Bory Castle

Jeno Bory was a sculptor and architect who began building a castle on the edge of Szekesfehervar in 1923 and kept at it every summer for around forty years, working mostly with his own hands and with a few labourers, in reinforced concrete because it was cheap and he could shape it himself. The result is not a historical building but one man's composite of Romanesque, Gothic and Scottish baronial ideas: courtyards, colonnades, a hundred columns, towers, terraces and staircases, filled with his own sculpture and with portraits of his wife Ilona, the painter Ilona Komaromi-Kacz, to whom the whole thing is a declaration. The family still owns it, and it is opened to visitors as he left it.

What you actually see

• A castle built by one man - forty summers of concrete construction.
• The hundred-column courtyard - the colonnades at the centre.
• Sculpture and portraits of Ilona - the wife the building was made for.
• Towers and roof terraces - the walkable upper levels.

When to go

April to October; parts are closed in winter. Two hours. Weekends are busier. Light in the courtyards is best in the middle of the day.

Honest expectations

It is concrete and it looks it in places, with visible weathering and cracking. Interpretation is thin and mostly in Hungarian. It is on the edge of town with awkward public transport. Some find it charming and some find it kitsch.

Nearby

Szekesfehervar centre is west; Lake Velence lies east.