Goldschmidt Palace

Name of the building Goldschmidt Palace
Current name same
Town, location 4 Tábor Street, Szeged
GPS coordinates N 46° 15′ 17.97″, E 20° 8′ 40.61″
Date of construction 1905
Stylistical characteristics Formerly Art Nouveau

Architect

Builder

Ede Magyar (1877– 1912)

Goldschmidt family
Monument classification Under local protection.

The original function of the building

Changes

The Goldschmidt Palace was originally a two-storey building where upstairs, there were middle-class apartments and downstairs, shops to the street. It was Szeged’s one of the most characteristic Art Nouveau buildings. Only the gateway has been saved in its original state which today is one of the most valuable monuments of the city surviving from the Art Nouveau period. In 1959, the building was extended by building an additional storey on it, increasing its mass. The Art Nouveau ornaments of its facades, roofing and balconies were removed. The large middle-class apartments were transformed into smaller flats. Today, the building does not any longer remind us of one of the most splendid Art Nouveau attractions of Szeged.
Description and qualities of the building
Today nobody would think that this undistinctive and characterless apartment house once was one of the most remarkable buildings of the Szeged Art Nouveau. At the end of the 1950s its facade was stripped of its fine ornaments. The original state cannot be replaced anymore because of the additional storey. Only the archive photos may be able to recall what a treasure, an urbanistically significant architectural attraction was lost forever. In the gateway, the stucco decorations have remained unchanged, enchanting us with an exceptionally rich, truly Art Nouveau world. The gate recalling the original state is a joiner’s masterpiece in itself. We can find delightful dancers on the wall surfaces architecturally divided and framed by capriciously coiling strip decorations, ornamental foliages and braids. Such a splendid unity of style and grandiose elegance used to dominate the spectacle of the street facades for almost half a century.
References

Nagy Zoltán, A szecessziós építészet Szegeden, Szeged története 3/1, Szeged, 1991.

Bakonyi Tibor, Magyar Ede, Bp., 1989

Csongrád megye építészeti emlékei, Szeged, 2000, Tóth Ferenc (szerk.),

(O. Csegezi Mónika szócikke)

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