Bertalan, son of architect Aladár Árkay, studied at Budapest Technical University until 1925 and subsequently worked under his father as well as in the Vienna offices of Peter Behrens.
[1] He and his father together designed the Roman Catholic memorial church at Mohács which was begun in 1926 and funded by donations.
Árkay finished work on the Városmajori Roman Catholic Church in Budapest from 1932 to 1933, after his father's death.
The building, with its concrete structure and separate belltower, was the city's first modern church.
He worked on housing in the VIII district on the south side of Köztársaság tér (1933–34).