Gyergyádesz László, ifj.: Kecskemét és a magyar zsidó képzőművészet a 20. század első felében (Kecskemét, 2014)

Jegyzetek

sidering the elements of folk art we can rightly assume that similarly to other contemporaries he used the albums and pattern books of József Huszka who was born in Kiskunfélegyháza, but collected the content of his books in Székely land (e.g. Hungarian decorative style, 1885, Hungarian ornamentation, 1898). Concerning the external decoration of the Cifrapalota the incentives of the young Huszka as well as his collection and researches in this respect (e.g. in Szeged, Eger and in Debrecen) - coming from ornaments of the traditional cloak of shepherds in the second half of the 19th century - indirectly had some influences on the building.

The building was planned to be multi-functional because of practical reasons. On the ground floor there were shops for renting (today there are windows instead of their doors), on the first floor there was the ceremonial hall and club rooms of the Trade Casino, while on the second floor there were tenement flats. To divide the different functions of the edifice, two staircases were built. The fancier one leads to the ceremonial hall of the casino and takes a lot of space from the inner court. The inner decoration of the palace is rather moderate and primarily dominated at the so called Peacock Hall. The blue eosin tiles, the cherry-red and blue pyrogranite décors, the painted stucco peacocks, - however, originally designed to be made of eosin ceramics - the now missing large mirrors and the wall-painting (in the two heart-shaped units) together with the golden-white stuccos evoke the external decoration of building.

Naturally, the researchers of the field often assume that the planner of such a masterpiece, which had such a great influence on the architecture of a given city, also received other smaller commissions. It is not a coincidence that the same idea has occurred to them in connection with the villa in Hungarian secessionist style of Elek Kada, although lacking real sources it can be supposed only on the basis of the critical analysis of its style. “Far away on the so called Old Mountain there is one among the densely built villas that reveals the unique life of its owner: with its original and ancient Hungarian motifs it stands out contrast to the pattern. [...] It is the garden of the mayor.” Fortunately, a plan turned up before verified that a family sepulchral vault in the Holy Trinity cemetery that was raised by Ignác Balatoni Farkas chemist probably for the memory of their daughter, Celli (“the heart motif and the lilies in the hands of the angels all over the building refer to the child”) was designed by Géza Márkus in 1903.

“On the Széchenyi Square we can find the attractive two-storied corner building of the Hostel of Apprentices. There are the offices of the Trade Association, the Cashier’s Office of the Work Insurance and the Trade Credit Union. Moreover; a restaurant, a café, a hotel and a small stage is located in the hostel as well.” The commissioners were the "Trade Association” founded in 1884 and the "Craft-Union” established in 1861 who wanted to set up an adequate and common clubhouse. The architects Marcell Komor and Dezső Jakab won the tender for the Hostel of Apprentices (today Youth Home and Home Cinema) in 1904 - outdistancing the 16 submitted competitive designs - probably because they were quite successful in public buildings of the countryside (Marosvásárhely, Town Hall and Culture Palace; Nagyvárad, Black Eagle Hotel; Szabadka, Town Hall) despite the fact that they had their offices in Budapest. The construction only started in 1906-1907 owing to different reasons (e.g, the modification of the side wings). Komor and Jakab also worked together with Márkus a couple of times (the best known example is the Public Opera, today called the Erkel Theatre), and were the most consequent and the most unique followers of Lechner The variety and imaginative spaces, the flexible forms, the plaster-work, the rich polychrome ceramic ornamentation, the wrought iron balconies, and the attic - can be interpreted both as a gable attic or a moulding - crowning the edifice on the Hostel of Apprentices all prove the originality of the designers. Due to the function of the building and the given requirements the construction works were chiefly made by local craftsmen. Therefore, the wrought iron barriers and gratings were crafted in the workshop of Márton Reiszmann while the inner iron works can be connected to Antal Pintér as the chandeliers and wall-brackets. Naturally some of parts had to be done by other craftsmen for instances the external majolica ornaments were made by Lajos Faragó of Cegléd and the exterior and interior glass-mosaics by Manó Roth and his brother, Miksa Róth of Budapest. The most striking ones of the glass-mosaics can be seen in the dancing hall on the first floor operating as a cinema from 1937.

It has been suggested that the neighbouring secessionist (of the Lechner tendencies) Israelite lodging-house was also designed (in 1907 or more likely around 1910) by Komor and Jakab. It is especially a great loss for us that another neighbouring building close to the Greek Catholic church, the “municipal lodging-house of the Market Hall" was never constructed with which a central hall roofed with a glass cupola on iron45