Lajta Béla a dolgozóasztalánál cropped (Vasárnapi Ujság, 1911)

Béla Lajta (until 1907 Béla Leitersdorfer) (

Óbuda Óbuda was a town in Hungary that was merged with Buda and Pest on 17 November 1873; it now forms part of District III-Óbuda-Békásmegyer of Budapest. The name means ''Old Buda'' in Hungarian (in German, ''Alt-Ofen''). The name in Bosnian, ...

, 23 January 1873 –

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, 12 October 1920) was a prominent Hungarian architect.

Career

Lajta finished his degree at the

Budapest Technical University The Budapest University of Technology and Economics ( hu, Budapesti Műszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem or in short ), official abbreviation BME, is the most significant university of technology in Hungary and is considered the world's oldes ...

and worked briefly under

Alajos Hauszmann Alajos Hauszmann (also called as ''Alois'', June 9, 1847 – July 31, 1926) was a Hungarian architect, professor, and member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Life Hauszmann was born in Buda in 1847 into a family of Bavarian origin as ...

before spending one and a half years in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, mainly

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. During that time, he also worked in painting and sculpture. After this he worked in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

and

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. He returned home in 1899 to take part in a competition to design a

synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of wor ...

which he won first prize in. His first work in 1900 was the Bard music shop on Kossuth Lajos street, finished in 1900.

Ödön Lechner Ödön Lechner (born Eugen Lechner, 27 August 1845 – 10 June 1914) was a Hungarian architect, one of the prime representatives of the Hungarian Szecesszió style, which was related to Art Nouveau in the rest of Europe, including the Vienna ...

was a notable influence on him at this time. They worked together on a number of projects, namely the

Kozma Street Cemetery The Kozma Street Cemetery is the biggest Jewish cemetery of Budapest, Hungary. It is located next to the New Public Cemetery (Újköztemető). Jewish cemetery The Jewish cemetery, one of the largest in Europe, is well known for its unusua ...

's Schmidl crypt. He designed a number of buildings in the Hungarian offshoot style of

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

, called ''szecesszió'' in Hungarian, the most notable being Rózsavölgyi house in Budapest on Szervita square. In 1909 he designed, in an

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

style the Parisiana, Paulay Ede utca, Budapest, now New Theatre (''Új színház''). After a serious illness he died at a comparatively young age.

External links

Béla Lajta Virtual Archives
1873 births 1920 deaths Hungarian architects Hungarian Jews Jewish architects People from Óbuda {{Jewish-bio-stub