Home / Municipality of Szeged
Széchenyi Square 12
H-6720 Szeged
Hungary
phone + 32 (0) 493 062 299
mail szeged@tourinform.hu
The Art Nouveau in Szeged is mosaically presented in the cityscape since by the turn of the century, the city centre having been devastated by the 1879 Great Flood had almost been built over. Only some vacant corners and a few other lots remained. Yet, the revolutionarily new movement of architecture arrived in Szeged in fortunate conditions, where the wealthy and enlightened, highly educated upper class coupled with the bank capital hungry for investments welcomed and patronized it. Nowadays, they are architectural relics evoking intellectual excitement; sights triggering admiration in local people and tourists alike in a new age with their renewing facades. The New Synagogue is inevitably one of them.
This building is a forever memento of what an architectural masterpiece can be created when the builder, the hydraulics engineer Iván Reök (1855–1923), a wealthy and highly cultured patron encounters just that talented architect who is most suitable for the job. Standing on the corner of Tisza Lajos Boulevard, the Gróf Palace owes its existence to fortunate circumstances as well since it was built on a lot which has a remarkable position in the city centre. For the architect of the building, Ferenc Raichl J., the great opportunity was again granted to recreate his Art Nouveau spatial formation and ornamenting solutions which he had employed on his Subotica residence, embracing all details of the whole building, in the dimensions of a stately apartment building that is able to meet the luxurious expectations of the era. Altogether a short decade was allowed for the dominance of the Art Nouveau in Szeged, nevertheless, almost half a hundred buildings grew up in the cityscape: apartment buildings, residences, sculptures as well, splendid interiors and others. Furthermore, its various branches are represented in the city, for instance, the one by Lechner based on folk arts, or the ones exemplifying the Vienna and Berlin Art Nouveau, and also those that the local builders adjusted to their own taste.
Réseau Art Nouveau Network,
Bruxelles Urbanisme et Patrimoine
Mont des Arts 10-13, 1000 Bruxelles.
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