A love letter the size of a building
Built as a gift to his wife, and filled with her image.
No machine-readable author provided. Harp assumed (based on copyright claims). — CC BY-SA 2.5 · Oliv0, Élisabeth Clary — CC BY-SA 3.0 · FOTO:Fortepan — ID 21434: Adományozó/Donor: Lechner Nonprofit Kft. Dokumentációs Központ. — CC BY-SA 3.0 · karel291 — CC BY 3.0
A strange castle in the town of Székesfehérvár, built by the Hungarian architect and sculptor Jenő Bory with his own hands over roughly forty years, from 1923 until his death. That is the heart of it: this is not a historic castle but one man's personal artwork. Bory built it himself with a few labourers, in reinforced concrete, mixing styles freely — Romanesque towers, Gothic arches, classical columns and Hungarian elements — without regard to any single scheme. The reason behind it is more striking still: he built it as a gift to his wife, the painter Ilona Komaromi-Kacz, and filled it with statues and paintings of her and of people around them. The castle is effectively a love letter the size of a building, forty years in the making. The result is a building that resembles nothing else: courtyards, hundreds of columns, statues, winding paths and terraces, and among the strangest things to visit in Hungary. Practical points: Székesfehérvár is about seventy kilometres south-west of Budapest and on the road to Balaton, so it is a logical stop on a trip between the two. It is easily reached by train. Entry is ticketed and hours are seasonal.
Built as a gift to his wife, and filled with her image.
Romanesque towers, Gothic arches and classical columns with no single scheme.
Built in reinforced concrete — a modern material in an old costume.
Székesfehérvár, between Budapest and Lake Balaton
Not in any historical sense. It was built in the twentieth century as a private artwork and was never a fortification or a noble seat. Anyone arriving expecting a medieval castle will be surprised — but the surprise is the pleasure here. Go expecting an enormous personal artwork.
Yes, and that is the best use of it. Székesfehérvár lies roughly on the road between Budapest and Balaton, so you can stop on the way out or back. The town itself has a handsome historic centre and was Hungary's old royal capital, so it deserves an extra hour.
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