Antal Palóczi and the beginnings of modern urban planning in the Kingdom of Hungary: the example of Bratislava and Novi Sad (1867–1918)

The period from 1867 to 1918 represents one of the most productive and intense eras of town building and modernization within the Kingdom of Hungary. From the beginning of modern urban planning, the leading Hungarian urban planners and theorists followed all the major themes of the era’s planning discussion. The modern urban planning principles, as well as the common urban design language (rings, avenues, city parks etc.) acted as a common platform for the town shaping in the entire country. Especially Budapest-based architect Antal Palóczi implemented very soon and with decisive success these commonly used strategies and solutions in his regulatory plans. Even these plans remained often unrealized as whole, their main ideas could be traced in the later urban planning solutions of the twentieth century despite the fact the later planners never referred to the first plans. The current study is the result of research and interpretation of newly discovered and unpublished plans and maps, which marked the beginning of modern urban planning at the beginning of the twentieth century in Pozsony, currently Bratislava and Újvidék, Novi Sad in present-day Serbia.