Hungarian Castles and Mansions

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Today in Hungary there are more than 2000 castles and mansions, about 700 of them are under protection. The importance of castle building, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, is very high. 18th century, with its political peace, constructiveness belonged to the most important periods of the history of our cultural development. These castles form special Hungarian types and groups according to age and regions. In spite of foreign examples and sometimes the works of foreign masters they are sealed with Hungarian style, which is determined by the particularity of the architectural elements connected to the Hungarian way of living, thinking and style. In the middle ages, in the years of the fights for the survival of the country, the 150-year Turkish rule and constant wars very few luxurious and comfortable castles were built, and most of the existing ones were destroyed. In the place of the destroyed, ruined castles and forts, in the ravaged estates re-building started at the end of the 18th century. Besides the older Esterházy wealth, the riches of the Festetiches, Battyanyis, Pállfys, Károlyis, Erdődys and Rudnyánszkys were developed then. They used their richness mainly for building. Leaving the out-of-date forts built on top of the hills, they chose the shelving surroundings of their estates as locales of their splendid castles. In the beginning of the Building was even more developing during the reign of Mary Theresa.

Our open-handed nobles, who loved arts and sciences and lived within fine social norms, had significant influence on the building of the castles. So there are a lot of similar features in these buildings, which can be considered as Hungarian characteristics. The 19th country brings a new way of thinking. Living the social and political life according to the English sample can be felt in the castles of out nobles, too, one form of which is the strong building activity. The picture of our castles would not be complete without mentioning the gardens arounds them. SinceLouis XIV. gardens were even more important than the buildings themselves. Our nobles made their gardens planned after the parks of the French castles, the characteristics of which were orderliness, well arranged but great variety at the same time. The baroque garden strove for order and union. Because of our more narrow possibilities, our baroque parks are much more modcet than the foreign ones, and as the art of garden-building is the most fleeting art, today we can hardly find anything of the old splendour of these parks. Above all, the taste of the 19th country changed everything, the natural beauty of the trees and bushes got back its own rights. The botanist interest came into prominence, it was a kind of fashion collecting special and rare plants. After the monopoly of the baroque, the gardens reflect the idea of “back to nature”, which warmly sorround our Greek-style pure castles. After the second World War the castles and their beautiful gardens became mainly state or co-operative property, most of them functions today as museum, house of culture, school, sanatorium or other public building.

[edit] Gallery

Tiszadob - Andrássy Mansion	Sárospatak - Rákóczi Castle	Szabadkígyós - Wenckheim Mansion	Gyula
Visegrád (14.century)	Nagycenk- Széchenyi Mansion	Gödöllő - The Royal Place	Nyírbátor (15.century)
Tura	Fót - Károlyi Mansion	Kalocsa Archbishop's Palace	Körmend - Batthyány Castle
martonvásár - Brunszvik Mansion	Csalapuszta - Kégl Mansion	Nádasdladány - Nádasdy Mansion	Hőgyész - Apponyi Mansion
Nagymágocs - Károlyi Mansion	Edelény - L'huiler Coburg Mansion	Nagytétény - Száraz-Rudnyánszky Mansion	Parádsavár - Károlyi Castle
Noszvaj - De La Motte Mansion	Sárvár - Nádasdy Castle	Seregélyes - Zichy-Hadik Mansion	Szirak - Teleki-Degenfeld Mansion
Vaja - Vay Castle	Zsira - Rimanóczy-Pejachevich Castle	Budapest - Buda Palace	Székesfehérvár