The Hungarian post office has issued two more stamps in its nearly decade-long series of stamps portraying Synagogues in Hungary. They show the arks/interiors of the synagogues in Győr and Pécs and were designed by the graphic artist Péter Nagy. They went on sale in September.
This is how the Hungarian Post Office web site describes the Győr synagogue, a domed building that also includes a school, designed by Károly Benkó and opened in 1869-70.
The building is one of the very first examples and a fundamental work of the neolog movement. The temple built in the spirit of late historicism and the Secession for a long time served as a model for the construction of synagogues in other towns and deservedly became the archetype of large capacity synagogues in an urban environment.
The Torah ark with blue columns and an elongated dome is situated on the eastern side of the interior. The section where women pray is on seven sides of the octagonal space on two floors. The internal decoration of the synagogue is typified by historicising patterns fashionable at the time of its construction. However, the structure of the building follows the modern iron-based method of the second half of the 19th century.
In 1927 a so-called winter temple was added to the building, which has stood empty in part since 1960. The school wing housed the Academy of Music, and the house of prayer continues to function there. The synagogue was acquired by the state in 1968 and by the municipality in 1993. Later, it underwent full renovation, which was completed in 2006.
The synagogue in Pécs was consecrated in 1869 and expanded in 1905. It was designed by Frigyes Feszl, Károly Gerster and Lipót Kauser.
The most prominent feature of the facade is the ornamented clock in the semicircular tympanum, and the large decorative windows and the small onion-shaped domes on the corners of the synagogue define the building’s character. The rich ornamentation of the space for worship, which is dominated by blue, brown and red colours, is derived from the same source, thus having a single effect. Seating for men is in wooden pews, while women are accommodated in galleries with carved wooden balustrades on two floors supported by thin columns on each side.
The interior space of the synagogue divided in three retains its original form and endeavours were made to ensure the preservation of such historic values during renovation works. The synagogue also houses an organ, which is a monument of industrial history, as it was the first organ of the Pécs Angster Organ Manufactory that used to enjoy high repute.
The new stamps, which went on sale in September, represent the fifth edition of the synagogues series — which the Post Office began issuing in 2008.
Other stamps in the series show the arks of the New Synagogue in Szeged — the masterpiece of architect Lipot Baumhorn — and the Rabbinical Seminary in Budapest, as well as the synagogues in Nagykőrös, Szolnok (also by Baumhorn), Baja, Kiskunhalas, Miskolc, and Mád.
Access the Hungarian Post Office web site