“We’ll have to pawn it!” This phrase may be not be so familiar today but was often heard in leaner times way back when. It first came into common currency here in in 1773, when Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa founded the First Hungarian Royal Pawnshop in Bratislava. Thus was born what is known today as BÁV, an acronym synonymous in Hungary with the concept of hocking valuables.
The forerunners of BÁV moved to Buda, then Pest in 1802 and, by the 1880s, it had generated so much traffic that a new headquarters became an urgent necessity.
A tender was issued for the design of a modern building in 1900, won by
Samu Révész and József Kollár, and a huge neo-Gothic building of clinker brick was
completed on Lónyay utca in 1903.
Empty for many years, it was recently
accessed by expert photographer Tamás Pataki, who captured the grand staircases and
palatial spaces of this former pawn mansion.
The company later changed with the times, from the Soviet Republic after World War I to merging with the Postal Savings Bank. In 1951, it was given the name by which everyone knows it today: BÁV.
The company used this building until 2006, since then it has changed
owners several times and been used as a film set.
After being bought by a
Spanish firm, it fell into State hands. In 2018, it was taken over by the Károli
Gáspár University, run by the Reformed Church, meaning that education will be its
function from now on.
See Tamás Pataki's Instagram page here.
