Hidden Islamic Motives. Orientalising Tendencies in Hungarian Turn-of-the-century Architecture – The Case of Aladár Árkay

Abstract

Orientalism is deeply rooted in Hungarian culture. Important components of this are the one-and-half century Turkish rule, the eastern cultural and anthropological threads of the Hungarian nation, peaking in various elements of the Hungarian language and folk music, the appearance of the Turanian idea, and the specific interpretation of the Russo-Turkish War in Hungary. Artistic tendencies permeating from Western and Central European countries fostered interests for things deemed oriental. Orientalism first appears in the architecture of historic Hungary in the framework of 19th century romantic historicism.

Ödön Lechner aimed at creating Hungarian national architecture, of which orientalism was an important constituent vis-à-vis traditional Western historicism. One of the means of showing the Eastern origin of the Hungarians was accentuated by using oriental forms in a quite Western manner. As witnessed by the villa designed for Hermann Babocsay, architect Aladár Árkay (1868 – 1932) was a follower of this endevour. However, in Árkay's later work, Orientalism became veiled. For the competition of the Buda Synagogue in 1912, the connection of the dome crowning the building with the body supporting it refers to the courtyard building of the Ahmed Ibn Tulun Mosque in Cairo. But in the Calvinist Church in Városligeti (Park) Avenue in Budapest, the main mass of the edifice hides the dome recalling early Islamic architecture. Here the connection between the central space and the dome is less organic, as it lacks pendentives. This peculiarity of the early domed Islamic buildings, and the squinches in particular, correspond with the worldview of Islam. Unlike Christianity, there is no such representative hierarchy neither in Islam, nor in the organization of mosques.