The Abandoned Bank - Urbex Object Found By Mistake
That was our second trip to Budapest. The first time, except for a casual tourists attraction we visited two urbex objects – Kelenföld Power Plant and Red Star Train Graveyard. Next, we return to this amazing European city, to visit Adria Palace – the most beautiful abandoned chateau. After visiting Adria, strolling down the streets, we found another abandoned building. The object was unknown to us and we knew nothing about it. That was a kind of palace or maybe the tenement house – hard to say. Similarly to Adria, it was palace looking like a tenement house or rather a tenement house looking like a palace. Maybe it’s a charm of the Hungarian architecture? It was so interesting. We wouldn’t be ourselves if we didn’t enter this building.
Urbex In Abandoned Bank - What Did We See In The Abandoned Building?
As we mentioned before, the object was totally unknown to us. We started looking around very carefully. On the covered from the outside windows, there was a logo “Postabank”. The name suggested that is an abandoned bank, but the building designation was not as important as the answer to our question – where is the entrance? Like on each urbex trip, we looked for a hole in the wall or the window, but that was the mistake. The entrance was unusual for an urbex object. We got there… by the gate open. Inside the building looked like a typical tenement house converted into an office building. The outstanding part of this building was a basement with a bunker. Budapest has Rakosi’s bunker and we haven’t heard about other bunkers until we visited Postabank. It was getting more and more interesting, so we decided to check the story of this abandoned place.
Before The Bank There Was A Restaurant - Postabank History
We read the Postbank history and we learned that at the beginning there was a restaurant called Blumenstöckl. The restaurant attracted the most eminent Hungarians like Ferenc Liszt, Dezső Szilágyi, Kálmán Tisza, or Kálmán Mikszáth. . In 1871 the restaurant was bought and run by János Gundel and he owned it until 1879. This place was bustling with life, we could say it was Hungarian version of Lejb Osnoz Tenement House. Writers, scientists, politicians and artists gathered right here. The most important Hungarian politicians ate their brunches there and made a lot of important decisions in Blumenstöckl. Next, Janos opened his own restaurant – Ferenc Wampetics, and the Blumenstöckl was sold to Károly Posch.
Hungarians Know How To Party - What Happened In The Old Restaurant?
The new owner probably didn’t have an idea how to develop the business. He is only known for the selling rumours about the restaurant at the time of the previous owner. But we have to admit, they are quite good stories. For the special attention, deserves the story about Louis Blériot’s party. After his famous flight over the English Channel, he decided to celebrate it in Pest. Gundel prepared for him a big, sugar replica of his plane. That would have been the main attraction of this event, but unfortunately touching the plane was forbidden. No, they didn’t keep it. Louis Blériot took the plane to his home in Paris.
Postabank - The Last Use Of The Abandoned Palace
The palace with the restaurant was bought by Magyar Iparbank Rt., but the Blumenstöckl was conducted there until the ’30s. Like most of the buildings in Europe, the palace was destroyed during WWII. It was renovated in 1948 and regained its classicist form, but many of the frescoes could not be recreated. The palace received its new life as a Postabank and it worked until 2002. The most memorable moment in bank history was a giant queue in the ’90s. During a crisis, people were afraid of inflation and they wanted to deposit their valuables in the bank as quickly as possible. Even though the bank survived the next 20 years. In 2005 young people opened their restaurant, but it was not as distinguished as Blumenstöckl, and it was closed quickly.
What Did We Capture In Postabank? - Abandoned Bank Photography
Maybe this place was not as spectacular as Adria, but we loved this place. Broken fountain and bunker were such nice objects to photograph. Yellow walls and the yard typical for Hungarian tenements house created a mood of this abandoned building. We could talk about this urbex object more and more, but the photos speak for themselves. So enjoy them and mark Postabank on your urbex map!
