Armuth Miklós - Lőrinczi Zsuzsa (szerk.): A Budapesti Műszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem Történeti Campusa (Budapest, 2023)
PECZ Samu élete és munkássága - The Life and CEuvre of Samu PECZ Gy. Balogh Ágnes
THE LIFE AND CEUVRE OF SAMU PECZ 2 6 4 Samu Pecz was born on March 1st, 1854 to Pest in a middle-class family. His father, Ármin Pecz Sr. (1820-1896) was a landscape designer, the lead gardener of Ludoviceum as well as the designer of the Museum garden in the capital. His younger brother, Ármin Pecz Jr. (1855-1927) was also a landscape designer: in this capacity he designed the millenary exhibition of 1896, the Zoo and the Technical University gardens. After finishing the Lutheran elementary school in Terézváros (Theresienstadt), Samu Pecz went to the new Lutheran Secondary Grammar School of Pest opened in September 1864 in Sütő Street (today: Deák Square Lutheran Secondary Grammar School), and then to the (downtown) Major Secondary School of Sciences and Modern Languages. He started his architectural studies in 1871 at the Royal Hungarian Joseph Technical University where he studied for two years at the architectural department as one of the first students of the institution. From 1873 on for two years he attended the Technical University in Stuttgart. After completing his one-year voluntary military service, he passed an examination for artillery officers. Then he attended the Art Academy in Vienna for two years where he was a student of the Danish Theophil Hansen and thus studied in “antique style". (His master designed, amongst others, the Parliament, the palace of the Musikverein as well as the Stock Exchange in Vienna.) During his years spent in Vienna, Pecz co-operated in Hansen's design projects and in 1878 he won Preis-Stipendium, the most prestigious scholarshop for architecture students with a design for a royal palace. Architecture students attending the university at the time chose him as the first chairman of their association founded under the auspices of Hansen. After his return home he worked for eighteen months assisting Frigyes Schulek in the reconstruction project of the parish church of Our Lady Mary in Budavár (widely known as Matthias Church) and meanwhile got to study the structures and forms of Gothic architecture. In 1882, after his four-month study tour in Italy, he earned his degree from the Hungarian Royal Joseph Technical University as one of the first architects to gain a diploma in Hungary. Between 1884 and 1885 he worked with the team of Alajos Hauszmann, a lecturer of the university and then travelled extensively in Germany and France. From 1882 on - when the Technical University moved into its new building along Museum Boulevard - he was appointed an assistant of the departments of public projects and mediaeval studies. His fellow lecturers were János Schnédár and Imre Steindl. On January 10th, 1887 he was promoted to the honorary lecturer of antiquity architecture, and the next year, at the age of 34, he was appointed a specialist lecturer of public projects. From this time on he was also the head of the No. 1 Department of Public Projects as its professor. In these capacities, he taught architecture and engineering undergraduates tectonics (Public Project Studies for Grades l-ll) and was also the lecturer for the course titled Building Encyclopedia meant for would-be mechanical and chemical engineers. His career as a design architect started in the 1880s. Ferenc Nádasdy had commissioned Alajos Hauszmann to design the interiors of his palace in Nádasdladány. Pecz, who
