Szegő Dóra - Szegő György: Synagogues - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2004)

The Great Synagogue in Dohány utca

Orientalism of Hungary's Jewish architecture to set new and congruent trends of cultural development.

The three architects invited in 1852 to enter the competition to build the Dohány temple were József Hild, Frigyes Feszi (the as-yet little-known designer of the future Vigadó) with two associates, and Ludwig Förster, an architect from Vienna. Plans by József Hild differed fundamentally from the other two. He would have put his dome-topped synagogue on the border of the asymmetric plot, flush with the street. Frigyes Feszl’s design, prepared in cooperation with Károly Gerster and Lajos Frey, placed, as did blueprints by Ludwig Förster, the main front of the synagogue behind the margin of the plot. The main building was envisaged in both plans to form an entrance space in the middle of a horseshoe-shaped complex with a wing added on either side.

An uncertain committee preferred Hild’s ground plan and the facade made by Feszi et al. Commission went to Hild, who was supposed to have integrated Feszl’s fapade into his plans. Ludwig Förster was rejected. Though Hild's altered plans were approved, it was Förster whose designs were eventually given the green light. With that the synagogue came to be the harbinger of an epochal innovation in Hungary. It was built with Forster’s cast-iron supporting structure,

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