers a respite from the throngs of tourists (there's a small admission fee).

Outside, that stern and confident gentleman cast in bronze is the canonized Stephen (975-1038), the country’s first king who laid the foundations of Christian Hungary. The base of the monument shows scenes from his life. Behind the church on Szentháromság tér rises a late-Baroque plague column, see above. Location.

#33 - Vígszínház (1896)

No, this isn’t a Borromini church parachuted in from 17th-century Rome; the lively building before you is a beloved Budapest theater from 1896, erected in the Baroque Revival style so prevalent in in this neck of the woods but less so outside Central Europe. Notably, the architect duo, Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer, designed a total of 48 theater buildings, mostly across Austria-Hungary. The rich and tectonic surface treatment encapsulates the whole building, although it does so in budget-friendly fashion – using stucco rather than stone. Location.

#34 - Great Market Hall (1894-1897)

Architect and university professor Samu Pecz dreamed up several romanticized Gothic Revival buildings across Budapest, including the main market hall of the city. The exposed steel frame structure and the giant windows allows for an airy and light-filled inside, while the thick masonry walls, the segmental arch motifs, and Zsolnay's colorful glazed ceramic roof tiles lend a sense of medieval-romantic craftsmanship. The building is still the central produce market of Budapest. Location.

#35 - House of Parliament (1885-1904)

Containing 691 rooms, this Gothic Revival extravaganza stretching along the Danube's bank is Hungary's biggest building. Architect and university professor Imre Steindl was an expert of Gothic architecture, but it was the influential former Prime Minister, Gyula Andrássy, who expressed a wish that the Hungarian Parliament resemble the Westminster Palace of A.W.N. Pugin and Charles Barry. This, he believed, would enhance the authority to the building in the eyes of the public. Parts of it are open to visitors, including the hall with the Holy Crown of Hungary, and what used to be the Upper Chamber. Location.

#36 - St. Stephen's Basilica (1851–1906)

Named after Hungary's first king, the canonized Stephen (975-1038), Budapest's biggest church is one of the great examples of Renaissance Revival architecture in 19th-century Europe. The entrance portal and amazing spaces bring to mind Alberti's Sant'Andrea in Mantua; the half-circle of colonnades in the back resembles the ancient Temple of Vesta in Tivoli; and the central plan and dome shows parallels with Michelangelo's Saint Peter's Basilica. The four church fathers occupy the facade niches, while the four evangelists perch in the openings of the elongated drum.

Sculptures of Hungary's saints decorate the inside, as well as a beautiful painting by Gyula Benczúr showing the moment when Stephen offers the Holy Crown to the Virgin. The dome provides panoramic vistas (there's a small admission fee to both the church and the dome). Location.

#37 - Millennium Monument (1896–1906)

Hungary's national monument on Heroes' Square was built to celebrate in style the country's thousand-year history (for good or ill, it's less bombastic than Italy's national monument from around the same time). Two sets of curved colonnades enclose bronze statues of Hungary's (mostly) enlightened statesmen, such as the first king, the canonized Stephen, who added Hungary to the Christian nations of Europe in the year 1000, and Matthias Corvinus, whose great humanist court in the Buda Castle was filled with Italian artists, architects, and cooks in the 15th century.

In the middle of the square rises a Corinthian victory column surrounded by equestrian statues of ancient Hungarian chieftains who led the way into the Carpathian Basin in the 9th century AD. Atop the column stands the long-winged Archangel Gabriel, with the Holy Crown and a cross in his hands. Location.

#38 - Buda Castle (1896-1905)

It was in the early 20th century that the impressive Buda Castle took its final Baroque form. The palace, whose last resident was Miklós Horthy, Hungary's leader between the world wars, was badly damaged in WWII and stood empty for decades. A socialist modern remodeling of the inside in the 1970s permitted the Hungarian National Gallery, the Budapest History Museum, and the Széchényi Library to move in (the exterior was retained, though much simplified).

Below the building hide the remains of the Gothic-Renaissance palace of Hungary's kings, Sigismund of Luxembourg and Matthias Corvinus, which can be accessed through the Budapest History Museum. Separately, the Habsburg burial chamber with the tombs of Archduke Joseph (1776-1847), the longtime Palatine of Hungary, and his family can be visited with advance booking via +36 20 439 7325. Location.

#39 - Museum of Fine Arts (1900-1906)

That amazing but disjointed ensemble of Roman temples facing Heroes' Square? They hide Hungary’s main fine arts museum, the Szépművészeti. The inside features specially fitted halls with Romanesque, Renaissance, and Baroque themes, and a wonderful permanent collection of old masters. Most paintings had belonged to the Prince Esterházy family before the Hungarian state purchased them in 1871. They include works by Raphael, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, El Greco, Rubens, van Dyck, Velázquez, Tiepolo, Goya, and many others (my favorites). Location.

#40 - Tombs at the Fiumei Road Cemetery (1849-today)

The Père-Lachaise of Budapest, this vast park near the city center hides a beautiful garden cemetery. Anyone is free to stroll through the limestone mausoleums and impressively designed tombstones while getting to know Hungary’s prominent statesmen (Lajos Batthyány, Ferenc Deák, Lajos Kossuth), artists (Mihály Munkácsy), architects (Ödön Lechner), and others, for example the Gerbeaud family behind the famous downtown pastry shop. Also here: the heroes of the Communist regime.

In the back but accessed from outside hides the Salgótarjáni Street Jewish Cemetery, which contains the funerary monuments of the Jewish upper class, including those of such well-known industrialist families as the Weiss von Csepel and the Hatvany-Deutsch. Location.

#41 - Vajdahunyad Castle (1904–1908)

What seems like a fairy-tale castle inside Budapest's City Park was initially a temporary object made in 1896 for the festive events and exhibitions celebrating Hungary's millennium. The complex incorporated dozens of famous buildings from across the Hungarian Kingdom, including the Romanesque church of Ják, the fortified tower of Segesvár, and the Castle of Vajdahunyad. The structure turned out to be so popular that they kept it, rebuilding everything with durable building materials (instead of skeletal wood). The wonderful Museum of Agriculture occupies parts of it today. Location.

#42 - Anker Palace (1908-1910)

Locals and tourists alike usually love this radically eclectic yellow building that presides over Budapest’s city center by Deák Ferenc tér. Architect Ignác Alpár piled a motley collection of elements atop one another for this rental palace commissioned by Anker, one of the oldest Viennese life insurance companies. For example, he planted an outsized pedimented portico onto the facade, a Mesopotamian-inspired structure up top, granite Doric columns around the main entrance. They surely grab the attention.

Architecture historians from their ivory towers tend to be less enthusiastic. They might tell you that the building looks kitsch, that it lacks proportions, and that it exemplifies the failure and complete misunderstanding of 19th-century revivalism. Let them think that. To me, this building embodies Budapest’s rapid rise during the period of Austria-Hungary: still a bit provincial and rough on the edges, but exuding unbridled ambition, confidence, and positivity. Note that there’s an excellent English-language bookstore on the ground floor of the building – Atlantisz Könyvsziget. Location.

#43 - Párizsi Udvar (1909-1913)

If there were an award for the most attention-grabbing building in Budapest, then Párizsi udvar would be a strong contender. Architect Henrik Schmahl loaded the facade with a rich ornamental program climaxing in the ceramic pinnacles soaring from the roof level. The overall vibes are Gothic-Byzantine, that is to say, reminiscent of a birthday cake with lots of caramelized elements. While the building is currently home to five-star hotel, there’s a cafe on the ground level open to all and a good way to glimpse the inside. Location.

#44 - Apáczai Csere János High School (1911-1913)

Classical architecture resurfaced in the early years of the 20th century to counter what many thought were decadent and individualist overreaches of the Art Nouveau. Classical forms, the reasoning went, projected enduring humanist values. This oversized block of a high school jettisoned into a narrow downtown street in Budapest is the most amusing expression of this idea: the rusticated lower levels and the brick facade culminate in several Greek temples resting atop the building, complete with stocky Doric columns. See it to believe it (brought to you by architect Kálmán Reichl). Location.

Art Nouveau and pre-modern (late 19th and early 20th centuries)

At the end of the 19th century, Art Nouveau eclipsed the historicist style, which by then was viewed as outdated. It was Ödön Lechner who pioneered Hungary's unique brand of Art Nouveau: Using folk art motifs as inspiration, Lechner wanted to create a distinct Hungarian national architecture. Some call him the “Gaudi of Hungary,” as Lechner's playful and brightly colored glazed ceramic decorations and expressive shapes loosely resemble those of the Spanish master. As shown below, other strains of Art Nouveau – Belgian, Austrian, German – also appeared in Budapest.

Architects of the next generation took Lechner's approach in different directions. Some, such as Károly Kós, further explored the frontiers of a national Hungarian architectue. Others, most notably the brilliant Béla Lajta, left behind the sinuous shapes of the Art Nouveau and designed some of the first pre-modern buildings in Europe in the early 20th century.

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#45 - Postal Savings Bank (1900-1901)

Hiding on a quiet downtown street, the Postal Savings Bank is considered Lechner's greatest work. The immense facade is held together by an undulating battlement and a maze of gentle brick patterns. Floral motifs and a collection of strange creatures appear throughout (the bees crawling up in the side toward their beehives signal industry and hard work). The wonderful entrance portal gives way to a rich decorative program and dynamic interior spaces.

The building is used by the State Treasury and can’t be visited unfortunately. Your best option for a glimpse would be the rooftop bar of the Hotel President across the street. Location.

#46 - Kőrössy Villa (1899)

While Lechner's style was most unique to Hungary, other strains of Art Nouveau also appeared across Budapest. This richly decorated family home lining the elegant Városligeti fasor evokes the French and Belgian Art Nouveau (architect Albert Kálmán Kőrössy, who studied in Paris, built it for his own family). The building's facade features omega-shaped windows and a parade of plant and animal motifs, including a pair of peacocks flaunting their feathers. Location.

#47 - Gresham Palace (1904-1906)

With prime views onto the Danube, the Chain Bridge, and the Castle Hill, downtown's Gresham Palace stands on what's arguably the most valuable piece of real estate in Budapest. Originally built for the British Gresham Life Assurance Company, an army of Hungary's top craftsmen worked on this Art Nouveau landmark. The decorative details – glass mosaics, immense ironworks, tectonic wall reliefs – are impossible to take in in their entirety. The building, which is currently home to the Four Seasons, embodies Budapest's golden age. I urge you to go inside and look around the lobby, which many non-hotel-guests do. Location.

#48 - Liszt Academy (1907)

Founded in 1875 with Franz Liszt as its president and piano teacher, the Royal Academy of Music is one of the seminal cultural institutions in Budapest. Most of Hungary’s famous musicians studied and taught within its hallowed halls, including Jenő Hubay, Ernő Dohnányi, Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, György Ligeti, György Kurtág, Zoltán Kocsis, and András Schiff. In 1925, for its fiftieth anniversary, the institute was named after Franz Liszt and a Liszt memorial museum opened which still exists at 67 Andrássy Avenue.

The academy moved into the current building – its third home – in 1907. The outside is classical, the inside showered in Art Nouveau. The great auditorium is especially impressive: mounds of golden laurel leaves – an inspiration of Vienna’s Secession Haus – symbolize the victory of music and culminate in stained glass skylights inscribed with musical expressions such as dallam (melody), ritmus (rhythm), and összhang (harmony). “Scherzo” and “Adagio” and other tempo markings decorate the walls, as well as Chiron, the wise centaur who taught music to the young Achilles. Apart from the concerts, the academy offers weekly guided tours of the building. Location.

#49 - Ödön Lechner's Vermes House (1910-1911)

As with all great architects, Ödön Lechner was inspired by his pupils, some of whom turned to Otto Wagner's brand of Viennese Secession. Their prototype was Vienna's Postsparkasse, complete with planar surfaces covered in gray rectangular slabs “anchored” to the walls by simple decorative rivets. While adopting this vocabulary, Lechner, whose last building this was, remained true to himself and to the more profuse Art Nouveau he favored, as shown by the undulating cornice, the shape of the window sills, the details of the wrought iron balcony, and the Zsolnay-filled vestibule. Location.

#50 - Calvinist Church, Budapest Dist. 7 (1911-1913)

Ödön Lechner's legacy and the desire for a national architecture spawned a new vernacular style in the early 20th century. Rather than simply applying folk motifs as wall ornaments – as Lechner did – architects turned to stronger tectonic expressions of native forms (the Arts and Crafts movement and Lars Sonck's Finnish national architecture were additional sources of inspiration). Case in point is Aladár Árkay's Calvinist church in outer District 7, featuring archaic shapes, rough-textured stone, mythical motifs, and a soaring "folk-style" tower. Location.

#51 - Adria Palace (1912-1918)

This polished downtown building dressed in limestone once belonged to a Trieste-based insurance company, later became the headquarters of the Budapest Police, and today houses a five-star hotel. The symmetrical layout with the projecting side wings and the French balconies bring a sense of classicism to the otherwise spare modern facade, while the gleaming white walls and flat roof evoke the Mediterranean and hence the company's home base. The building, which was designed by Emil Tőry and Móric Pogány, took forever to build because of the ongoing World War I. Location.

#52 - Parisiana (1907-1909)

Designed by Béla Lajta, a pupil of Ödön Lechner, the Parisiana was originally an upscale cabaret venue (today it belongs to a theater company). The expensive gray marble slabs – each with a slightly different shade and level of marbling – juxtaposed with small openings convey something like forbidden luxury. There's a row of winged creatures atop the building holding stained glass letters and bringing to mind the Viennese Secession. Concurrently with this one, Lajta worked on a Jewish mortuary commission, which might explain the Parisiana's "Mesopotamian" inspirations. Location.

#53 - District 8 High School of Commerce (1909-1913)

This high school building, also by Béla Lajta, emerges unexpectedly on a narrow Budapest side street in District 8. Lajta was plugged into the latest architectural developments in Germany and Austria and sometimes this showed in his works. The thick, medieval-style masonry and the vertically repeating stepped pilasters squeezing sharp-cut windows imitate Alfred Messel's Wertheim department store in Berlin (Lajta had worked for Messel). Still, Lajta left his own signature: Hungarian folk art motifs crowd the entry doors and gleaming Zsolnay tiles the inside. Location.

#54 - Béla Lajta's Erzsébetvárosi Bank (1911-1912)

This brick-faced mixed use building by Béla Lajta demonstrates how far some of Ödön Lechner's disciples steered from their master's path. While the delicate terracotta folk art motifs still hark back to Lechner's Art Nouveau, the horizontally grouped windows, the largely unadorned exterior, and the flat roof call modern buildings to mind (decades before they appeared en masse). The facade logically indicates the function of each floor: oversized windows for the commercial levels at the bottom, more privacy for the residential apartments up top. Location.

Between the World Wars (1918-1945)

Thanks to Hungarian students and teachers at Germany's avant-garde Bauhaus school – including well-known figures such as Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy – modern ideas in architecture spread relatively quickly to Hungary. Especially notable is Farkas Molnár, a star student who worked at the architecture practice of Bauhaus Director Walter Gropius.

In 1925, Molnár returned to Hungary to advance the cause of the modern movement as the head of the local International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM). He laid out reforms for public housing and city planning, practicing together with Marcel Breuer and József Fischer for a short period. Molnár also designed more than two dozen buildings in Budapest – pioneering residential homes and small apartment complexes – before being killed during WWII.

Modern architecture had its adversaries. The political establishment and most people favored a more traditional Baroque Revival style, which meant that modern buildings in the 1920s – such as those designed by Molnár – were relegated to small-scale, private commissions. Like elsewhere in Europe, these houses were a status symbol for the educated urban elites that viewed the Baroque Revival as politically and socially outdated.

Naturally, most buildings from this time fell some way along the spectrum, between the rigidly historical and the experimentally modern. By the 1930s, the modern movement became more accepted.

#55 - Cistercian High School of Buda (1927-1929)

The projecting entrance portral and busy window surrounds of this Cistercian secondary school wouldn't feel out of place in the 18th-century Habsburg Monarchy, and yet the building was erected in 1929, providing a good example of the Neo-Baroque architecture that resurfaced in Hungary between the world wars. The church, next to the school and designed also by Gyula Wälder in a similar manner, is from 1938. Location.

#56 - Electrical Distribution Station of Lipótváros (1926-1931)

Designed by Ernő Román and Dénes Györgyi, the electric power distribution station of Lipótváros, near the Hungarian Parliament, is among the most delightful Art Deco buildings in Budapest. Delicate brick buttresses decorate the tight and taut walls, which are lined with steel-framed vertical windows. Carved in limestone, the seal of the city of Budapest appears above the entry door. Corporate offices inhabit the inside currently. Location.

#57 - Napraforgó Street Housing Development (1930-1931)

In 1930, a renowned real estate developer, Fejér & Dános, commissioned a motley crew of 18 top architects to design model homes for middle-class families in the modern style of the day (similar to the Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart). The result is the 22 single-family houses on the leafy Napraforgó Street in Pasarét, a Budapest suburb. The roster of architects included heavyweights such as Lajos Kozma, László Vágó, Gyula Wälder, Farkas Molnár, and József Fischer. Unfortunately, some of the buildings have been neglected or rebuilt since, but the street retained its emphatically modern look. (Pasaréti út provides a view of the other side of the buildings.) Location.

#58 - Dálnoki-Kováts Villa (1932)

The most celebrated house of Farkas Molnár, the Bauhaus-graduate who led the modern movement in interwar Hungary, hides in the Buda hills of District 12. Even today, nearly a hundred years after its construction, the villa feels fresh and boundary-pushing with its stacked geometric elements and simple planar surfaces. Unfortunately, it's privately owned and difficult to access even for a glance (the best view is from Apor Vilmos tér). Location.

#59 - Városmajor Roman Catholic Church (1932-1936)

The eye-catching classical modernism of Mussolini-era Italian architecture rippled out to Hungary, too. But instead of going for the bombastic, the Városmajor Church impresses with less: The arched colonnades, the sleek walls clothed in travertine, the standalone bell tower, and the ambient quiet of the area have a haunting presence. Architects Aladár and Bertalan Árkay commissioned contemporary modern painters and sculptors, including Vilmos Aba-Novák, for the interior decorations. Location.

#60 - Dunapark Apartment (1935-1936)

Parts of the Újlipótváros neighborhood are the result of a sweeping real estate development between 1933 and 1943. Thanks to strict zoning laws, today the highest concentration of modernist apartment complexes is found here. The most spectacular is a Danube-facing luxury building at 38 Pozsonyi út: the limestone-clad facade hides a dramatically exclusive lobby with a spiral staircase featuring marble finishes and custom blue-rubber floors. It's worth waiting for a chance to sneak in for a glance. The historic Dunapark Café is located on its ground floor. Location.

#61 - Walter Rózsi Villa - Architecture Museum (1936)

Local CIAM-member József Fischer, a close friend and colleague of Marcel Breuer, designed this gorgeous modernist villa for the opera diva Rózsi Walter and her husband Géza Radó. The gleaming white, light-filled house elegantly raised on pilotis and featuring a free and flexible floor plan evokes Le Corbusier’s five points. Today, the building is part of the Architecture Museum with excellent temporary exhibitions (be sure to also go to the backyard). Location.

#62 - TÉBE House (1932-1934)

What at first glimpse appears to be a regular modernist building from the 1930s turns out to be more interesting than that. István Medgyaszay (1877-1959), a pupil of Otto Wagner, explored how architecture could combine modern elements with nationalist sentiments, so he applied traditional Transylvanian decorative motifs on the balcony and the slender vertical bands flanking the loggias. This being the heart of Budapest and not a forest village in the Carpathians, he used concrete instead of wood. The outsized cornice projecting from the flat roof is a signature of the Otto Wagner disciples. Location.

#63 - Manfred Weiss Pension Fund Apts. (1937-1938)

This upscale apartment complex on the Buda side is also the work of Béla Hofstätter and Ferenc Domány, the architect duo behind the exclusive Dunapark Apartments on the other side of the Danube (see above). The streamlined shapes, high-quality building materials, and sumptuous interior details – the lobby and the staircase are stunning – show modernist architecture at its best. Location.

#64 - Madách Houses (1937-1938)

A collection of eleven striking brick-faced buildings, Madách Houses, separates Budapest’s old Jewish Quarter from downtown. The classical vocabulary is evident – gentle pilasters, coffered ceiling under the central arch, pediment decorations (acroteria) – but it's abstracted and simplified to sync up with the unadorned modern architecture that started to dominate the 1930s. Also note the subtle geometric patterns on the maroon facade and the arcaded ground floor lined with travertine. The central arch, shown above, was supposed to be the grand entry of a boulevard piercing through the neighborhood but its construction was halted during WWII and never continued. Location.

Communist-Era (1947-1989)

Architecture during the four decades of Communist rule in Hungary (1947-1989) was more varied than people usually think. Modern buildings continued to appear until 1951 when, as in other Communist countries, Socialist Realism became the state-imposed art form. In architecture, Socialist Realism combined classical elements with communist ideology – imagine a Doric-columned portico decorated with joyful laborers.

By the mid-1950s, Socialist Realism ran its course and architects were permitted to return to the sleek modern designs of the West. Since state control of architecture wasn't as strict as that of the fine arts, there exist tastefully modern buildings from this time, especially up to the 1960s.

Overall, however, capital constraints, volume pressures, limited access to construction materials, and an incompetent state bureaucracy meant that many Budapest buildings from the late 1960s and especially the 1970s haven't stood the test of time. This period is also culpable for the complete neglect of the country's pre-war housing stock.

Apart from Hungarian-born Marcel Breuer (about whom I wrote a longer piece), it's Imre Makovecz whose name might ring a bell for architecture fans around the world. Makovecz created a unique brand of organic architecture in the 1960s, when unadorned white boxes were still the global standard. Makovecz fiercely pursued his own aesthetic and intellectual paths, seeking to bridge the built and the natural environments. His buildings are mainly in the Hungarian countryside, but both of his main Budapest works are featured below.

#65 - MÁVAUT Bus Station (1948-1949)

This landmark-protected former bus station in the heart of Budapest is a real treasure of modern architecture. István Nyiri designed two sleek, light-filled buildings dressed in limestone and fieldstone – departures on one end, arrivals on the other – that are connected by what used to be the loading area. Lined with bars and restaurants, the venue has found a new purpose in the 21st century. Location.

#66 - MÉMOSZ HQ (1948-1950)

The building above is a study in how to brighten up the monotony of an oversized facade: using a projecting conference room, soaring vertical columns, and circular holes that puncture the roof. The Communist minister of culture, József Révai, was especially irked when this giant thing, once the headquarters of the construction workers union, appeared in 1950 across from the high-traffic City Park – he considered modern architecture a symbol of the decadent west, wanting none of its tacky forms imported to Hungary (modern architecture was soon banned). Location.

#67 - Pantheon of Labor Movement - Fiumei Road Cemetery (1957-1959)

Socialist Realism often conveyed Communist propaganda through statues using straightforward symbolism: self-assured, united, cheerful workers. The exclusive burial ground within Budapest's Fiumei Road Cemetery was reserved for prominent Communist Party members between 1958 and 1988. The limestone-covered pylons decorated with labor-themed reliefs culminate in three oversized bronze figures and the mausoleum shown above. In a neighboring plot, you'll find the grave of János Kádár (1912-1989), Hungary's long-serving party leader. Location.

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#68 - University of Technology Building "R" (1951-1955)

A good example of Socialist Realism in Budapest’s city center is the “R” building of Univeristy of Technology. Classical elements mix with Communist propaganda: projecting axis; triangular pediment with a Roman thermal window; string courses with meander motifs; bas reliefs of the self-assured proletariats building the utopian state (on the back side). Gyula Rimanóczy was a good architect and he managed to abstract these decorative details just enough to avoid looking kitsch and embarrassing himself. Parts of the vestibule are, in fact, beautiful, and can be visited by anyone. Bonus: delicious toasted sandwiches are served at the cafe upstairs. Flanked by Greek columns, of course. Location.

#69 - Restored Building on the Castle Hill (1957-1959)

Much of the medieval and Baroque housing stock of Budapest's Castle Hill was destroyed during WWII bombings. Architect Zoltán Farkasdy, who led many of the restoration works, was ahead of his time in 1957 when he emphasized that the renovations had to be both contemporary but also respect the historical surrounding (instead of simply putting up a modern box or a replica of the lost historical buildings). Case in point is the house at 32 Úri utca, which is of its time, while highlighting the surviving Gothic details. Location.

#70 - Restored Building on the Castle Hill (1961-1963)

Just around the corner is another remarkable house from the same time (György Jánossy, its designer, was a close friend and contemporary of Farkasdy). Its pitched roof and brick walls wouldn't be out of place in medieval Buda, but the steel frames of the windows and their playful composition, the abstracted vertical recesses decorating the gable (instead of wooden beams) and the concrete base convey that this building is rooted in the present day while being respectful of its surrounding. Location.

#71 - Elisabeth Bridge (1961-1964)

Like all of Budapest's bridges, the Elisabeth Bridge (1896-1903), named after Hungary's favorite Queen Sisi, was blown up by the German military in 1944 to slow the advancing Soviet army. The new bridge, designed by Pál Sávoly, was a masterpiece both structurally – it was the first cable-stayed bridge in Hungary – and visually. The taut, gracefully skeletal white structure quickly became a Budapest landmark. Location.

#72 - Chemolimpex Office Building (1960-1963)

Local architects still celebrate this post-war office building as a symbol that Budapest remained up-to-date with the Western World even behind the iron curtain. New York’s Lever House and Mies van der Rohe’s curtain-walled towers might have been inspirations for Zoltán Gulyás, one of the most talented architects of his generation. Today, the building serves as the headquarters for OTP, the biggest commercial bank in Hungary. Location.

#73 - Körszálló Hotel Budapest (1964-1967)

A number of large-scale late-modern buildings emerged in the 1960s after the state lifted its censorship of architecture. The most attention-grabbing example is the Körszálló by György Szrogh, a 64-meter (210 ft) tall circular hotel towering over the Buda hills. Even if you aren't a guest, you can try asking the receptionists to let you up to the top floor to enjoy the sweeping open vistas. Location.

#74 - Electrical Distribution Station of Dob Street (1965)

Red bricks wrap around the reinforced concrete skeleton of this strangely eye-catching electrical substation designed by Ernő Léstyán and located in the heart of Budapest's District 7. Horizontal windows and a vertical wooden beam soften the monotony of the immense walls. A friend recently discouraged me from trying to explain the building. "You look at it and you either love it or you don't." Location.

#75 - Late-modern Interior of the Buda Castle (1960s and 1970s)

After WWII bombings damaged the Buda Castle, the ensuing Communist regime knocked down precious and salvageable Baroque and neo-Baroque elements out of a misguided sense of anti-royalism. Later they turned the castle into a cultural complex, housing the National Gallery, the Széchenyi Library, and the Budapest History Museum.

While the castle’s exterior skeleton remained, the inside came to reflect the late-modern design trends of the day. First-time visitors are often surprised to find decor-free halls fitted with shiny red-limestone surfaces and diamond-shaped lighting fixtures. I regret the historical spaces that were lost, but I welcome the concept of being current and appreciate this 1970s socialist modern interior. As one of the few large-scale examples of its kind, I hope it won't become a victim to reconstructions currently taking place on the Castle Hill. Location.

#76 - Domus Furniture Store (1973-1974)

The 1970s were a low point for architecture in Budapest: money was short, access to high-quality building materials and Western influences hindered. It wasn't for the lack of trying. A talented architect duo – Antal Lázár and Péter Reimholz – put up this furniture department store, shaped like a reverse ziggurat and showing inspirations of Marcel Breuer's Whitney Museum (1966). Given the cheap cladding, however, the Domus hasn't aged well (here's a photo from 1975). Location.

#77 - Funeral Chapel at Farkasréti Cemetery (1975)

The idiosyncratic funeral chapel of the Farkasréti Cemetery is one of the two main Budapest works of visionary architect Imre Makovecz. Characteristically, the design draws inspiration from nature: Repeating planks of beech wood form the shape of a human rib cage, the center of which holds the coffin, symbolically placed where the human heart is. Location.

#78 - All Saints Roman Catholic Church (1975-1977)

In 1975, this was the first Budapest church that the Communist regime permitted to be built (the previous one was in 1948). But since the state provided no money, the congregation had to rely on social workers for labor and the absolute cheapest materials. Architect István Szabó, also working for free, designed all of the interior details and the furnishings himself. And yet the powerfully expressive shapes and the immense craftsmanship give the building an enduring appeal and evoke feelings of the sublime. Location.

#79 - Prefab Residential High-Rises (1960-70s)

In the 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of thousands of residential apartments made of precast concrete slabs sprung up in Budapest to address the city's critical housing shortage. These high-rise blocks came with district heating and hot running water, amenities previously unavailable to many of the residents. But there was a price to pay: entire neighborhoods had to be wiped out to make space for these gray, lifeless, uniform boxes, which today account for almost thirty percent of Budapest's apartment stock. Location.

#80 - Sculptural Walls on Gellért Hill (1975-1981)

Philosophers' Garden is a cherished hideaway on Gellért Hill with some of the best views of Budapest. Those striking sculptural walls carved into the hillside hide the largest water storage facility in Budapest (architect: György Vadász). These concrete slabs of ambiguous geometric shapes have become as much part of Gellért Hill as the better-known statues on the hilltop. Location.

Postmodernism (1980s to the early aughts)

Postmodernism in architecture is a fluid concept but it generally refers to buildings that exhibit more local context, wall ornaments, and historical references – sometimes exaggerated – than the plain modern boxes that preceeded them. Deconstructivism was an intellectual strand of postmodernism that intentionally avoided harmony, creating cramped, uncomfortable spaces. While the majority of Budapest's postmodern buildings are absent the bombastic shapes and radical eclecticism that tend to grab people's attention, the selections below feature the most characteristic examples of this style.

#81 - French Institute of Budapest (1988-1992)

A hallowed ground for Budapest Francophiles, the French Institute was designed by the French architect Georges Maurios during the twilight years of the Communist period. The building was the first example of deconstructivist architecture in Budapest. That brainy style inspired by the post-structuralist philosophy of Jacques Derrida, characterized by intentionally distorted and conflicting spaces and wall treatments. Think of Peter Eisenman or Frank Gehry’s early works. Deconstructivist buildings can be awkward and self-serving but the French Institute feels sufficiently weird without being dysfunctional.

A library occupies the top three floors of the building with striking Danube River views of (to your left: the Hungarian Parliament; to your right: the Chain Bridge). The cafe on the ground floor amounts to a mini trip to France – French magazines, French TV, French wines, and French people fill the space. The goat cheese salad is really delicious. The library is open Tuesday to Friday, 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Location.

#82 - Liget Szálló (1990)

From overblown cornices to awkward spatial layouts and a strange arrangement of classical forms, the postmodern repertoire prominently features on József Finta's 140-room Liget Szálló (today: Ibis Budapest Heroes' Square). Just observe the top floor of the facade and the colossal "Doric" columns at the corners. The delicate bronze siren floating above the cantilevered ground-floor arcade dials up the idiosyncrasy. The playful building is located across the busy street from the Museum of Fine Arts. Location.

#83 - "Makovecz House" (1993)

Imre Makovecz, the renowned architect, created this four-story extension atop a historical building hidden in Budapest's District 8. Take a deep breath: Vertically repeating blank pediments are supported by undersized colonettes and flanked by elongated yurt-like towers whose windows are coarsely split by light-blue columns. It's impossible not to stop and try to make sense of it all. Tribal architecture meets Neoclassicism? As imagined at the end of the 20th century. Location.

#84 - Church of Hungarian Saints (1994-1996)

This collection of church buildings was supposed to be the Vatican’s pavilion for the 1996 World's Fair in Budapest but the event was canceled (today it's a functioning Roman Catholic parish church). Architect Ferenc Török skillfully juxtaposed and deconstructed various forms of Christian architecture: the underground chamber of funeral urns relates the Roman catacombs, the hemispherical dome the Byzantine places or worship, while the thick stone walls evoke the fortified churches of medieval Europe. Location.

#85 - Hungarian Police Headquarters (1995-1997)

József Finta (1935-2024) was a famously prolific and protean architect in Budapest. One of his main works is the Hungarian Police Headquarters, colloquially known as the “Cops' Palace,” a 58,000 sqm giant that might evoke a host of associations, for example a sphynx that fixes its vigilant gaze toward the city center. The building appears to consist of disparate elements as a hat tip to the deconstructivist style that was fashionable among brainy architects in the 1990s. Location.

#86 - Lehet Market (2000-2002)

Love it or hate it, you'll likely get a kick out of this intentionally kitsch Budapest market hall designed by László Rajk. The building is shaped like a boat as a reference to the farmers who would glide down the Danube from northern Hungary to sell their produce in the capital. The radically overblown elements and loud colors evoke the hustle and bustle of the busy marketplace inside. If you decide to visit, go on a Saturday morning when the place is most lively. Location.

#87 - Hungarian National Theater (2000-2002)

Local architects have little love for Hungary's national theater, calling the building everything from kitsch apocalypse to a total failure. While it's true that the building has shortcomings both inside (poor acoustics, confined spaces) and out (a cluttered decorative program that doesn't come together visually), it's nonetheless among the few large-scale postmodern commissions in Budapest and hence worth a glance. In fact, a picturesque Danube promenade leads to it from downtown. Location.

#88 - Orczy Fórum (1994-2006)

Orczy Fórum is a massive commercial and residential complex within Budapest's outer District 8, complete with hundreds of apartments, vast office spaces, and even a private chapel. The outsized and abstracted classical forms bring to mind the architecture of Louis Kahn and Aldo Rossi and stand out from this neglected, low-income neighborhood. Orczy Fórum is the brainchild György Kévés (1935-2024), one of Hungary's most talented and versatile architects. Location.

#89 - Hattyúház (1998)

Hungary’s influential organic architecture movement helmed by Imre Makovecz produced most of its buildings outside of Budapest. A rare exception is Hattyúház at the foot of the Castle Hill, designed by Ervin Nagy, Makovecz’s pupil and later office partner. The commercial building's striking elements – primordial shapes made from from stone and wood – certainly call attention to themselves and enliven the neighborhood. But they also point to the limitation of this kind of architecture within a busy urban setting. Location.

#90 - Hapimag House (1999-2000)

Four decades after the initial reconstructions of the war-ravaged Castle Hill, a leading architect of the next generation, Péter Reimholz (1942-2009), got a chance to demonstrate his approach to restoring a ruin. While delineating old from new, the brick-faced building wonderfully fuses the various layers of history into a united whole and also references its own time with deconstructivist elements – see that idiosyncratic corner in the top right – and the use of exposed polished concrete, for example. Location. 

Contemporary

Funded in large part by the European Union, state-run mega projects have profoundly shaped Budapest’s skyline in the past twenty years, with the House of Music and the Museum of Ethnography being the two most recent examples. Enormous resources are also channeled to the re-erection of historical buildings that were lost to WWII and the modernization of sport stadiums.

#91 - Müpa Budapest (2002-2005)

Müpa is a massive cultural complex in southern Budapest along the Danube's bank. The neo-modern limestone exterior supported by slender pilotis encloses floor-to-ceiling windows that provide panoramic Budapest cityscapes. Inside, the transition of materials is gracious: from wood to metal to glass to stone. Designed by Gábor Zoboki, Müpa is home to the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art and to the National Concert Hall, known for its high-quality acoustics. Location.

#92 - CET / Bálna (2006-2011)

The CET, which is also known as Bálna, is a cultural and commercial center consisting of two restored 19th-century warehouses and a whale-shaped high-tech structure inserted in between (CET stands for Central European Time, and it also means whale in Hungarian). The building, lined with riverfront bars, is one of the few with direct access to the Danube. Despite the eye-catching architecture, the place is struggling to find long-term tenants. Location.

#93 - M4 Subway Stations (2004-2014)

Each platform of Budapest's metro line #4 pays respect to its above-ground surrounding or to the station's moniker. Especially spectacular are those at Fővám tér, with massive elemental concrete beams, and the mosaic-filled Szent Gellért tér station (to evoke the inside of the nearby thermal baths). They together won the prestigious Architizer A+ Award in 2014. Location.

#94 - Central European University Building (2014-2016)

The playful stone and glass facade of the prestigious Central European University, designed by the Irish O'Donnell + Tuomey, beautifully blends into the 1820s Neoclassical street view while asserting its own time and presence. The inside, which is open for all to see, features expensive-but-understated details, unexpected color combinations, and some of the original walls. Despite months of protests in 2017, the government chased the university out of Hungary, which has since moved its operations to Vienna. The building's future is uncertain. Location.

#95 - Millenáris & Széllkapu Park (2000-2020)

One of the most popular brownfield redevelopments in Budapest, Millenáris Park has replaced the old factory buildings of Ganz, a 19th-century industrial beast that produced high-voltage electrical transformers here. Today, Millenáris comprises parks, event venues, cafes, and exhibition spaces. The attention-grabbing building of the National Dance Theater, by Gábor Zoboki's practice, is also here (wooden slats protrude from the monolithic glass facade and contain a high-tech performance hall). Location.

#96 - Graphisoft Park (1998-present)

A success story: in 1998, a local software engineering firm, Graphisoft, moved its headquarters to Óbuda and set out to create a high-tech hub, a Silicon Valley of Budapest if you will. Soon came Microsoft, SAP, and many others. Today, five thousand people work at Graphisoft Park across 120 companies in addition to private universities that teach computer engineering. The proximity of the Danube together with lots of green space and biodiversity make this place more exciting than your average corporate campus. I hope the nearby facilities of the abandoned 19th-century coal gas factory will soon find a new purpose. Location.

#97 - Royal Guard House (1903; 2019)

A historical building within the contemporary section of this list? Well, until a couple of years ago nothing stood on this patch of land because the Royal Guard House was damaged during WWII and later razed to the ground. As part of the Hauszmann Program, the government has been reviving the lost buildings of the Castle Hill. It's an admirable mission, but I wish that instead of erecting perfect copies, they would give contemporary architecture also a chance to leave a mark. Same story with the Royal Riding Hall behind it. Location.

#98 - House of Music (2019-2021)

Renowned Japanese architect, Sou Fujimoto, designed Budapest's spectacular House of Music, a multi-purpose venue with concert halls and a permanent exhibition about the history of music. The biomorphic roof immediately draws attention: Its shape, its color, its small openings, which are meant to provide space for trees to grow (without looking kitsch and without trying to dominate the surrounding park – Fujimoto harbors refined aesthetic sensibilities).

This biomorphic roof rests on improbably thin floor-to-ceiling glass panels, imparting a weightless appearance. The wraparound glass also means that the park and the nearby Vajdahunyad Castle provide a scenic backdrop to concerts. Notwithstanding these merits, the building's location inside Budapest's City Park has sparked debate about the loss of precious green space. Location.

#99 - Museum of Ethnography (2017-2022)

The recently completed Museum of Ethnography by Marcel Ferencz is a true spectacle: two enormous roof gardens spring forth from the ground, swooping up to tower over Budapest's City Park. A metal cladding decorated with folk motifs stretches around the building. A memorial for the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 stands in between, in place of the square where state-mandated parades were held during the Communist period. Inside, the museum’s new permanent exhibition is completely astonishing, as is the oversized Budapest model in the vestibule that’s fun to make sense of. Location.

#100 - MOL Campus (2018-2022)

Budapest has recently joined the list of cities with a Norman Foster high rise to their names. As with many Norman Foster buildings, this one is very pleasant to look at while feeling like an off-the-shelf commission (made for the Hungarian oil and gas company, MOL). Some people worried that this office tower, which is now the tallest building in Hungary, would disrupt Budapest's peerless cityscape but it’s far enough from the center to remain on the back-burner. There's a panoramic restaurant on the top floor, Virtu, if you'd like to enjoy the views, as well as an observation deck. Location.