New Urbanism from 19th century Europe: Szeged reborn from the flood of 1879.

By 1870's the Southeastern Hungarian city of Szeged was emerging as a major economic and cultural  hub in Central Europe. It was the 2nd largest city in Hungary with a population of 75,000.

Szeged, 1853.

Szeged, 1878.

The four main districts that had their own socioeconomic and architectural cityscape. Palank (yellow in the map below), the central business district was home to the city government and inhabited by the economic and cultural cream of society. Felsovaros to the North (pink) was mostly inhabited by tradesmen, craftsmen and merchants. Alsovaros to the South (grey) had a more rural village feel with mostly agricultural areas. Rokus (blue), the youngest part of the city was inhabited by the poorest, newest residents. Ironically, the great flood attacked the city not from its channel, but from the back, and Rokus was the first to go underwater.

  

The city is located downstream from the inflow of the river Maros on the right bank of the Tisza, one of the lowest gradient, slowest flowing rivers in the world. Prior to the aggressive river engineering in of the 19th century, the Tisza twisted and wound its way slowly through the great planes of Hungary, up to a quarter of its flood plane a permanently underwater swamp.

Carpathian basin flood plains before the 1840's

Now.

River engineering was a high priority and extremely ambitious project of 19th century Hungary. The land area to be gained was gargantuan. The plan called for as many as 100 cuts to increase the river's fall, gain useable land and reduce flooding. Work started in ernest in the 1840's. The cuts were to be accompanied by elevating a system of levees to protect the city. Engineers of the time however greatly underestimated the extent of flood level rise. The political turmoil of mid 19th century Hungary left the city unable to build the levees to protect it from the ever rising flood levels.

Szeged, the largest and farthest lying downstream city was historically already prone to flooding. Factors prior to the mid 19th century that kept Szeged from massive floods included naturally occuring high sandy dunes along the river banks, manmade filling of the gaps in the naturally occurring dunes that served as levees, and building on naturally occurring high spots ("islands").

Flood levels after the 1830's were measured from an artificial zero point, which was set around 74 meters above sea level (pre 1879 Szeged was mostly at around 76 MASL). The pre-regulation Tisza river flood levels at Szeged were likely below 700cm.  The 1850's saw ever rising flood levels due to the river cuts that continued upstream despite the lack of a downstream levee system to protect the city.

Tisza river flood levels at Szeged in the 19th century.

On March 5, 1879, the major levee 20km North of the city was breached, and the river spread out into the NorthEastern flood plain and started creeping towards the city from the Northwest, attacking it from behind. The flood level measured in Szeged on the day of the Petres levee breach was an unprecedented 806cm.

Timeline of the great flood of 1879. 

   

Flood area of 1879

March 11, 1879 was a beautiful calm, sunny spring day.  A sudden storm arrived in the evening with fierce NW winds lapped water against the already weakened levees on the NW side of the city. At 2 AM on March 12, 1879, the levees broke and city went under water.

                         

The city underwater, Spring 1879.

Green indicates areas of the city underwater March - June, 1879.

     

Szeged, 1907.

90% of city was under 3-4 meters (10 - 13 feet) of water for 3 months and 85% of the population became homeless. The official death toll was 165. Fewer than 300 of the 5,700 pre-flood buildings remained and most of the streets were washed away.  Buildings that survived were the mostly the central district's large palaces, hotels, businesses/offices and apartment blocks built between 1840 - 1870 as well as some churches and schools. All private homes were completely destroyed - they were mostly built from mud and straw and were simply washed away or "melted" in the water.

Szeged today.

The lack of support that lead to the disaster poured in. London, Paris, Brussels, Vienna, Rome, Berlin, most of Europe, and even North America sent significant financial aid to rebuild the city. The same government that was deaf to the pre-flood cries of the city for help now busied itself with an efficient and rapid response to pump the water out of the city and help rebuild it from scratch.

The new "master plan" was drawn up by Lajos Lechner, an experienced urban engineer from the capital in conjunction with local city officials and councilmen. The scale of the project was unmatched at the time.

Neat rows of saplings line the new, wide, straight, "modern" boulevards during the post-flood construction.

Major features of the "new urbanist" master plan of Szeged:

I. Flood protection
1. levee system surrounding the entire city
2. infill of the city to raise its elevation
3. modern sewer systems

II. modernization and beatification of the city
1. solid surface of streets, arterials and plazas
2. tree lining of streets and plazas
3. zoning to determine street front dimensions and characters of buildings
4. sanitation and gas network

III. traffic and transportation improvements
1. wider and straighter radials connecting the districts and the other towns to major destinations like the train station and the bridge
2. wider and straighter street network
3. double ring road system
4. raised pedestrian sidewalks and center road section for carriages (even in the smallest side streets)
5. a new, permanent bridge
6. incorporation of New-Szeged (on the left bank of the city)

The city that emerged is unique in Hungary, and Europe, and the flood in a way was a blessing in disguise for this city that emerged from the former swampy islands of the Tisza's flood plains.

Levee construction, 1908.

Szechenyi Square, the main plaza, post-flood

The new urbanist movement of the 19th century considered narrow winding streets unsanitary, ugly, and undesirable. For two decades preceding the flood, the city already had a master plan in place for the "beatification" of the city mostly consisting of "straightening and widening" its streets and slowly paving muddy streets with brick and stone, the latter which had to be transported from far away by trains due to the complete lack of solid building materials nearby.

A new plaza with street car tracks, post-flood Szeged.

New peasant homes, post-flood.

Growing up in Szeged, I traveled to many other Hungarian and European cities. I didn't know why every other place I visited had these really neat, cozy, small winding alley like streets.

Szolnok.

Pecs.

Szeged.

The top 2 cities' (Szolnok, Pecs) grids look organic, natural and slightly smaller scale in contrast to the master planned  city of Szeged (all satellite images captured at the same scale).

Karasz street, pre-flood.

Karasz street, the main central business street, post-flood. Notice the raised curbs of the  relatively narrow pedestrian sidewalks and the street car tracks in the center (circa 1885).

Karasz street today. The uniform paved surface was completed in 2001.

Karasz street in the 1960's. Automobiles were later banned.

Karasz street, 1981. Cars were permanently banned by then, but the divided surfaces remained until the 21st century.

A street, pre-flood.

Streetcars

The history of the Hungarian streetcar started in Budapest in1887, and today's Hungarian capital has an extensive network criss crossing the city. Today, only 3 of the provincial cities still operate electric streetcars. The city of Miskolc opened its first line in 1897 and is currently operating 2 lines on a total of 14 km length. The city of Debrecen opened its streetcar service in 1911 and is running 2 lines on a total of 19km today.

The first public transportation system in Szeged began operating in 1857 in the form of horse drawn carriages ("omnibus"). Limited by the extremely poor conditions of the unpaved muddy streets this was replaced by fixed rail after the great flood of 1879. The first fixed-rail system with horse-drawn rail cars started operations on July 1, 1884. A fleet of 12 carriages operated by 20 (later 40) horses transported over 300,000 passengers in 1885. Horses were replaced by electricity, and the first electric streetcar rumbled down the streets of Szeged in 1908.

The first electric streetcars in Szeged, restored.

Modern streetcar of contemporary Szeged. 

The original line was 4 km long double rail track that connected the two train stations with speeds of up to 20 kph. Four additional single rail lines expanded the system to a total of 16km in the first decade of the 20th century.  Current streetcar lines of Szeged are the largest outside of Budapest, with a total length of 47 km, and carry over 50,000 passengers/day (2008 figure).

Red: streetcar lines. Blue: trolley bus lines.

References
http://www.sulinet.hu/oroksegtar/data/telepulesek_ertekei/szeged/szeged_tortenete_3_1/pages/006_szeged_kuzdelme_az_ar_es_belvizek_ellen.htm
http://www.bibl.u-szeged.hu/reizner/index2.html
http://www.szkt.hu/page.fcgi?nyelv=hu