Since 2020 marks the 160th anniversary of Lipót Baumhorn's birth, we would like to commemorate his work with a series of posts. During this year we will introduce his synagogues and most famous residential and commercial buildings. We have already wrote about his first synagogue in Esztergom, now let’s see the others:

This magnificent building, erected in Rijeka during a great period of urban growth and a historical testimony of the Jewish religious community in Rijeka and the enormous financial sacrifices invested into the construction of this temple, was ruthlessly mined by the Nazi occupiers on 25 January 1944.

In the beginning of the 20th century, an organized Jewish community was already functioning in Nagybecskerek (today known as Zrenjanin, Serbia) and they maintained a synagogue and even a school by this time. The first synagogue proved to be inconvenient because of it’s small size and a new synagogue was inaugurated. This building was built in Moorish Revival and the architect was Lipót Baumhorn.

The Neolog Synagogue of Fabric District Timișoara, was built in the year 1898, by the prosperous local Jewish Community of the town quarter, which at that time declared itself as a Status Quo Ante Community. Since it was built, the Synagogue of Fabric District has always been considered one of the major architectural monuments of Timișoara. Even today when it is in a bad condition, its beauty attracts constantly the eyes of tourists and local people.

The synagogue in Szolnok was the fifth work of Lipót Baumhorn. This and the synagogues of Rijeka and Timisoara served as a preliminary study for the great work, the Szeged synagogue. Baumhorn was in charge of the design, therefore the building shows the influence of his study tours to Italy, as well as the influence of Lechner or the architectural solutions used in the German and Alsatian synagogues.

Of the twenty-two independent and several renovated, enlarged synagogues built by Lipót Baumhorn, the Synagogue of Szeged was opened in 1903 after Fiume, Nagybecskerek, Timisoara and Szolnok. These synagogues preceded the so-called Baumhorn masterpiece, the New Synagogue of Szeged.

To be continued...