This beautiful apartment house facing the Danube is located on Belgrád rakpart. The inhabitants have placed tables and chairs in its spacious staircase, and if I were to live here, I would definitely drink my morning coffee in this charming space! This house was designed by two architects, Ambrus Orth and Emil Somló; it was built in 1910-1911 for Sándor Bálint and his wife Karolin Holländer. Interestingly, there is a stone plaque fixed on the wall with the names of the architects and the first owners of the house. I spoke to one of the inhabitants who told me that they found this plaque in the basement of the house a few years ago, and after cleaning it, they decided to fix it on the wall.

But this house has other amazing little details. At the entrance, visitors are greeted by a fountain with lion. Unfortunately, the water is not flowing anymore, but it still looks beautiful. I also noticed on the staircase’s wall outlets of a central vacuum system manufactured by Hammelrath, a company based in Köln, Germany (D.R.P. stands for Deutsche Reichspatent). A central vacuum cleaner is a system consisting of a motor that sucks dust into a canister located in the basement. Outlets were located on each floor, and the user had only to connect a tube to the outlet to use it. Some of you might remember that I posted a photo of an outlet also manufactured by Hammelrath that I found inside Thököly út 61.

Finally, I spotted a small enamel plate with the inscription “Dr. Koppenstein Ernő – Egyetemi M. Tanár” (University Professor). I found out (well, it was not a challenge, he has a Wikipedia page!) that he was a renowned radiologist who started his career in 1932. From 1938 to 1940, he lived in Beregszász (nowadays Beregovo in Ukraine), where he developed a modern X-ray institute. In 1940, he had to leave his job because of his Jewish origins, but fortunately, he survived the Holocaust. He started teaching at the university in 1947, and this little plaque is from the late 1940s or 1950s. Dr. Ernő Koppenstein passed away in 1971, and his grave can be found at the Kozma Street Jewish Cemetery.