Oszkó Ágnes Ivett - Baumhorn Lipót

Lipót Baumhorn (1860-1932) was the most prolific representative of synagogue specialists in Europe: he designed 26 synagogues in the territory of Historical Hungary, of which 22 were built. At the beginning of his career, he paid his respects to his predecessors with his oriental and historicizing works, and by adapting the German floor plan and dome type, he created his specific structural prototype. The masterpiece of the turn of the century was the neolog synagogue of Szeged, whose building ornamentation hides an eloquent symbolism. After that, he found his independent style, which combines Hungarian Art Nouveau with modern functionality, when designing the synagogues in Cegléd, Novi Vidék and Budapest Dózsa György út. After the First World War, he mostly disguised the modern building structure in a classicizing garb, of which orientalization was still an integral part. The swan song of the genre was the Gyöngyös synagogue from around 1930, which last evoked the prosperity of the communities at the turn of the century. Together with his secular buildings, his oeuvre consists of nearly 90 works; in addition to the capital, in Szeged, Timișoara and Újvidék, headquarters, residential and tenement palaces bear its name.