Bela Lajta, Zsolnay Tiles, and an Amazing Surprise in a Walk in Budapest

Walking in Louisville is exercise made more enjoyable by talking to friends.  Walking in Budapest is looking: examining, admiring, assessing, photographing.  Sometimes it is re-seeing the familiar, and sometimes it is seeing something entirely new.

Bela Lajta is one of the most imaginative Hungarian architects of the early 20th century.  A student of Lechner, he quickly moved in new directions.  I have blogged about him before:  The School for the Blind with its amazing fence; the Vocational School with its engraved tiles.

Yesterday, Tony and I discovered a storefront Lajta had built for an existing historicist building on Szent Istvan ter.  I had known about it but never seen it because it had been boarded up.  But now it appears to have been restored.  And it's gorgeous.

Below is a period photo of what the storefront had originally looked like and what it looks like now.

The name has changed, but the decorative details remain.  Many are inspired by Transylvanian folk motifs. 

First the beautiful eosin Zsolnay tile work, featuring peacocks and their feathers.

 

The curving shape of fish.

And the metal work, picking up the peacock images.

(And here is a glimpse of the rest of the building--a tiny bit of Hungarian Secession, in a very Historicist building.)

#LajtaBela

#HechtStorefront

#Zsolnay

#Peacocks