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HAUSZMANN Alajos élete és munkássága - The Life and CEuvre of Alajos HAUSZMANN Kalmár Miklós - Kiss Zsuzsanna Emília

THE LIFE AND CE U V R E OF ALAJOS HAUSZMANN

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Alajos Hauszmann was born on June 9th, 1847 ín Buda as the second child of a well-to-do middle-class family. His father, Ferenc Hauszmann was a merchant who specialised in spices and wines, also owning real estates and vineyards, whilst having functions as a representative of the town as well as the chairman of the chamber of commerce in Buda. Hauszmann completed the first three grades in the elementary school of the Piarist order in Buda. His parents then sent him to Tata, a small town intheTransdanubian region, to learn the Hungarian language. This is where he completed the fourth grade of the elementary and the first year of the secondary grammar-school too. In 1859 he returned to Buda where he was enrolled in the second grade of the recently founded modern school. Being especially interested in chemistry at this time, he even furnished a small laboratory for himself. After getting acquainted with Károly Mayerhoffer, who was the "first photographer in Buda", he learnt photography. Rewarding his son for his excellent school results, his fathertook him for vacation to Trieste and Venice in the very same year.

Whilst still attending modern school, Hauszmann co-founded the first boating club in Buda with his fellow students. As a voluntary unskilled worker he participated in the construction works when the royal food-store - the Granary at the head of Chain Bridge in Buda - was remodelled to house the first Hungarian theatre in town as soon as possible. Later on, he founded a theatre of his own with his fellow students named "Gondűző" ("Consoling") where he was the scenery painter, the manager and the ticket-office clerk too.

In 1861 he met Antal Szkalnitzky (1836-1878), an architect who looked at his drawings and advised his parents to sponsor his architectural studies instead of sending him to commercial school. However, before starting his university studies he assisted József Diescher master builder as a bricklayer's apprentice in the construction works of the Hungarian Academy of Science on the advice of Szkalnitzky in his free-time and vacation while still attending modern school. In 1863 his father died. Hauszmann finished his school in 1864 and enrolled with the "Buda Technics" - that is the Technical University. Besides his academic studies, he worked for Antal Szkalnitzky's team of architects in his free-time. This is where he met Miklós Ybl, Antal Weber, Imre Henszlmann as well as József Pucher. The circle of his closest friend at university included Ödön Lechner and Gyula Puntzman (Pártos). Although there was no independent architectural department at the university then, the training of architecture in general had already been introduced by Antal Szkalnitzky as a specialist lecturerwho encouraged Hauszmann to go to the Bauakademie in Berlin after completing his second academic year in 1866. In Germany he finished five semesters. Two of his friends, Ödön Lechner and Gyula Pártos accompanied him to the German capital.