Stop 9 · Buildings Walk
Reök Palace
Tisza Lajos körút · 1907 · now REÖK
A water engineer built it, it looks like a lakeside relief, and the family's prim ladies had the water nymphs scraped off.
Water engineer Iván Reök had it built to plans by Ede Magyar. The plans were submitted in July 1906, and it was finished by November 1907, in barely a year and a half.
Hungarian Art Nouveau: water plants and flowers on the undulating facade, and lilies everywhere in the stairwell. According to the building's history, the facade is like a lakeside relief.
Reök planned it so that each of his two sons got a bachelor flat and his daughters larger flats, on every floor.
Two horse heads on the roof refer to the owner's horse-breeding hobby, and a bird on the corner to the old Fekete Sas (Black Eagle) street. Under the cornice there were water nymphs too, but the more conservative ladies of the family soon had them scraped off.
Ede Magyar died in 1912, aged 35. In the 1970s the Szeged architect Tibor Bakonyi “rediscovered” the house, and since August 2007 it has housed the REÖK arts centre.
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- True1907, designed by Ede Magyar for water engineer Iván Reök.
- TrueThe family's ladies had the water nymphs scraped off.
- TrueHome to the REÖK arts centre since 2007.
People say
The story goes that the facade of the Reök-palota was originally decorated with water nymphs too, but this was too much for the more conservative members of the family, so they had them scraped off.
Where it was said: Egy darabka Párizs a Tisza partján (Turista Magazin)