Frumoasa Timisoara

This is my last Romanian post; tomorrow we sadly head home. Thanks to everyone--especially our Romanian friends from Timisoara, Sibiu, and Bucharest--for making these 5 months so terrific.

My little corner of the world

Souvenirs and keepsakes that are lined up on my dresser--all reminding me of the wonderful places I have seen in these glorious five months.

Legend:

The Back Row (from left to right):

Picture of my mother(on one of her great adventures in Greece).

Blue and white wooden egg cup from Sibiu Village Museum.

White ashtray from the Meridien in Budapest (it says "To cease smoking is the easiet thing I ever did. I ought to know. I've done it a thousand times." Mark Twain. A most apt European souvenir). Sitting in the ashtray is a kind of Easter egg bought in the Timisoara Easter Market and two little black marbles from a Krakow restaurant).

A little wooden jewelry box, also bought in the Timisoara Easter Market.

A mug showing an old version of the Penguin fiction series (this one is Persuasion), bought in London.

In front of the picture:

A little stone that says "Home" bought at Edenside Gallery in Louisville,

A little pottery colander, bought at the Village Museum in Sibiu,

A little glass decorated box bought in Ravenna.

In front of the eggcup:

Terracotta figure of a cherub, bought in Venice,

A little handpainted bowl from Budapest.

In front of the ashtray:

Charles Rennie Mackintosh (seccesionist!) reproduction box from Edinburgh,

A colored tile bought in the Budapest Easter Market.

In front of the jewelry box:

A shard from the Fabric Synagogue in Timisoara, found in the street,

Painted box from the Timisoara Easter Market.

Pictures from a train

Pictures taken from the train between Timisoara and Sibiu. Truly the Beautiful Romania.

(PS I couldn't have done these without my wonderful Nikon 18-200 VR lens.)

(Part of) What I Did on My Sabbatical

Read a lot of books! (Starting to assemble stuff and sort out what--mostly--stays and what goes.)

Birthday Highs

We had dinner on the 15th at a rooftop restaurant in Timisoara called Aquarium.

From which we could watch the sun set over Timisoara.

Tomorrow we're off to Sibiu for a last visit. Starting our series of sad good-byes.

Hives

When we were in Budapest, we visited Odon Lechner's Postal Savings Bank. It's decorated by (among other fanciful creatures), large beehives to which ants (see below) are crawling upwards.

The hive, we read, is a symbol of the sweetness that is achieved by saving, and hence its presence signals the building is a bank.

Then we started noticing hives on buildings in Timisoara, like this one on the Banca de Scont right off Piata Unirii.

And this one on what was originally the Iosefin Savings Bank.

This is on a building in Piata Stantul Gheorge.

This figure, though, we don't get. Hives as headress. She's on a large building in Fabric that has a big boat coming out of the pediment and that seems to be a collection of apartments. I would love to know what her iconography means. I also wish I knew how to "read" the other images I see so often on these Timisoara buildings --how many are fanciful and how many signal something about how the building was to be used or understood as a civic space.

Casa cu Pauni: FTB 4

The Case cu Pauni (Peacock House) is the first building I saw in Timisoara that I realized was something special. I had found it via the Blue Guide (during my first real walk), where I read that it was designed by Martin Gemienhardt, one of Timisoara's leading Seccesionist architects.

It wasn't until my next visit, that I realized that there are actually two Peacock Houses, both in the Piata Plevnei.

I kept coming back to these buildings and discovering how alive they are.

Images of animals and birds and plants everywhere.

Even here (under the cornice), where you can hardly see it, unless you look.

Even the door has these organic, curvy, peacock-looking lines.

I figured I would find out all about Martin Gemeinhardt, but even after extensive (mainly internet) searches, I have discovered almost nothing at all, except that 1) he signed these buildings; 2) he designed another building (kind of Gothic revival but also with lots of organic details) on what is now Blvd 16 Decembrie 1989; 3) that he has some connection with the Anchor House in Iosefin; 4) and that he and his father belonged to a music society in Timisoara.

Back to the beginning

Though it will be another two and a half weeks til we return to the US, the trip to Britain felt like the last great arc of this glorious Fulbright adventure. And that reminded me that I never wrote about its complement--the first great trip to Italy. These are some images from a 10 day visit to Bologna, Ravenna, Ferrara, and Venice in January, before the Fulbright began.

This is Bologna. One of the many arcades that connect the city. This one has 666 arches and leads to a shrine right outside the city.

These are the mosaics from Ravenna, something that after I read Yeats, I really wanted to see.

"Oh sages standing in god's holy fire."

"An enamelled bird to keep a drowsy emperor awake."

Also the city of Dante at the end of his life.

The images that follow are, of course, of Venice.

A city still filled with ordinary life.

As well as the extraordinary,

like San Marco in Acqua Alta.

But when the sun comes out,

The city shines like the jewel it is.

Back from Britain

Just back from a visit to Great Britain. Birmingham (giving papers at the Narrative Conference), Edinburgh, then London. Birmingham and London were both (in different ways) demanding. Birmingham because of the Conference, and London because we arrived just in time for a 48 hour tube strike. And while we really enjoyed being in both cities, the highlight was Edinburgh. Actually, we LOVED Edinburgh. It stunned us with its combination of unexpected grandeur and alluring Scottish coziness. Grand vistas, perpindicular streetscapes, lovely little pubs. We had the best food of the trip there, both traditionally Scottish (Tony had "haggis, tatties, and neeps," which is haggis--don't ask--mashed potatoes and mashed turnips; it was a lot better than it sounds), and fresh-British classics (sweet pea soup with mint, lamb with new roast potatoes currant mint jelly, strawberries and cream). Yum. We loved it all so much, we have decided that our next vacation will be driving around Scotland. (We have visions of a tartan rug, a hamper, and picnics in the heather!) Here's a bit of why we loved Edinburgh so much.

The Scott Monument.

Ascending the Scott Monument.

Edinburgh roofs.

The Royal Mile.

Tons of (historicist) Gothic facades.

We had a terrific time!

Oradea 3: The Black Eagle

When we were in Oradea, we stayed at the Black Eagle, a commercial center in the main square. It was designed by Komor and Jakab and was, according to Frederic Bedoire and Robert Tanner, "the most extensive effort to give Nagyvarad [Oradea] the appearance of a big city, with an elegant glazed arcade, inspired by the Gresham in Budapest." They also argue that its size and color made it the "riposte of Jewish enterprise to the three Christian churches which until then had dominated the [main square]."

The Black Eagle has recently been restored, though the arcade doesn't seem to be very busy.

From the only stained glass window that survived.


The hotel bursts with all kinds of intricate details. (This one is actually the top of a gutter).




(Tony said it felt a little like staying in a cupcake, but that's another story.)



.
It was an extraordinary experience, after seeing all those buildings, to be able to stay in one.



Komor and Jakab also designed two houses for Emil Adorjan, the Jewish entrepreneur who commissioned and financed the Black Eagle. Bedoire and Tanner use Oradea as one of their examples of the "New Jersusalem," and explain how the identity of Oradea's Jewish community was manifested as much, if not more, in the civic landscape of the city as it was in synagogues.

According to Bedoire and Tanner, Adorjan was "a man of about thirty, entrepreneur as well as intellectual, in close touch with the financial world and with the radical writers in the city, and a great collector of books."

Like Komor, Adjoran died in the Holocaust. Oradea became, next to Budapest, Hungary's largest ghetto; of the 27,000 Jews deported in 1944, Adjoran was the first to go.

Oradea 2: Darvas La Roche House

But in the midst of all this rather ornate secessionist bravura, we discovered this gorgeous little modernist house. It was built 1910-1911 by Jozsef and Laszlo Vago, two brothers who were natives of the city and who were inspired by the undecorated architecture of Vienna.

Darvas La Roche was a Jewish banker, who had migrated from Switzerland. The interiors, which we weren't able to see, are also supposed to be very striking.

The outside is studded with these little ceramic spheres (each one is different), which recall rivets.