Szegő Dóra - Szegő György: Synagogues - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2004)
The Cserkesz utca Synagogue
with roots in the provinces was articulated in the liturgy, the absence of an organ and the central position of the Torah-reading rostrum. The Hegedűs Gyula utca synagogue was one of Baumhorn's last works. The architect died in 1932, leaving behind a unique oeuvre of synagogue-building. The Cserkesz utca Synagogue On becoming part of Budapest, Kőbánya began to be urbanised, a process that occurred simultaneously with the flourishing of the Jewish community. The large Neologue population of Kőbánya built its first prayerhouse in 1891 on a plot of land allotted by the municipality. It stood among factories, but there were streets and avenues cut into the central areas. A modern higher elementary school and a secondary school (gymnasium) were built and the local parish church was also opened. It was in this developing neighbourhood that the idea of constructing a high synagogue was born in the ranks of the Neologue community of Kőbánya, which numbered several thousand at the turn of the century. The temple, whose construction permit was issued in 1909, is one of the last products of the surge of synagogue building interrupted by World War I. The Kőbánya synagogue, which was to become its designer Richárd Schöntheil's best-known work, displays the influence of Lipót Baumhorn, but in a more daringly innovative style. Its small front garden is fenced in with a wall of rustic ashlar masonry topped with a railing and interrupted by a gate made of Art Nouveau wrought-iron elements. The fagade is also dominated by a covering of ashlar, but it alternates with surfaces of brick and plaster. The Art Nouveau decoration of the dome consists of Zsolnay pyro- granite and metal inlays. The supporting structure of the large, dome-like covering of the ceiling in the middle is a braced iron girdle with a shell made of concrete. The lobbies joining the central body of the building on three sides are topped with high gables, similarly to the tympani of Baumhorn's Aréna út synagogue. On the gables are semi-circular windows in ashlar framing with rosettes in the middle featuring the star of David. Joining the lobby on the North is a winter prayer-room, and the stairwell leading to the gallery on the South. The gable of the Eastern wall is flanked by an ashlar-covered spire with a staircase inside. Their closure echoes the battlement-like gables, and the spires are topped with domes decorated with Art Nouveau motifs of glazed ceramic inlays comparable to the ornamentation of regal jewellery. The central body of the synagogue is topped, 32 metres above ground level, with an onion-domed lantern. This is surrounded by Orientalising consoles reminiscent of Indian architecture, with the inverted pattern of the gables on them. A covered passageway leads from the courtyard 56
