The White Horse inn was mentioned for the first time in a record from 1764. The inn stood in level with the walls of the the square for the century but in 1890 it was enlarged and henceforth occupied a part of the square.

The inn was much loved by the inhabitants of Szolnok and treated many illustrious personalities. In 1819 it hosted crown Ferdinand, in 1845 István Széchenyi and Lajos Kossuth as well. On the 19th of February, 1888 a dinner was given in honour of Ottó Hermann, natural scientist, after his lectureat the city hall.

In 1876, when Szolnok became a county town, the most important public buildings related to this function were constructed, only the Finance Management was lacking a building yet. Therefore, the county council decided to construct a hall for this purpose in place of the inn by restoring the original frontal level.

The building was designed by Antal Hofhauser and constructed under the supervision of Vilmos Milkó annd Antal Vaskovits and in November, 1891 it was ready to be occupied by the employees of the Finance Management directorate.

The present bulk of the structure was created in 1921, when a second floor was added to the building of originally one floor.

At the same time the Hungarian coat of arms was plastered on the chopped wall-face at the corner of the L-shaped building, above the existing coat of arms of the town depicting the pelican. The main front ends with two projections at the corners, with a segment of the original rim preserved above the two windows when the upper floor was added.

The middle axis of the main front, which used to be the main entrance (but leads now to the café), is emphasised now by a pair of columns and a balcony with balustrades supported by two pilaster strips.

The broad-stones of the ground floor and the clinker panelling of the upper floors renders the main front dignified. The other front by the Antal Tisza street is shaped similarly to the to the main front but with a two-leaved gate in the middle.

The building of Finance Management fulfilled a cultural function as well, with exhibition organised in the ground fllor hall in the 1930s, e.g. from Tibor Pólya's graphics.

After the ceasing of the Finance Management, between 1952 and 1957 the archives occupied the ground floor. When the archives moved back to the building of the court-house, the county committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party took over the building which had been used by the Finance Management, This is when the two coats of arms were removed from the wall.

In 1965 the Tiszaparti Secondary School and Medical Vocational School was granted the unoccupied building to be used as a dormitory. It was not until 1996 the transformation into a library building began.

2, Antal Tisza street used to function as a revenue office, then a militia headquarters, then from 1992 on as children's library and audiovisual deparment.

In 1996-97 the two buildings were merged and redesigned by Zoltán Dankó, preserving the original style and a 5-story stack building was constructed in the yard, thus ensuring a decent site for the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County Ferenc Verseghy Library.

The library reopened at 27th of August, 1997 in this building.

Compiled by Károly Kósa. Translated by Cecília László

GALLERY
	Title:	A könyvtár épülete
	Date:	1997-1998
	By (©):	VFMK
	Link:	»Click here «