The Blue Church of St. Elizabeth

Ödön Lechner

1913

Drawing of courtyard surrounded by low buildings.

The Church of St. Elizabeth, located in Bratislava (today in Slovakia), was designed by Ödön Lechner in the Hungarian Secession (art nouveau) style. It is called the Blue Church because of its blue majolica tiles, its roof, and the color of its façade, although originally the latter was painted in a paler pastel color. Its clock tower is cylindrical in shape, unusual for Slovakian Roman Catholic churches.

Credits

Ian G. Dagnall / Alamy Stock Photo.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.

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Creator Bio

Ödön Lechner

1845–1914

Born Eugen Jenö Károly in Pest, Hungary, Ödön Lechner had early access to the building trade because his grandparents were brick manufacturers. Completing his architecture degree at the Berlin Bauakadamie, Lechner returned in 1878 to Budapest, where he designed buildings in a style that combined classicist and Hungarian folk-art sensibilities, including Budapest’s Drechsler Palace (1884), the Geological Institute Building (1899), and the Hungarian State Treasury (1901). Lechner is best known for his Jugendstil buildings with steel structural supports and Zsolnay terra-cotta that broke free from Gothic, Renaissance, and classicist styles, making his Museum of Applied Arts (1896) an internationally acclaimed building. His expansive portfolio of art-nouveau buildings has earned him the title of the “Hungarian Gaudi.”

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