Bartók Béla Boulevard

Bartók Béla Boulervard – Cultural Themed Main Street of Budapest

This boulevard is famous for its cafes, bustling academic, artistic, literary life, where Ödön Lechner, Tivadar Kosztka Csontváry, Zsigmond Móricz, Dezső Kosztolányi or Frigyes Karinthy created their work. Today it’s the cultural themed main street of Budapest due to its two artistic festival Eleven Spring and Eleven Fall where the participants welcome the visitors with design fair, film screening, book launching, concerts and delicious gastronomy from Gellért Square through Gárdonyi Square till the Lake Feneketlen. With the cooperation of the galleries, cafes, shops, restaurants, they created a bohem intellectual quater. The saloon culture revived in Újbuda and now Bartók Béla Boulevard is the centre of art and high quality amusement!

Our Mission

The creation of a cultural and artistic center. We want to reach a higher level of culture and art enthusiasts to enter people's everyday lives.

Gallery

Sights

Lake Feneketlen and its park with the Cistercian St Imre Church in the background.

The Art Nouveau monument of the Gellért Hotel and Spa.

The art nouveau-eclectic-oriental building of the Hadik House on Gárdonyi Square with the legendary Hadik Café.

The János Csonka Memorial Museum at 31 Bartók Béla út - this house was once the workshop and machine factory of the famous mechanical engineer, who is credited with the launch of Hungarian car production, the first Hungarian motor vehicle, a motorised letter-collecting tricycle for the Post Office, and co-inventor of the carburettor.

The six-storey tenement building of Simplon House with its panoramic roof terrace at 62-64 Bartók Béla út, which once housed the Bartók Cinema, the most modern cinema of its time.

Interesting facts about the street

The attic of the Hadik Café building was the last studio of Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka

The cafés of the boulevard were the haunts of the giants of Hungarian literature in the first half of the 1900s, with Kosztolányi, Karinthy and Móricz creating an exciting, vibrant social life and intellectual environment

In Turkish times, the baths on the site of the Gellért Baths were known as Acsik Ilija, or open-roof baths, and in other traditions as Aga, or the Baths of the Virgin.

Dezső Kosztolányi and the then infant Géza Ottlik lived at 15 Bartók Béla Street.

In the early 1900s, the Nap Cinema, a favourite haunt of students, was located on the site of the present-day B32 Gallery.