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

The Páva utca Synagogue

■ The interior of the synagogue in Páva utca after the reconstruction

tectural arrangement emphasizes the main entrance and the two staircases leading to the gallery.

In compliance with the wish of the community commissioning the temple, Baumhorn turned the synagogue away from the city and toward the courtyard again by pushing the building into the acute angle of the courtyard surrounded with a wall. (Before the decree issued by Joseph II proclaiming freedom of worship, synagogues had not been allowed to stand facing the street.) The organisation of the temple, which was eventually constructed on a pentagonal ground- plan, could be made to conform to this requirement by making the two aisles interpenetrate the nave. The somewhat overlapping arrangement of the fundamentally longitudinal forms assigned a central position to the bimah. That was how Baumhorn achieved the remarkable feat of creating a centralised space out of spatial elements with a triple longitudinal character. Yet, the pews stood facing the Torah-reading rostrum, rather than turn in a longitudinal direction towards the Ark. The women’s galleries were also arranged to focus on the centre. Placed on a platform at the acute end of the pentagon, the Ark cuts a small niche off the interior, thus making an allusion to the end-point of the archaic row of

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