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The land and houses of the Buda suburbs of Pécs – foreword

In Pécs, the population - starting after the liberation - doubled in the last 40 years. This required an accelerated investment and development, and housing in addition to justified maintaining of the existing, initially neglected buildings and equipment inventory - together with other factors. The newly formed districts - Meszes, Uránváros, Lvov-Kertváros, Mecsek-Nyugat – drew the attention of planners and architects to develop the existing values, the historical past, and pre-history. Only the increasing renewal and reconstruction activities of the past decade have exposed the legitimate demands and the need to get to know behind the walls and the fences of the venerable buildings, to open up the old face of the city, to wipe the dust from the century-old memories of the houses in the old streets and properties and to raise the common good – to provide the information found to the scheduler, the historian, the city builder and local politician. In 1978 the Janus Pannonius Museum published the data collection of houses and properties of the inner city of Pécs by József Madas. The experience of the elapsed few years since then has confirmed that this is essential for the historian entrusted with the restoration and the rescue work as well as the activities of professionals dealing with urban planning since it pursues the changes and describes the chronology of the city. But also anyone interested in the development and change in the city centre and information seekers can scroll through the book with great pleasure. The very significant, and among local works, unique database includes only the center of Pécs. However, continuation and expansion of the development of the past and in some cases of the reconstruction of the old city parts into new areas is a vital necessity.

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The suburb of Buda - that is, the area delineated by the Tettye, the city walls, the Hunyadi út, 48‑as tér [square], the embankment of the Üszöger railway and the Zsolnay factory - is in a sense an important area, whose analysis should be undertaken. The industrial layer which settled and formed here - in particular in the fields of energy and water consumption - led to a rapid development and growth in this area. Here, the workshops and houses of the fullers, blanket manufacturers, drapers, tanners, fur tanners, cordovan tanners, and the sandal-makers emerged. This large-scale development, which shaped the industrial look of the city east of the inner-city, began in the second half of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. The land register of 1856 speaks of streets, the start of their development and formation, which finished only later, after several decades. The eastern expansion of the town coincided with the settlement and population growth. The cityscape after the retreat of the Turks is sad. The low population and the lack of money slowed the growth of the city and only the displacement from the inner city provided for recovery in this situation. The maps accompanying the book provide information about the eastern expansion of the city, the former structure of the Buda suburb, the streets and properties, and the fate of the buildings. The latest map – from 1966 – shows that only a part is similar to the current state. The Opfer / Lánc u., Harangöntő u., the east side of the Irányi D. etc. first the razing, then the rebuilding of the earlier years, casualties of the gaps of the deferred renewal can in posterity be reconstructed only with the help of these maps. The industrial monuments of the suburb of Buda were more or less victims of development, and only in the documents of archives between dusty sheets of paper do they treasure their eloquent mysteries of past times. The work now issued by József Madas, together with the earlier data collection - The Land and Houses of the Pécs City-Centre - form an organic unit, a coherent whole. The book presents the land and houses of the suburb of Buda, and shows the fate of each individual building, its origin and development through successive development stages. It presents the direction and the pace of the expansion of the city and the suburbs. With growth new streets have arisen, and the process of their creation can also be followed. At the same time, the book shows the history of the street names and changes from the expulsion of the Turks to this day. The author presents an aid about the city preservation and the fruitful knowledge of the past for the historian, the researcher, the architect and builder as well as the city planner and operational manager.

Dr. Zoltán Molnár