Timişoara Secession

Introduction

Timişoara is the third largest city in Romania and the most important city in the western part of the country. It lies on the Bega River in the southeastern corner of the Pannonian Basin and is the capital of Banat, a historical region now divided between Romania, Serbia and Hungary. It is known as Temesvár in Hungarian, Темишвар in Serbian and Temeswar in German.

The modern history of Timişoara starts in 1716, with its capture from the Ottomans by the troops led by Prince Eugene of Savoy. To prevent the city from falling back to the enemy, the Habsburgs reconstructed its fortifications in a much larger scale than what the city had in the Middle Ages and in the Ottoman period. They also put a lot of effort in colonisation, encouraging Roman Catholic peasants and craftsmen from the other parts of the Holy Roman Empire to settle in Banat. The vast majority of the new settlers were Germans, later known as the Banat Swabians. By offering them free land, financial support and a long-term tax relief, the Habsburgs hoped to revive the local economy and win the settlers’ loyalty in what was still a volatile frontier province.

Many newcomers settled in an area to the east of the Timişoara Fortress and founded factories, workshops and guilds there, turning the city into a thriving industrial center. Around the same time large-scale hydrographical projects were carried out to convert the Bega into a navigable canal, to facilitate the transportation of goods between Banat and the centres of the Empire. What followed was a remarkable economic growth that continued in the subsequent centuries. The connection of the city to the railway system of Central Europe in the second half of the 19th century gave it a further boost.

After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, Timişoara was administered as a part of the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen. Under the Hungarian rule, it experienced a fast demographic growth, with its population almost doubling in thirty years around the turn of the century. It was a multicultural city with German and Hungarian speakers forming a majority, followed by Romanians, Serbs, Jews and various other ethnic groups from the Dual Monarchy and beyond.

In the early 20th century Timişoara experienced a large-scale urban transformation, brought about by the demolition of its 18th-century fortifications. While the core of the old city in the intra muros area of the fortress was preserved, the bastions and walls were almost entirely torn down and the moats were filled. The city also got a new development plan which, following the example of Vienna, converted the inner perimeter of the former fortress into a ring road, assigned much of the land around it for new constructions, and created the main boulevard on a plot to the south of the historical nucleus of the city (originally Franz Joseph Boulevard, later King Ferdinand Boulevard, now Victory Square). The outlying districts, such as Fabric in the east, Elisabetin in the south and Iosefin in the southwest, also got an entirely new look at the time.

The buildings that were erected followed the contemporary architectural styles, especially Eclecticism and Art Nouveau.

The Art Nouveau of Timişoara is quite diverse. The first architects who followed the style typically employed only some of its features, often inspired by Vienna Secession, on Eclectic façades. One can notice the influence of older styles, most notably Gothic and Baroque, in Art Nouveau buildings in various districts of the city. In the mid-1900s the façades showed more and more curvilinear and floral motifs typical of international Art Nouveau. The Hartlauer and Nicolin palaces, designed by Martin Gemeinhardt, on Pleven Square in Elisabetin are probably the best examples of the early variant of the style.

At the end of the decade Hungarian Secession became the predominant version of Art Nouveau in Timişoara. The most important architect of the period was László Székely, the chief architect of the city, who oversaw the design aspect of the constructions spurred by the demolition of the fortress and also designed a large number of public and private buildings himself. The most notable of his works are the Emmer Palace, the Brück Palace, the Piarist High School, the Hungária Baths, and the palaces on the Corso of the Franz Joseph Boulevard.

Of the other Hungarian architects we should definitely mention Lipót Baumhorn, the celebrated synagogue architect who designed the Lloyd Palace on the Franz Joseph Boulevard and the Temes-Béga Palace in Iosefin, as well as Marcell Komor and Dezső Jakab, the architects of the Steiner Palace, which is one of the best examples of Hungarian Secession ever.

In the compilation of these portfolios, of all the sources that I used, the best was the Heritage of Timişoara website. It contains a lot of information, photos, postcards and drawings of the city’s buildings during the fin de siècle.

Sites

The below portfolios contain photos of 38 Secessionist sites in different districts of Timişoara.

Emmer Palace | Strada Florimund Mercy 7, Cetate | László Székely, 1906-1908
Káldori Palace | Strada Emanoil Ungureanu 15, Cetate | 1907
Strada Lucian Blaga 3 | 1907
Steiner Palace (Discount Bank) | Strada Gheorghe Lazăr 1, Cetate | Marcell Komor & Dezső Jakab, 1908-1909
Brück Palace | Strada Florimund Mercy 9, Cetate | László Székely, 1910-1911
Gálgon Palace | Strada Eugeniu de Savoya 9, Cetate | Henrik Telkes & Jenő Klein, 1911-1912
Hungarian General Credit Bank | Strada Coriolan Brediceanu 2, Cetate | László Székely, 1911-1912
Austro-Hungarian Bank | Bulevardul Ion C. Brătianu 1, Cetate | József Hubert, 1903-1904
Piarist High School | Bulevardul Republicii, Piața Regina Maria, Bulevardul Regele Ferdinand I & Strada Piatra Craiului, Cetate | László Székely & Alexander Baumgarten (architects), Arnold Merbl (constructor), 1908-1912
Lloyd Palace | Piața Victoriei 2, Cetate | Lipót Baumhorn (architect) & Arnold Merbl (constructor), 1910-1912
Neuhausz Palace | Piața Victoriei 4, Cetate | László Székely, 1910-1912
Merbl Palace | Piața Victoriei & Strada Dr. Nicolae Paulescu, Cetate | Arnold Merbl, 1911-1912
Dauerbach Palace | Piața Victoriei, Strada Dr. Nicolae Paulescu & Strada Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Cetate | László Székely, 1911-1913
Hilt & Vogel Palace | Piața Victoriei 6, Cetate | László Székely, 1911-1913
Széchenyi Palace | Piața Victoriei 8, Cetate | László Székely, 1911-1914
Löffler Palace | Piața Victoriei 1, Cetate | Leopold Löffler & Henrik Telkes, 1912-1913
Anheuer Palace | Bulevardul 3 August 1919 5, Fabric | Eduard Reiter, 1900-1901
Kunz Palace | Bulevardul 3 August 1919 3 & Strada Dionisie Linţia 2, Fabric | Gábor Fodor, 1902-1903
Fiatska Palace | Piața Traian 2, Fabric | Lipót Baumhorn (?), 1908-1909
Piaţa Romanilor, Bulevardul 3 August 1919 & Strada Ștefan cel Mare | László Székely, 1908-1910
Nägele Palace | Strada Dacilor 10, Fabric | Henrik Telkes, 1910-1911
Hungária Baths | Splaiul Nistrului 1, Fabric | László Székely, 1912-1914
Park Avenue Bridge | Albert Kálmán Kőrössy (architect) & Győző Mihailich (engineer), 1909
Hydroelectric power plant East end of Strada Uzinei | László Székely (architect) & Emil Szilárd (engineer), 1906-1910
Kunz Palace | Bulevardul 16 Decembrie 1989 7, Elisabetin | 1900-1901
Nicolin Palace | Strada General Henri Berthelot 4, Elisabetin | Martin Gemeinhardt, 1904; modified in 1910
Neuhausz Palace (Blau Palace) | Strada Gheorghe Doja 5, Elisabetin | 1902-1903 or 1907
Piaţa Plevnei 4
Temes-Béga Water Regulation Society | Piaţa Sfânta Maria, Bulevardul 16 Decembrie 1989 & Splaiul Tudor Vladimirescu, Iosefin | Lipót Baumhorn, 1900-1901; Arthur Tunner, 1910-1911
Savings Bank Strada | Ion Ghica 1, Iosefin | Martin Gemeinhardt, 1906
Bulevardul General Ion Dragalina 15 & 15A
Lichtfusz Palace | Bulevardul General Ion Dragalina 19, Iosefin | 1906-1907
Gemeinhardt Palace | Bulevardul General Ion Dragalina 29, Iosefin | Martin Gemeinhardt, 1911-1912
Pisică Palace | Strada Johann Nepomuk Preyer 2, Iosefin | Károly Bonn (?), 1911-1912
Brück Palace | Bulevardul Iuliu Maniu 40, Iosefin | Henrik Telkes, 1911-1912
Strada Alexandru Vlahuţă 2
Splaiul Nicolae Titulescu 19
Splaiul Nicolae Titulescu 15

Notable structures missing are the entrance gate of the former City Park (now Queen Marie Park) in Fabric, the Hartlauer Palace, the Neufeld Palace and the Besch & Piffl Palace in Elisabetin, and the Nemes Palace and the Csermák Palaces in Iosefin.