Baroque Architecture - Hungary and Romania

Hungary and Romania

In the Kingdom of Hungary, the first great Baroque building was the Jesuit Church of Trnava built by Pietro Spozzo in 1629–37, modelling the Church of the Gesu in Rome. Jesuits were the main propagators of the new style with their churches in Győr (1634–1641), (1671–1684), Eger (1731–1733) and Székesfehérvár (1745–1751). The reconstruction of the territories devastated by the Ottomans was carried out in Baroque style in 18th century. Intact Baroque townscapes can be found in Győr, Székesfehérvár, Eger, Veszprém, Esztergom and the Castle District of Buda. The most important Baroque palaces in Hungary were the Royal Palace in Buda, Grassalkovich Castle in Gödöllő, and Esterházy Castle in Fertőd. Smaller Baroque castles of the Hungarian aristocracy are scattered all over the country. Hungarian Baroque shows the double influence of Austrian and Italian artistic tendencies as many German and Italian architects worked in the country. The main characteristics of the local version of the style were modesty, lack of excessive decoration, and some "rural" flavour, especially in the works of the local masters. Important architects of the Hungarian Baroque were András Mayerhoffer, Ignác Oraschek and Márton Wittwer. Franz Anton Pilgram also worked in the Kingdom of Hungary, for example on the great Premonstratensian monastery of Jászó. In the last decades of the 18th century Neo-Classical tendencies became dominant. The two most important architects of that period were Menyhért Hefele and Jakab Fellner.

Some representative Baroque structures in Transylvania (Romania) are the Bánffy Palace in Cluj, the Brukenthal Palace in Sibiu and the Bishopric Palace in Oradea. Besides, almost every Transylvanian town has at least a Baroque church, the most representatives of which being St. George's Cathedral of Timişoara, Saint John the Baptist Church of Târgu Mureş, the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Blaj and the Piarist Church of Cluj.