The Reconstruction and Extension of St. Andrew’s Castle, Bölcske

Architect: Sándor Dévényi
Text: Miklós Sulyok
Photos: Tibor Zsitva

The choice of the estate, the enterprise itself, the way of taking the castle and its surroundings into possession is actually an act of keeping and preserving a piece of Hungary. Although the castle is not a first-class piece of architecture, it is still a fine-quality relic of 19th-century Historicizing provincial architecture. The renovation project preserved whatever was preservable of it, but did not force to have the original restored and reconstructed. Entering the building through the main entrance first we step into a high stair space with a gallery designed as a foyer, where by unfolding the former ceiling upstairs an elegant and well-proportioned space was created well worthy of a provincial castle. A three-flight staircase leads us upstairs from here. The attic was converted into a multi-functional hall which at the same time turns the existing timber roofing into a spectacular spatial component. Outside the single-storey wing of the building there is the champagne-cellar which is going to be used for champagne bottling according to plans, forming an integral part of the castle-hotel’s ground-floor programmes offered for tourists. The floor paving and the furniture items all reflect the owner’s taste who did not intend to have an integral image here. Quite the contrary, he used the intensification of post-Modernist for his own means and thus turned it into a merit. The wide variety of antique, modernist and nostalgic retrospective furniture accessories representing a multitude of periods, characters and styles that fill both the castle building and

Architect: Sándor Dévényi – Dévényi és Tsa. Építész Kft.
Fellow architect: László Pap – IBL Kft.
Structure: Géza Szován – MM Mérnöki Iroda Kft.
HVAC: László Skrobák – Dévényi és Tsa. Ép. Kft.
Electrical engineering: Gyula Kalász
Executive architects: László Gyenis, Tamás Laurencsik, Masszi Építész Iroda Kft.
Client: Emberi Oldal Kft.,Szekszárd
Main contractor: Unikorn-Épker Kft., Bölcske