Dezső Jakab

He was born in Biharrév, Hungary (now Rév, Romania) to Ármin Jakab and Terézia Held. He graduated from the Királyi József Műegyetem (Royal Joseph University of Technology; now the Budapest University of Technology and Economics) in 1893. He then undertook study trips to Germany, Italy, France, England, the Netherlands, and Belgium. As a young architect, he gained practical experience in several architectural firms. He worked for Imre Francsek Sr., with Marcell Komor, who, despite being four years younger, had graduated two years before him. Later, Jakab worked in the offices of Korb and Pecz. He also worked for the great Ödön Lechner for a short time in the 1890s. In 1896, he transferred to the exhibition design department of the Ministry of Agriculture, where he designed several buildings for the 1896 Millennium Exhibition, celebrating 1000 years of the Hungarian monarchy.

In 1897, Jakab formed an independent firm with Marcell Komor, which they maintained until 1923, a highly successful partnership that would bring both of them international renown and develop a distinctive architectural aesthetic using the language of Szecesszió. The two won several architectural competitions for major commissions, most of which were ultimately built. Komor was the lead designer, responsible for the conception of the overall building, organization of space, and construction; while Jakab handled the interior design and minute details. They were quite prolific and versatile, designing residential buildings, both villas and collective housing; commercial structures; public buildings; houses of worship; mausoleums; exhibition pavilions; monuments; and institutional structures, throughout what was then Hungary, Austria, and Bulgaria, but now with readjusted national borders includes also locations in Serbia, Romania, and Slovakia.

Komor and Jakab's best-known works include the town halls of Subotica, Serbia (then Szabadka, Hungary; 1908–10) and Târgu Mureș, Romania (then Marosvásárhely, Hungary; 1905–07), the latter of which was complemented shortly after by the neighboring Târgu Mureș Palace of Culture (1911–13). These are very large multi-wing complexes enclosing multiple courtyards, marked by prominent bell towers and a rich array of colorful surfaces, particularly stucco ornamentation and Zsolnay tilework. Much of this ornament is composed of floral and geometric patterns that mimic those on printed or woven textiles. In Subotica, they completed the New Synagogue (1900–02), a design which they recycled from their second-prize entry to the 1899 competition for the neighboring Szeged Synagogue (won and built by Lipót Baumhorn). The multi-domed structure, designed like a tent, features prominent use of Zsolnay ceramics and stained glass with floral decor that also resembles the motifs of peacock feathers. Like its sister in Szeged, the 23-meter-high interior space, with a dome span of 12.6 meters, accommodated a large Jewish community in southern Hungary, seating up to 1600 people, 850 men on the ground floor and 550 women in the gallery, unusually supported by a modern steel structure. It is the only synagogue in Europe built in a Hungarian Szecesszió style. It was designated a national heritage site of great importance in 1974 and was elevated to national heritage site of exceptional importance 1990; in 2018, a complete restoration was finished and it is now open to the public as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Among Komor and Jakab's major commercial buildings are the Black Eagle Hotel in Oradea, Romania (then Nagyvárad, Hungary; 1906–08), which essentially consists of two asymmetrical pavilions, one topped by a prominent turret, joined by a recessed wing; and the Palace Hotel, in Budapest, still a major monument on Rákóczi út. They were commissioned to designed numerous theaters, including ones in Szentes (1897), Bratislava (then called Pozsony, 1906), Deva (1910), and Budapest (the original Erkel Theatre, 1911); and banks in Oradea (1906), Timisoara (1908), Subotica (1907), and Szolnok (1908–09). Their numerous private residential commissions included several vacation villas on the shores of Lake Palić, outside of Subotica, along with numerous other suppplementary structures, including water tower, grand terrace, women's swimming complex, and moemorial fountain. While many of these are marked by their evocations of Hungarian folk architecture, including gables roofs supported by large eaves and brackets, by the beginning of the First World War Komor and Jakab had begun to experiment with a more severe aesthetic that would parallel much modern architecture in Hungary and elsewhere in the 1920s and '30s. With Jakab's son-in-law, Aladár Sós, they designed the National Social Security Institute building on Fiumei út in Budapest in 1912–13, but delays in part caused by the war only permitted its completion in 1930, with a tower crowned by a striking floral crown that was demolished in 1967 due to its unstable bauxite concrete content. The Svábhegy Sanatorium was also a joint project with Sós, with whom he partnered increasingly during the rest of the 1920s. Jakab also participated in competitions for statues and monuments. (Budapest, Plan for the Kossuth Mausoleum, 1902, with Marcell Komor and Márk Vedres; Plan for the Kossuth Statue, 1908, with Marcell Komor and Ede Kallós).

Komor and Jakab designed Jakab's house in the fashionable second district of Budapest, in the hilly terrain on the west bank (Buda) of the Danube, at 31 Keleti Károly utca, finished in 1909. (Komor and his family lived at no. 29, next door.) Their office was also located at the same address.

Jakab wrote on architecture, though not as extensively as his partner Komor. His articles were published as "Angol kertvárosok," (in A Ház, 1909, pp. 4–5 and 81–87); "A jelenlegi modern építészetről" (in Vállalkozók Lapja, January 9, 1929, pp. 3–4; January 16, 1929, pp. 3–4); and "Die Gefolgschaft Edmund Lechners," (A Műgyűjtő, 1930, pp. 8–9 and 245–247). For his work, he won the grand gold and silver medals of the Hungarian Society of Engineers and Architects, where he gave several lectures on his study trips. Jakab also gave several lectures on his extensive European study tours at the Hungarian Association of Engineers and Architects, where he won the Grand Gold Medal and the Silver Medal for his work.