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

The Cserkesz utca Synagogue

lawed, which limited the proprietors' options. The building was purchased by the Lipótváros Prayer Association, an organisation established in 1905, which turned one of the shopfronts into a synagogue in 1911. The temple was given its present- day appearance by Lipót Baumhorn, who directed the 1927 reconstruction during which the courtyard, too, was built over. Through the main entrance we enter the lobby from where a staircase leads to the upstairs women's gallery and to the old Talmud-Torah room, which now doubles as a winter prayer-room. Employing a restrained Art Nouveau style, Baumhorn reduced the tension between the original, historicist late Baroque appearance of the street front and the Neo- Renaissance character of the facades overlooking the courtyard. Structural elements are heavily accentuated inside, which matches the Palladian fapade of the interior courtyard. Features of the Art-Nouveau interior— the Ark with the triumphal arch, the capitals, the Torah-reading rostrum, the banister of the gallery and the candelabra—are synthesised with the Neo-Renaissance elements of the building. The galleries running down the sides cover the two aisles. Dominating the interior is the steel-and-iron ceiling, raised Basilica-style, over the nave. Akin to skylights in theatres and cinemas built in Budapest at the time, the structure offsets the effect of the low ceiling. Above the galleries is a flat ceiling. Combining advanced technology in its architecture with a traditionalist style and layout, the temple reflected the moderate, petit-bourgeois progressive conservatism of the Újlipótváros community. The traditionalism of the community

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