Kőbánya cellar system


The Kőbánya cellar system or cellar system of Kőbánya, sometimes known to non-Hungarians simply as the Kőbánya Mine, or the Kobanya Mine, is an extensive network of subterranea, or underground spaces, in the 10th district of Budapest, in Hungary. It is considered to be the largest cellar complex in the country. The complex as a whole started as an underground limestone quarry in a wine-growing area of present-day Kőbánya in the Middle Ages. Later wineries and beer breweries were established on the premises and they continued to use some of the underground spaces. During the Second World War, the dimensions of the complex enabled it to be used as a covert aircraft engine assembly plant and a civilian hideout. Since 2008, Kőbánya Asset Manager Jsc. organizes free guided tours annually, which introduce visitors to both the complex and the Havas Villa, one of the most notable properties connected to it. The underground complex is one of the locations that are participating in the European Heritage Days.
The floor area of the complex is variously estimated to be somewhere between and the combined length of the tunnels is estimated to be around. Corridors wide and halls high are common in it. The deepest part is approximately under the ground surface. The nature of limestone makes the spaces of the complex moist and moldy, and some parts are actually heavily flooded by groundwater. Currently the bulk of the tunnel system is the property of the Kőbánya district government, a small portion is still owned by the Dreher Beer Breweries, who still actively uses some of the cellar spaces, and other small areas are in use by wineries. As of 2007, the Kőbánya tunnel system was not under architectural protection. The complex is sometimes referred to as an "underground city" or as an "underground world".

Name

In Hungarian, the tunnel complex is known only as the circumlocutions kőbányai pincerendszer, or kőbányai alagútrendszer, using no capitalization as per established orthography rules. The complex is also often metonymically referred to as the "Dreher cellars", the "Dreher cellar system", or the "brewery/beer cellars of Kőbánya", by association with the Dreher Beer Breweries which was a main user of it. This is an example of pars pro toto, as the brewery never came close to using the full extent of the complex.
The otherwise unnamed limestone quarry sites which formed the network of tunnels gave the later municipal district, Kőbánya, its name, and kőbánya is in fact the sole Hungarian word for "quarry". Non-Hungarian individuals or media sometimes call the cellar system the "Kőbánya Mine", the "Kobanya Mine" or even the "Kobayna Mine", as if this was the actual name of the mining sites, but technically speaking this is a misnomer, as the sites never had Kőbánya as a formal name in any manner, and so the capitalized noun Kőbánya can only refer to the 10th district of Budapest in Hungarian. The only semantically correct way to refer to the Kőbánya quarry sites is to use the redundant form kőbányai kőbányák.

History

Limestone mining

The tunnel system originated as an underground limestone quarry in an area which was known as Kőér in present-day Kőbánya. The area's name appears as Kewer in a royal charter written by Béla IV, a name of a high hill. This evidence suggests that the area was used as a source of limestone from at least the 13th century, but it is likely that the area provided limestone even in the Antiquity. The exact variant is known as Sarmatian limestone, which was formed from the deposits of the Pannonian Sea in the Central European Sarmatian stage of the upper-middle Miocene era, approximately 11.6–12.7 million years ago.
The Kőér quarry's activity have risen significantly in the early 17th century, and then experienced even more heightened output in the 19th century, as it provided limestone for the construction of some of the most prominent buildings in present-day Budapest;
The quarry served as a material source for many of the buildings of Pest which were built after the devastating flood of 1834, as well as for many of the villas of Andrássy Avenue.
It is likely that the name of Fehér út was the result of the presence of white limestone dust, as the road was the main route of transportation from the quarry sites to the Pest construction sites.

Winemaking and beer brewing

Even when the quarry was still in active production, routine mining practices, cave-ins as well as the groundwater penetration caused parts of it to be abandoned continuously. Above the quarry there were large vineyards from the 17th century on, and so wineries and wine merchants started to use the abandoned sections, making them more akin to purpose-built wine cellars.
While winemaking ceased in the area because of the large-scale European "phylloxera plague" of the second half of the 19th century, beer breweries also settled in the area to exploit the tunnels. Péter Schmiedt was the first to establish his Kőbánya Beer House Company on the premises in 1844. The company continued to use some of the underground spaces as fermentation cellars, and drilled deep wells to exploit the limestone-filtered, clean groundwater under the quarry tunnels for beer production.
The Austrian businessman and brewer Anton Dreher Sr. bought Schmiedt's company and its related assets in 1862 to eliminate competition and to expand his Austrian brewery company, Klein-Schwechat Brewing House, and continued to use portions of the underground spaces as cellars. The brewery site became known simply as the Steinbruch Brewery, reflecting the German name of Kőbánya. In the following years, Dreher's son, Anton Jr. bought up and integrated the neighboring rival breweries that were also settled in the vicinity. In 1907, this Kőbánya site became an independent company, led by Dreher's youngest grandson, Eugene Dreher, as Antal Dreher's Kőbánya Beer Brewery. The Dreher family's companies were the most significant developer and producer of pale lager beer up until World War I. In the 1920s, the brewery controlled 70% of the beer market in Hungary. In the 1930s, the Dreher Brewery Combine have already acquired almost all of the neighboring breweries: the Haggenmacher Brewery, the First Hungarian Stock Brewery, and the Capital City Brewery, leaving only the Civic Brewery independent.
Meanwhile, due to the general instability of the tunnel system, limestone mining was officially banned in 1890, although the system was still used for acquiring limestone as late as 1911 to repair the Reformed Church of Kecskemét, which was damaged in a 5.6 Mw earthquake the same year.

World War II

During the Second World War, due to fears of Allied bombing campaigns, parts of the complex were used as a covert aircraft engine assembly plant most likely by the Danubian Aircraft Factory, the enterprise responsible for the domestic license production of the Messerschmitt Me 210C heavy fighter, which were to be either delivered to or fully assembled in Germany. The workers were able to produce more than 200 engines until production was relocated into Germany as Red Army troops came close to Budapest. Other, smaller aircraft factories also used the complex during the war.
Throughout the war, especially during the Siege of Budapest, the complex also acted as a shelter for civilians. At least one specific hall, which was referred to as a "chapel" by the miners, served as a place of worship to hold Sunday masses during the siege.

Postwar abandonment and cave-ins

All of the abandoned tunnel system of the quarry and the Dreher Brewery cellar system was nationalized in March 1948. In the next year, the brewery was united with other nationalized companies as well as being renamed, and the premises became known as Site No. 1 of the Kőbánya Beer Brewery in the communist era. After the transition to market economy, in 1992, the now-private company acquired the rights from the Austrian legal successor of the original Dreher company to use the Dreher name again, and became Dreher Beer Breweries.
Between the 1950s and the early 1970s the mining tunnels and the central mine courtyards of the Óhegy area were filled with construction debris, meters of communal waste, and earth to rehabilitate land, which then gave place to the Hungarian-Soviet Friendship Park, today's Óhegy Park.
In the evening hours of 6 June 2004, a cave-in occurred in the park, killing a 62-year-old man; the victim had fallen into the wide and or deep pit that formed under him. The victim died because of the toxic gases of the rotting waste, not from the fall. This caused a roughly one hectare part of the park to be fenced off citing soil stability issues.
Even before this incident, the park had at least two minor cave-ins. The problem was finally mitigated in 2012, costing the district government 90 million forints, and on 5 December 2012 the fence was removed and the area was restored to the public.

Rediscovery and reappropriation

Currently the bulk of the tunnel system is the property of the Kőbánya district government, a small portion is still owned by the Dreher Beer Breweries, which still actively uses some of the cellar spaces. Other small areas of the complex are in use by wineries. The most prominent human activity in the past decades within the tunnel complex was the commercial growing of edible mushrooms in some sections, generally in corridors and smaller halls. However this practice was outlawed by European Union regulations and so mushroom production ceased in the latter parts of the 2000s. Starting from 2007, the complex hosts guided walking tours as well as diving tours, cycling and running competitions and other recreational events.
In 2012, the complex was used as testing grounds for the capabilities of the portable REGARD Muontomograph by a group of Hungarian scientists and engineers from Eötvös Loránd University, the Wigner Research Center for Physics, and the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, to demonstrate the use of muon tomography in geophysical surveying of underground structures.
On 21 February 2014, a physical geocache was hidden in the tunnel complex.
In March 2015, the Hamburg Fire and Rescue Service visited the complex as part of their "4. LLG 2.1" training course, in the EU's Exchange of Experts initiative.
In 2015, the record-holder Austrian freediver Christian Redl dived in the flooded parts of the complex for a GoPro promotional video.

The S1 Project and future plans

In the past decades, the Kőbánya district government developed ideas about the future use of the Dreher Brewery premises and the tunnel complex under it, such as operating a dark ride in the tunnels. In 2005, the district government has envisioned a project which would turn the premises into a cultural and entertainment venue with a theme park, this became known as the S1 Project. The code "S1" refers to the historical brewery premises; as "beer brewery" is sörgyár or sörfőzde, and the premises were known as the no. 1 production site of the brewery. The project anticipates that the premises would contain a musical stage, an event hall, galleries, studios, clubs, coffee houses, restaurants, a beer museum, a mass transit stop, and hotels among other things. The concept also calls for the construction of apartment buildings in the area which would provide thousands of apartments. The development of the project would involve using the tunnel system in some form, possibly being opened up by artificial ravines. The Kőbánya Asset Manager Jsc. was in talks with Austrian historian Günter Bischof, whose involvement resulted in three project plans submitted by four architectural firms; Erick van Egeraat Architects, Zoboki Design & Architecture, Sporaarchitects, and Naos Architecture.
The preparation of the S1 Project is being done by the Kőbánya Asset Manager Jsc. in the framework of Budapest's medium-term development program, the Podmaniczky Program, with the financial support of the EU. The project was a part of the EU's brownfield rehabilitation program MISTER as well as the Interreg III B-level CADSES cooperation, but did not gather enough interest from potential investors. In 2009, the cost of the realization was estimated at 120 billion forints, while the S1 Project area was valued at 5 billion forints. In 2012, more than two-thirds of the involved real estate was the property of the district government, with the remainder being the property of a few private companies. Administering the complex costs the Kőbánya district government around 70–80 million forints annually.

Structure

General characteristics

While intricate, the Kőbánya complex can be divided into two general, interconnected areas: a larger, somewhat more mine-like part which is in district ownership, and a smaller, more cellar-like part which is in private ownership, although usually these are considered as one single entity in public discourse, since they had the same origins.
The tunnel system was originally a slope mine with gentle inclinations, which used the room and pillar method for the limestone production. The shape of the passages and excavation halls has a comb-like pattern. The complex has multiple levels within, and its full extent is not fully surveyed or mapped. Even so, it is considered to be the largest cellar complex in Hungary.
The floor area of the complex is estimated to be either around, or. The combined length of the tunnels is estimated to be or, according to different sources and estimations. Corridors wide and "church-like" halls high are common in it, with some of the halls reaching sizes of in height and in width. Some of the taller halls were later divided into two levels with reinforced concrete slabs. There is at least three halls there are referred to as "chapels", these are named after major world religions. One such chapel hall was originally an open mine court which was covered with brick arches. The average depth of the tunnels under the ground surface is around. The deepest part of any tunnel or hall is approximately, measured from the ground surface above it to the bottom surface of the tunnel. However, one of the flooded machinery halls of the Dreher Brewery reaches into a depth of roughly, but it is unclear if it could be considered as part of the tunnel complex. There are ventilation shafts above some of the tunnels, these are in diameter and generally long. The average density of rock around the complex is.
The air temperature is around throughout the complex.
The complex originally had dozens of entry locations, some of them are:
Despite being abandoned, the complex still has working lighting, including some underwater floodlights installed in flooded areas to enhance diving.

Subnetworks

The whole complex that is often referred to as the "Kőbánya cellar system" is in fact a grouping of one large, intricate tunnel network with two main parts, and a few isolated, smaller tunnel systems. These are largely under three well-defined areas of Kőbánya: Óhegy, Újhegy, and the Dreher Brewery premises, now known as the "S1 Project area" or just "S1 area".
The main subnetwork, the Dreher/S1 Project network, starts at the intersection of Kőrösi Csoma Road, Kolozsvári Street and Jászberényi Road, and continues along Jászberényi Road and Maglódi Road as far as Téglavető Street. This part of the subnetwork is more than long, and it is connected to the other part under the vicinity of the Vineyard Guard Tower next to Óhegy Park. The second part is surrounded by Harmat Street, Ihász Street, Halom Street, Bebek Road and Halom End. The cellar floor area under the Dreher premises is around, with a combined passage length of. The depth from surface to the cellar grounds is about. According to different sources, the temperature is about or.
One of the biggest isolated tunnel systems is the one which is under Óhegy Park, along Szlávy Street, facing the end of Száraz Street. Some of it were filled with construction debris, meters of communal waste, and earth to rehabilitate land. This network is almost long and deep. It was roughly long before the cave-in mitigation works done in 2012. Sources also give the following post-mitigation characteristics: the tunnel system has a floor area of, with tunnels wide and high; the thickness of rock and soil above the tunnels is between. The air temperature is around. The Óhegy tunnels were continuously reinforced since 1996.
Two, way smaller tunnel "systems" are located alongside Algyógyi Street and Kocka Street, as well as at the intersection of Kőér Street and Petrőczy Street.

Flooded areas and wells

Due to the hygroscopic nature of limestone and the presence of groundwater, some of the deeper parts of the complex are permanently flooded, and even the unflooded parts have moist, moldy walls and flowing or pooling pit water. The flooding is generally present around the wells that were used by the Dreher Brewery. Some flooded areas are deeper than from the surface of the water, these could only be accessed by technical, cave, or wreck divers. There are four areas of flooding and 5 diving spots within, of which one does not require technical/cave/wreck diving qualifications and can be dived with only OWD qualifications.
The flood areas as identified by their original Dreher well names:
Other, unflooded wells include Champagne kút and Hipó kút.
The water temperature is around, or according to other sources,, or, and it is generally very clean and clear, providing good visibility for navigating around with flashlights.

Current uses

From time to time, the complex or the Dreher brewery buildings are used by filmmakers and other artists for their projects, including music videos and commercials. The most notable examples are the 2015 American action comedy film Spy, which had its opening scenes shot in the complex, and the 1989 Hungarian art film Meteo, which features the subterranean spaces in a post-apocalyptic manner in some scenes.
The complex hosts or hosted sporting and recreational events such as:
Multiple television and webcast documentaries have featured the cellar complex, such as:
Katalin Zsoldi, a doctoral student of ELTE's Department of Cartography and Geoinformatics made a 3D visualization of various underground structures in Budapest, including the cellar complex.