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 theHungarianlanguageand folk music, the appearance of the Turanianidea, and the specific interpretation of the Russo-Turkish Warin Hungary.Artistictendencies permeating from Western and Central European countries fostered interests for thingsdeemedoriental. Orientalismfirstappears inthearchitectureof historic Hungaryin the frameworkof 19th centuryromantic historicism. Ödön Lechneraimed atcreatingHungarian national architecture, of which orientalism was an important constituentvis-à-vis traditional Western historicism.One of the means of showingthe Eastern origin of the Hungarians wasaccentuated byusing oriental formsin 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 becameveiled.For the competition of the Buda Synagogue in1912, the connection of the dome crowning the building with the body supporting it refers tothe courtyardbuildingof the Ahmed Ibn Tulun Mosque in Cairo. But in the CalvinistChurch in Városligeti(Park)Avenuein Budapest,the main massof the edificehides the domerecallingearly Islamic architecture.Here the connection between the central spaceand the dome isless organic, as it lacks pendentives. This peculiarity of theearlydomedIslamic buildings,andthe squinches in particular,correspond with the worldview of Islam.Unlike Christianity, there is no such representative hierarchyneitherin Islam,nor in the organizationof mosques.