The architectural practice of Marcell Komor and Dezső Jakab

Marcell Komor (1868–1944) and Dezső Jakab (1864–1932) ran an architects’ office between 1897 and 1919. Immediately before that, the young and ambitious architects had worked in Lechner’s office, and they directly carried on their teacher’s formal language, successfully applying it over a wide geographical extent on several types of building (e.g. block of flats at Csengery utca 76, 1900; synagogue in Szabadka [Subotica, Serbia], 1901). The years following the turn of the century was a period of experimentation for the practice, attempts to dynamise architectural designs with artistic, sweeping outlines (e.g. the Workers’ Cultural Centre in Kecskemét, 1904). Their most mature buildings appeared after 1907, with a unity of form, function and concept, all-arts works such as the Palace of Culture in Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureş, Romania), 1911–1913, which bore the influence of the Fiatalok (“Youths”) group. The office closed at the end of the First World War, after which the architects worked on their own or with other collaborators.

by Zsófia Hutvágner