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NATIONAL SYLISTIC ASPIRATIONS
The establishing of a national style in Hungary is linked to Ödön Lechner;
however, its precedents go back to the 18" century." The idea of initiating
an architectural national style was articulated by Istvan Széchenyi in the
1830s’ and an attempt was made to put it into practice by Frigyes Feszl in
the 1860s. According to Feszl, the national style was mostly conserved in
traditional clothing thus his major piece of work, the edifice of the Vigadö
in Budapest, was adorned with the broidered bonds of the Hussar uniform
as well as by statue figures depicted in traditional Hungarian attire. Via the
flat, geometrical ornamentation of the building — that Theofil Hansen, the
Austrian architect, called “czardas sculpted in stone”- the eastern origins of
Hungarians were also referred to."
Eastern motifs in Hungarian architecture carried a deeper meaning than
in Orientalism, applied as a mode of rejuvenation in art all across Europe.
Those who professed the eastern origins of Hungarians were eager to indicate
those relations in the field of art as well. Jözsef Huszka, a teacher of art in
Transylvania, elaborated this idea through his writings by drawing a parallel
between the forms of Hungarian folk art and that of Chinese and Sassanid
motifs. The collection of folk art objects and their research appeared as a
preparation for the world exhibition in Vienna in 1873. In the ethnographical
village of the expo several Hungarian cottages and in the framework of the
national home industry the first Hungarian ethnographical collection were
exhibited.”
18 The first naive attempt is related to Johann Nepomuk Schauff’s name, who designed a
Hungarian national column order in 1790. Its ornamentations — the royal and hussar
emblems — met the ideal concept of the traditional regnum. Katalin Keserü: Az építészet és
iparművészet nemzeti keretei, in Erzsébet Király — Enikő Róka - Nóra Veszprémi (editors of
the catalogue): XIX. Nemzet és művészet. Kép és önkép, Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Galéria,
2010, 229.
Regarding the construction of the edifice of the National Academy of Sciences in the
middle of the 194 century, this was the period when the first debates were raised about
national style, in which the pioneer in national art history writing, Imre Henszlmannn,
was eager to force Gothic style on the applicants of the tender, since he considered that
period a glorious epoch of our national history. Similar approaches were decisive in the
choice of style for the building of the parliament. Mária Kemény: A Magyar Tudományos
Akadémia palotájának pályázati tervei, 1861. Katalógus és források. Budapest, MTA
Művészettörténeti Kutatóintézete, 1996; and Keserü, Katalin: Nemzeti gondolat a 19. század
magyar építészetében. Az egyetemestől a regionális stílusig, in Sub Minervae nationis
braesidio. Tanulmányok a nemzeti kultúra kérdésköréből Németh Lajos 60. születésnapjára,
Budapest, ELTE and ELTE Müvészettôrténeti Tanszék, 1989, 103-104.
Zsuzsanna Mendöl: A magyar formatôrekvések és az ornamentika problémája
építészetünkben, Építés-Építészettudomány, No. 3-4, 1979, 415.
Mónika Lackner: Az első magyar néprajzi gyűjtemény: a Magyar népi kultúra prezentációja
az 1873-as bécsi világkiállításon, in Katalin F. Dózsa (ed.): Az áttörés kora. Bécs és Budapest
a historizmus és az avantgárd között 1873-1920, Budapesti Torténeti Múzeum, Budapest,
2004, 101-104.