Löffler Béla (Budapest. 1880 – ?) and Löffler Samu Sándor (Budapest, 1877 – ?)

 Artist

Löffler Béla (Budapest. 1880 – ?) and Löffler Samu Sándor (Budapest, 1877 – ?)

 Co-Worker

Spiegel Frigyes

 Year 

Löffler Béla (Budapest. 1880 – ?) and Löffler Samu Sándor (Budapest, 1877 – ?)

 Location/Map

 Style

Of these two brothers, Bela was the most experienced. He graduated at Felső Építőipariskolát. Between 1897 and 1899 he worked jointly with Spiegel Frigyes and with Bela Lajta. He traveled throughout Europe with his brother Sandor, and he kept in touch with different architectural traditions. Returned in Hungary in 1906, he worked with the brother and with Spiegel , also in furniture design. After the First war he planned several apartements houses. In 1923, he designed the synagogue in Antwerp and then won the 1925 application to the Nationa Theatre in Jerusalem.

The Löffler apartment house lacks the Gödöll -inspired decorative elements. Dark colored austere construction, with essentialand geometrical lines, closer to the theoretical directions of an architect such as the AustrianAdolf Loos. Details, such as flower pot, well visible in the facade, are designed with geometric lines in a sort of checker board, following so much the Austrian secession taste, that
really it seems a typical production of the Wiener Werkstaetter, close to the ones designed by Josef Hofmann. On the Loffler building’s facade are often present human figures. Here the
sculpture style is, if possible, even more essential and absolutely in disregard respect to every
proportions directives: the spectator can feel immediately this lacks of proportions just looking
at the oversize heads of the figures. Animals are also present in those scenes, members of fantastic species, mythological animals, which seems
to directly come out of artist’s own dreams or incubuses. The spectator himself can feel the
inquietude of these human figure’s sights, at the same time, inexpressive and sinister as in a
work by Alfred Kubin. The Löffler’s symbolism is so obscure, and even difficult to translate into
meaningful images that constitutes a sort of intricate hermetism , similar to several works by
the German painter Franz von Stuck.

 Pictures

 References