Budapest Postcards at the Turn of the 19th Century

Visual representations of the city such as copper engravings, painted cityscapes, maps, postcards and pictures have always made it possible for city dwellers and travellers to remember and orientate. The study aims to examine the birth of the modern city through looking at 19th-century postcards. This is carried out partly theoretically, partly by examining Budapest as a modern national metropolis. The author argues that postcards use a unique system of symbols, creating spatial texture in cultural remembrance. Postcards are visual representations of „the city” and they represent and engender the birth of modern space perception.