Hungarians Abroad: Max Herz, an Architect in Cairo

photo by Zoltan Horvath.

While Budapest and Hungary are known for their spectacular breadth of architectural styles and ambitious, ornate buildings, it’s important to note that great feats have been accomplished abroad as well. We are thinking of late Max Herz, a Jewish Hungarian who settled in Cairo, Egypt, and before the outbreak of WWI was instrumental in renovating and preserving any number of Egyptian landmarks and monuments.

Born Miksa Herz in Ottlaka Hungary (now Romania), in 1856 to a poor family, Herz would eventually make his way north to Budapest for university, and study architecture at Budapest’s Technical University and Vienna’s Technical College. Like many youth, he was restless and took to travelling, first to Italy, and finally down to Egypt.

Despite his foreign nationality and his young age, Herz was invited by the head of the Ministry of Religious Affairs to stay on in Egypt and join a department that oversaw the renovation of the country’s landmark mosques, a post he would keep for 25 years, until the outbreak of World War One, when the British would oust him as ‘enemy alien.’

But in Egypt, he held significant influence and oversaw the renovation of any number of important Egyptian landmarks. According to Wikipedia, “on account of his qualification, experience, the devotion to his job, his capacity for work and last but not least his position, Herz played a decisive role in the Comité, which soon extended the sphere of its activities to monuments of Coptic architecture too. (The preservation of monuments of ancient Egyptian [pharaonic] architecture was the task of a different government agency.) Max Herz filled this post for a quarter of a century (1890–1914), and in this capacity he played an outstanding role in the preservation of monuments of Arab-Islamic and Coptic architecture.”

Such examples include:

The Fatimid gate of Bab Zuwayla with the twin minarets of the adjoining mosque of Sultan al-Muayyad Shaykh. Via Wiki Commons

The Aqmar Masque, via Wikipedia Commons.

The interior of Sultan Qalaun's mausoleum after restoration. Via Wikipedia Commons

Sultan Qayitbay's funerary mosque after restoration. Via Wikipedia Commons

Pulpit in Sultan Barquq's mosque, renovated by Max Herz. Via Wikipedia Commons.

While Herz never returned to Hungary to live, he considered himself a patriot until his death in Switzerland in 1919. As his wife wrote upon his death, "Looking death straight in the face with noble calmness of mind, he remained to his last breath a caring husband, a tender father to his daughters, and a true son – consumed by sorrow and grief – of his dearly beloved Hungarian fatherland.” This did of course refer to the war, which not only ousted him from Egypt, but kept him from returning to his beloved Hungary.

His hard work and expertise live on in Egypt, and have been viewed by countless locals and tourists. At one point the Hungarian government made efforts to elevate Herz’s status to that of royalty, but that too was halted by the war. His modest grave is in Milan, Italy, with his family.

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