Budapest is a relatively young city, and its downtown area was meticulously planned using the skills of the best architects and advanced technologies.

Many of its turn-of-the-century buildings are true gems, and one can spend hours admiring and deciphering rich façade decorations. Take a look at some notable buildings in the central fifth district of Budapest.

Headquarters of the Hermes Hungarian General Exchange Co. at Petofi Sándor utca 5.
Its façade is decorated with the dancing putti and heads of Hermes of Baroque art.
On the ground floor there is a very decent Fuga bookshop with many books on architecture and design.
At Váci utca 15 is the house built in 1901. It consists of two levels, shop and residential ones, covered with different materials. Residential floors are covered with white glazed tiles, and lifting your head you see a Gothic sculpture of a knight.
Váci utca 11 is the residential quarters with many shops on the ground level.
First department store opened here in 1912.
The building has quite stern ornamentation reminding of German architecture with tough-looking lions, men and child figures.
Philanthia flower shop was designed in 1906. Its marble shopwindow is decorated with brass rose bushes.
Turkish Bank at Szervita tér 3 is a classic example of Art Nouveau style. The customer ordered that this five-floor bank building should dominate the surrounding buildings, but do so without any balconies or protruding details.
And it does dominate, partially with the huge glass mosaic depicting Our Lady, the Patron of Hungary on a glittering throne surrounded by people who played important role in country's history.
Tile mosaic at residential Walkó House named after its owner at Aulich utca 3 from 1901 that was skillfully restored just a few years ago.
The façade of this Secessionist building is decorated with animal and floral motifs.
This is the street that Steven Spielberg used for filming a Parisian scene for his film Munich.
The fifth district of Budapest is sometimes called a "bank district" because many of its buildings were ordered by and built specifically for various financial institutions, stock exchanges, banks, etc.
Quite often the façade was to represent the specialization of the company, owner of the building. So is the case with former Timber Bank at Nádor utca 21. The sculptural decoration on its façade depicts lumberjacks.
Hungarian National Bank, former Austro-Hungarian Bank was completed in just three years and opened in 1905.
It is decorated with very detailed sculptural scenes, including pictures of country's life and history.
Reliefs on the building at Nádor utca 11 now occupied by Central European University.
Wood carvings on the former Czech-Hungarian Industrial Bank at Nádor utca 6.
The panelling carved from Brazil nut includes female figures and floral patterns.
And this might be the classic ornamentation from the 1970's, where instead of lions and flowers we have the figures of air-conditioners.