Lechner, Ödön (1845 - 1914)

The architect Ödön Lechner was the leading style creator of the turn of the century. Born in Pest, he started his architectural studies there in 1865 before transferring to the Berlin Bauakademie in 1866. He went on a study tour of Italy in 1868. Upon his return, he opened an architectural practice with Gyula Pártos (1845–1916), which specialised in Budapest blocks of flats. Between 1875 and 1878, he worked in Paris. At the 1878 World’s Fair, he encountered the latest in engineering architecture and the special idioms of Indian architecture, of which, following two visits to England (1889, 1890), he was inspired to make a deeper study. He strove to create a Hungarian design idiom. He belonged to a group of intellectuals who favoured the idea of the East Persian and Sassanid roots of the Hungarian people. He probably made use of József Huszka’s collections of motifs in the ornamentation he developed from the 1890s onwards. His exterior decorations were executed in Zsolnay ceramics, the material he found most practically suitable, and the most distinctively Hungarian. The structural designs of his buildings reveal a knowledge of the most modern engineering developments. In 1902, after buildings for many public institutions had been designed with Lechner’s involvement (Kecskemét Town Hall, National Hungarian Museum of Applied Arts, Hungarian Royal Geological Institute, Budapest Post Office Savings Bank), the movement he spearheaded lost support in political circles, and he received few orders. He often worked with young architects – Marcell Komor, Jakab Dezső, Lajta Béla and Vágó József.