PHOTOS: Budapest’s iconic Chain Bridge ready soon, lions to return

Hungary and Budapest’s iconic Chain Bridge has been under revamp since March 2021. According to the plans, it will be ready by spring 2023, but the road will be given back to the public at the end of this year. Here are some photos of the crucial milestones the revamp project reached recently.

Budapest’s “new” Chain Bridge

The renewal of the Chain Bridge built by Count István Széchenyi, the “greatest Hungarian”, is being completed following the schedule. In the last few weeks, the workers put the Széchenyi-Lánczhíd inscription on the Pest side pedestals where the bridge’s “guarding” lion statues sit. Interestingly, the statue pedestals were demolished by the retreating German forces during the siege of Budapest in January 1945. The new Communist leadership of Hungary ordered them to be rebuilt, but the implementers used techniques and materials available at the time.

Here are some further achievements:

• the Hungarian coat of arms with the Holy Crown on both sides of the Pest gate and the lion heads above the gate arch is restored
• the stone surfaces of the Pest pylon are almost ready
• the lion statues restored will return this autumn.

Pestbuda.hu said the bridge’s road would reopen for traffic this December.

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“The granite slabs covering the pedestals have now been renovated, and the inscription “Széchenyi-Lánczhíd” has been engraved and is now being gilded, which they could not do during its reconstruction after World War II”, pestbuda.hu says. Interestingly, the inscription on the statue pedestal on the north side of the Pest bridgehead will be modified following instructions of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA). But the Budapest Transport Company (BKK) did not share what the amendment would be.

The new, gilded inscription on the pedestal. The lions will return on the top of it. Photo: facebook.com/bkkbudapest

As soon as the pedestals on the Pest side of the crossing are ready, the lions guarding the bridge will return.

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Lion heads, pylon, Holy Crown, rosettes

Moreover, experts and specialists are finishing the stone surfaces of the Pest pylon. “The lion heads on the gates of Pest and the coats of arms above them were beautified, and the restorers worked on their renewal on site from the scaffolding surrounding the gates”, pestbuda.hu said.

Additionally, the following project elements were finished:

• the heavily tainted, lion-headed capstones of the bridge’s gate openings were cleaned from the black layer it covered with a special chemical technique,
• sixty small rosettes and twenty-six larger decorative casts were painted in the Chain Bridge’s new colour, blue-grey.

The pylon’s renovated granite and limestone parts are being repainted and treated to be water-repellent.

BKK wrote that the renovation project follows the schedule. The work started in the spring of 2021 and is carried out by A-Híd Zrt. It is planned to be completed by 2023, but the road will be given back for traffic by December 2022.

Source: pestbuda.hu