Unesco World Heritage Sites In Budapest

In 2002 UNESCO pronounced that alongside the Buda Castle Quarter and the Banks of the Danube the Andrássy road and its historic surroundings will also be a World Heritage Site.

The Buda Castle Quarter is the most important monument group of the country; it forms a close unit that includes the rows of houses on the banks of the Danube, the bridges, the Houses of Parliament, the Basilica, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Gresham Palace and so on.

Budapest, which is divided into a hilly and a plain side by the Danube, offers a unique panoramic view and the capital city has one of the most beautiful locations in the world.

Discovering this, in 1987 the World Heritage Board of the UNESCO declared the area in the Buda side between the Chain Bridge (Clark Ádám Square) and the Budapest University of Technology and Economics standing on the banks of the Danube. This area includes the Gellért Bath, the Gellért hill with the Statue of Freedom and the Citadel, as well as the buildings of the Buda Castle Quarter.

On the Pest-side The Houses of Parliament, the Roosevelt Square in front of the Chain Bridge, and the Vígadó are also protected. The four bridges, Margit Bridge, Chain Bridge, Erzsébet Bridge and Freedom Bridge found on this section of the Danube are also the part of the World Heritage Site. One of the reasons of the Board for choosing this location was that the Budapest Banks of the Danube show the different periods of the history of the Hungarian capital, as well as being an exceptionally beautiful urban landscape.

Most of the public and private buildings of the Buda Castle Quarter are listed monuments. In the centre of the Buda Castle Quarter is the Church of Our Lady, most commonly known as the Matthias-Church. The neo-roman Fisherman’s Bastion was built in 1903 on the walls of the middle-age fort; with the Matthias-Church behind it the two buildings together are one of the symbols of the capital.

The Buda Castle is one of the most well-known cultural centres of the country: its buildings give home to the Budapest History Museum, which includes some parts of the medieval fort, the National Széchenyi Library, the Hungarian National Gallery and the Ludwig Museum.

The first stone-built theatre of the country, the Castle Theatre can also be found here.

On the Pest side of the Danube, opposite the Fisherman’s Bastion is the imposing neo-gothic building of the Parliament, which was dreamt up by Imre Steindl. It practically rises out of the Danube; the building is the largest Parliament house in Europe. Another special value of the capital is the Chain Bridge – the first stone bridge of the Danube – and the Gresham Palace found right near it.

The Gesham Palace is a masterpiece of the secession in Hungary. The nearby hall of Hungarian Academy of Sciences is a beautiful neo-renaissance building. Heading southwards we can see another exceptional view: the building of the Pesti Vígadó is the symbol of Hungarian romantic architecture.

The “first” World Heritage Site detailed above was extended by the Board during their 2002 conference held in Budapest; at his time the Andrássy Road, the Heroes’ Square, the Millennium Monument, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Műcsarnok and the Millennium Underground – the oldest one on the continent - were added to the World Heritage Site list.

The Andrássy road and its historic surrounding area, where building work started in 1872 and finished in 11885, was given a place on the list of World Heritage Sites in 2002. The avenue is the eclectic architectural climax of the era which saw Budapest became a world city, the gallery of architectural styles of the second half of the 19th century.

It is dominated by the neo-renaissance style, but there are also neo-baroque, classicist, secessionist and romantic buildings too. Emphasized by its triple-proportion, Andrássy Road connect the city centre with the green of the Városliget park: it starts as a wide city-centre main road with mansion houses, then it gradually expands and becomes greener to end up in an avenue surrounded by villas that runs into the Heroes’ Square. Another attraction of the Andrássy Road is the Millennium Underground, which is the oldest metro on the continent and second oldest one in the world."

Source: Budapest Tourism Office