Twin exhibitions on the work of Lipot Baumhorn, pre-WW2 Europe’s most prolific synagogue architect, are currently running in Szeged, Hungary and Novi Sad, Serbia — mounted in two of his most imposing synagogues, not far across the border from each other.
The exhibitions — which run April 3 – May 30 in Szeged and April 4- June 7 in Novi Sad — are presented under the joint title “Architecture of Devotion – The Buildings of Lipót Baumhorn in Novi Sad and Szeged” and are part of a series of exhibitions that have marked the 160th anniversary of Baumhorn’s birth in 1860 (and now, the 90th anniversary of his death in 1932).
Exhibitions in the series have already been mounted in Murska Sobota, Slovenia (where the synagogue designed by Baumhorn was demolished in the 1950s), in Budapest, at the Páva utca Synagogue designed by Baumhorn and now part of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Timisoara, Romania (where a Baumhorn synagogue has long stood in disrepair) and in Kisber, Hungary, Baumhorn’s home town.
Organized by the Hungarian Museum of Architecture and Monument Protection Documentation Center in cooperation with the Jewish Communities of Szeged and Novi Sad, the exhibitions feature rare archival material, such as construction plans and other documents, along with new images of Baumhorn’s buildings by the photographer Krisztina Bélavári.
In Szeged, the exhibit focuses on the architectural plans for the grandiose New Synagogue, Baumhorn’s masterpiece, which was inaugurated in 1903.
The long-lost blueprints and other documentation were discovered in 2018 in the Szeged Jewish Community archives.
In addition to the construction plans and documents on the building dating from time of its construction, the exhibit displays sacred textiles made for the inauguration of the synagogue, including the richly embroidered silk Torah Ark curtain (parochet) and the Torah mantel — which the Jewish Community of Szeged has had restored.
In Novi Sad, the the exhibit presents material on the synagogues he designed — focusing on that in Novi Sad and on the destroyed Baumhorn synagogue Zrenjanin, and also examples of his secular architectural work.
We have written much about Baumhorn on this web site.
As we have noted before he designed or renovated around two dozen synagogues in what were once Hungarian lands and now form parts of Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, and Romania as well as Hungary. They include four in Budapest.
The exhibitions are open to visitors:
3 April 2022 and 30 May 2022 at the Szeged New Synagogue (Jósika utca 10.) and
4 April 2022 and 7 June 2022 at the Novi Sad Synagogue (9 Jevrejska street).
Curators: Dr. Ágnes Ivett Oszkó, art historian of the Hungarian Museum of Architecture and Monument Protection Documentation Center, Dr. Dóra Pataricza, historian, director of the restoration project for the Jewish Community of Szeged and Dr. Olga Ungar, historian and art historian, Tikun, Novi Sad