History of Applied Arts in Hungary- Tolerance and Understanding

ACES Academy of European Central Schools

 Project with Lauder Chabad School, Vienna & The Maria Theresa School, Budapest 

This was developed for ACES that was a project run by the Intercultural Center in Vienna and Erste Stiftung.  I initiated a project with The Lauder Chabad School as well as The Maria Theresa School in Budapest that was focus on Applied Arts and a school in Transylvania.  

We brought all these schools together in Vienna and Budapest to learn from each other through the symbolic language of art. This was a way to bring students in contact with their neighbours, through education and art.  Learning about others outside of a culture that you are familiar with is difficult and often scary.  Many times we back away from learning about others at the fear stage and try to avoid contact or worse hate grows through fear and intolerance.  I realised that an access point for the Lauder Chabad School that I was working with, was to start what they were familiar with.  In this case of visiting Hungary the starting point was to begin with not only a Jewish architect, but also Austrian influences as their school was in Austria.

From that point, it was possible for students to explore how that even though the great Architects of Vienna was Jewish, he was also open to different influences with his designs and that the very notion of a unique Hungarian Identity has been constructed from many different influences including Persian, French, British and Austrian. 

So the idea of this project with ACES was to not only have the students from neighbouring countries intermingle through creative art education, but also to understand that their access point to reach out to others, needs to start with where they are at.  Students need a point of reference that their are familiar with, so that they can feel safe to explore and interact with differences without being afraid that they will lose their own identity and only be enriched. 

This project increased tolerance of difference and other cultures whilst at the same time embraced one's own. It was about learning about your own culture and religion, as well as teaching others, without forcing one's own culture onto others.  It is this fluidity and pluralism that engaged the students to be tolerant and open whilst embracing their own salient culture.  

This was shared with the students at the Lauder Chabad School, so that they could explore differences whilst embracing their own cultural roots and in that way find a safe space for tolerance and understanding.

 History of Applied Arts in Hungary

The School of Applied Arts in Hungary is 250 years old and is in strong collaboration with the Museum of Applied Arts.

One of the great Architects of Budapest was Ödön Lechner. He was Jewish and considered to be the father of Hungarian Architecture at the turn of the century that gained influences from Art Nouveau elsewhere in Europe, but through his cultivation of different influences, became Hungarian.  It is this point that is important to note, that the very notion of a unique Hungarian Identity has been constructed from many different influences including Persian, French, British and Austrian.  This again points out that the very notion of a unique identity is not based on a MONO-CULTURE, but is rather INTERCULTURAL in style and form. 

Emerging more than 100 years ago, the Art Nouveau movement was an attempt to create a modern, international style based on decoration. It spread rapidly and could be found everywhere from public buildings to biscuit tins. 

Architecturally it radically altered the face of many cities of North America and Europe - with Budapest being a leading example - at the beginning of the 20th century and left an indelible mark on our collective cultural consciousness.

The late 19th century was a time of social change and political ferment. 

It was called Art Nouveau in Glasgow, Paris and Brussels, Jugendstil in Riga, Berlin and Munich, and Secession (Szecesziós) in Budapest, Vienna and Prague.

Can you spot the Secession motifs and architecture on the trip to Budapest?

Explore the localized approach to Art Nouveau or the Secession in Budapest and see how that is compared to the way in which it is represented by the artists of the Vienna Secession.  The  Secession in Vienna was initiated on 3 April 1897 by Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Max Kurzweil, Otto Wagner, and others.

After the Compromise (Ausgleich in German, Kiegyezés in Hungarian) of 1867, which secured a degree of autonomy for Hungary within the Dual Monarchy, many artists, architects and designers wanted to form a cultural identity and embraced the Art Nouveau movement.

The “father” of modern Hungarian architecture, Ödön Lechner, wanted to “Shape a new age in art, to give birth to a new style.”

Art Nouveau became a force for liberation from the Viennese allegiances and pressures and Lechner gave buildings such as the Post Office Savings Bank and the Applied Arts Museum a singular Magyar/Hugarian identity.

Architects used playful ornamentation on their buildings in reaction to the stultifying restraints of Historicism, the previously popular style in which grand buildings from the past were copied.

Structures often were organic in form, with curving facades, a dramatic departure from the austere, classical regularity.

During this fertile period, applied arts took on added importance.

Architecture and interior design were blended to create buildings of a consistent whole, or Gesamtkunstwerk (complete work of art). Art Nouveau forms appeared not only in architecture but in the organic furniture of Ödön Faragó, Miksa Róth’s gorgeous stained glass, Béla Lajta’s fabulous mosaics and József Rippl Rónai’s Oriental-inspired multi-coloured paintings. Hungarians created their own distinctive Secession style.

They resented the Germanic influence of the Habsburg's domination in bilingual Budapest. They feared their Hungarian identity was in danger of being submerged by the growing population of ethnic minorities - Serb, Croat, Slovak, Greek – in the expanding capital. They wanted to make a political statement through art.

Lechner, the most famous Secession architect, led the way “We shall not rediscover a Hungarian form. We shall make one!” he declared.

Although the style Lechner developed was not without contradictions or critics, his influence over a generation of young architects starting out around 1900 was very strong.

Throughout his career he displayed a practical interest in new building materials and techniques as well as historical languages of form.

His early commissions such as the Town Hall in Szeged (1881-1883) drew heavily on the French Renaissance revival style. Lechner acknowledged at the time that he wanted to “harmonise” the “primitive crudeness of Magyar folk art and the refinement of French culture”.

Lechner imagined that he could conceive of a properly Hungarian style by fusing suitable languages of form.

After seeing the Calcutta railway station, he claimed that the archetypal model of this kind of synthesis was to be found in the way imperial British architecture had accommodated Indian architectural forms.

Lechner’s reputation was made by the buildings he designed from the early 1890s.

The Applied Arts Museum and the Geological Institute are credited as being the first examples of Art Nouveau in Hungary.

The Applied Arts Museum was built between 1893 and 1896, in line with plans prepared by Ödön Lechner and Gyula Pártos. The steel structure above the main hall is stuccoed, and the stuccos follow and demonstrate the logic of the structure while making it more graceful.

The unconventional, exotic appearance of the Applied Arts Museum was enhanced by glazed tiles, wrought ironwork, richly coloured pyrogranite tiles and Orientalist figures by the Zsolnay factory in Pécs and majolica bricks covering the street-facing facade and wings.

In what way was the Hungarian Art Nouveau/Secession different from that in Vienna? 

Lechner was well informed about the roots of Hungarian culture. 

He knew the work of József Huszka, a pioneer of ethnography and he adapted peasant art designs such as the elaborately decorated felt cloak (cifraszûr) worn by men in the villages on special occasions, wooden dowry chests, tables and chairs hand-painted with tulip motifs and embroidered pillow cases.

Lechner preferred as natural motifs the flora and fauna of the Hungarian “peasant countryside”, including tulips and bees over the more exotic and literary orchids and Medusas found in many West European Art Nouveau buildings and interiors.

The tulip design, seen on the Geological Institute and the Postal Savings Bank, went on to become a symbol of Hungarian identity, with its roots in the countryside.

The Zsolnay factory chemists had perfected a lustrous eosin glaze that could withstand the effects of rain, snow and extreme cold. Lechner and others eagerly adopted the ceramics, using them extensively for decorative emphasis.

Ask your classmates from Budapest and Transylvania about these styles and influences and where you can see them in Budapest. 

Lechner’s disciples, christened the Fiatalok, continued the Hungarian style, but varied the form. Károly Kós reached back to Transylvanian peasant architecture for inspiration, evident in the bird and pheasant houses at the Budapest Zoo.

Can you spot any of the motifs in the stained glass in the school or museum?

Stained glass windows also enhanced many buildings during the Secession, most of them crafted in Miksa Róth’s workshop, in Nefelejcs utca near Keleti station.

The colourful circular window that frames the dome of the Applied Arts Museum displays Róth’s expertise and artistic acumen. Béla Lajta, another student of Lechner at the Budapest Technical University, employed the latest construction methods, using reinforced concrete with floral and geometric designs incised on the facades.