It's been a busy week!

Last week was unusually busy. First, we had vistors from Louisville. Then we had the British and American Studies Conference at Timisoara. Then we did an overnight in Oradea (the last stop on the Romanian Architecture Tour). And yesterday, I did a presentation on the writing process at the Polytechnic University and was taken (along with Tony; see above) to a very extravagant lunch.

On Wednesday, we are going to England for 10 days, but I will try to do a couple of blogs before we leave.

In the meantime, note to (one) faithful fan: Thanks for missing me!

Arad 2

Lots of unexpected and gorgeous details.

Arad 1

Somewhere in all this, I also went to Arad. I hopped on the train and spent about six (hot but wonderful) hours walking around the city. Arad has lots of really grand architecture (much grander and more ornate than Timisoara), but I most enjoyed finding houses with unexpected details.

Like this one that has green carvings growing all over its facade.

If I'm reading this right, this is first stage Secession (the organic, curvilinear style).

And this one is second stage (straight lines and geometrical forms).

Great colors

Synagogue in Fabric FTB 3

This is the Synagogue in Fabric, one of the most beautiful (of the many extraordinarily beautiful) buildings in Timisoara. It was completed in 1899 and was designed by Lipot Baumhorn, a noted architect of synagogues (and other buildings) from Budapest. (There is a very moving description by the travel writer Ruth Ellen Gruber about uncovering his grave in Budapest: when she found the gravestone, she discovered it recorded a list of the synagogues he had designed, as well as a bas relief of his masterpiece in Szeged.) Though the synagogue is now hard to see, it originally faced a small canal and must have been beautifully situated. (This area of Timisoara was apparently a "little Venice," with many small canals, all of which have since been filled.)

It is a beautifully detailed "moorish" building. But I wasn't even sure it was the Synagogue until I found the lettering over one of the doors.

It is now sadly in very bad decay, one of the most endangered buildings in Timisoara. The wood is rotting and it's covered in fungus. No entry at all.

The facade is falling off (you can pick up shards from the ground below).

But the intricacies of its design are still apparent.

East-West Passages and Fulbright Conference

We just got back from Sibiu, where we attended the East-West Passages Conference, co-sponsored by the C. Peter McGrath Center for Romanian-American Interactions at Lucian Blaga University and the Romanian-US Fulbright Commission. Almost all of the Fulbright visitors to Romania were there.

We all stayed in the lovely little village, Rasinari.

Where we had dinner in a beautiful garden.

An outing to Cisnadie, a fortified chuch from which one sees this lovely view.

2008-2009 Fulbright Group

Images fom the buildings on Blvd. 3 August 1919

Entering Fabric, one of the expansion "towns," you walk down a grand boulevard, lined on one side by the beautiful and historic "People's Park," and on the other by "palaces" or large apartment buildings. The buildings date from around the turn of the century, and their style is described as "eclectic." Each of the buildings has its own characteristic ornamentation, and as you proceed you discover these intricate and surprising images:



A face growing out of a column on No. 3.

A parade of "muses" on No. 5

And, strangest of all, a boat on No. 7. (This one is described somewhere as having been built by Miksa Steiner, 1907 and as "similar to the later Hungarian Naval Administration building in Budapest." Of course, as an explanation, this perhaps raises more questions than it answers. . . . )

Starting to think about what this means

When we were first in Romania 7 years ago, we visited the painted monasteries in Bucovina. Although everyone had told us how beautiful they were, we were nonetheless unprepared for what they offered. They were perhaps the most unexpectedly rich sights we saw in Romania, and visiting them one of the most memorable events in our lives. In a way, discovering the secessionist architecture in Transylvania (Timisoara and now Targu Mures, next week Arad and then Oradea) has been the equivalent on this trip.

Why do these buildings have so much power for me? I am working my way through this question, and here is what I have come up with so far. First, they are constantly different in their intricacies and meaning. Second, I have had to learn about them by looking (rather than my usual way, by scholarship). Third, I enjoy the kind of intellectual quest that trying to find out about them has posed for me (mainly, until I can get to a libaray, hunting down clues online). And fourth, there is something about this kind of aesthetic that I respond to. (Why I respond is another question altogether. . . )

In particular, I love the Palace of Culture in Targu Mures. I love the simplicity of exterior and the complexities of the interior. I love the way the windows refer to specific details of Romanian life. I love that I have built (almost on my own) a framework for looking at such a building. And I love the fact that I can trace the architects' work. Finally, I find it extraordinarily poignant that Komor died in the Holocaust, and that here I am, over 50 years later, discovering him through his work.

Excursus: What makes a hotel quirky?

Brief explanation for my (one) faithful fan, who asked me what made the Hotel Concordia "quirky?"

The hotel is really lovely. It's a refurbished "palace," with huge rooms. The rooms are nicely fitted out: comfortable beds, great toiletries, complimentary robes, access to pool and sauna, etc. It's most black and white, including some odd but interesting zebra fabric, and little red touches. So let me be clear: I really liked this hotel. But it also has some "quirky" touches, including the life-sized picture of a woman holding a duster, placed exactly so that she appears to be watching whatever is going on in bed:

Targu Mures: Palace of Culture Stained Glass Windows 2

The most beautiful windows of all, I think, are a four three-part windows, based on folk ballads. They were painted/planned by Sandor Nagy. These are details from the center window of the set narrating the ballad of Kadar Kata (The Two Zion Flower). According to the guide book "This ballad is the tragedy of the forbidden marriage by the feudal-social differences. The lovers find each other in death." These images below are from the window in which the girl is "thrown into the bottomless lake."

Targu Mures: Palace of Culture Stained Glass Windows 1

But the crowning glories of the building are the stained glass windows on the first (for us Americans second) floor in the Hall of Mirrors. One set of windows is inspired by Szekler folk legends. These were made from Thorocozkai-Wigand's paintings and reflect, according to the guide we bought at the museum, "the Szekler's material-social and spiritual ethnography, architectural styles, housing family life, important works." The windows were made in Miksa Roth's workshop in Budapest (1913).


This one is called Csaba's Cradle.

I love the stars coming in the window while the mother and the baby dream.

And these jugs, which I have seen still hanging in many Romanian homes.

Targu Mures: Palace of Culture Interior Ground Floor

Main Hall, painted by Aladar Korosfoy-Kriesch, one of the founders of the Godolo artists' colony, and his students. It's dark and very grand. You enter on this floor to the theater. When we were there, we heard the orchestra rehearing for its next concert.

Targu Mures: Palace of Culture Exterior

This is the exterior of the Palace of Culture, also designed by Komor and Jakab (1910-1911). It includes a theater, museums, conference hall---bringing together all the cultural activities of the city. It's an example of Gesamtkuswerk (a total, synthesizing work of art). The exterior facade is decorated with mosaics that illustrate Szekler legends. They were made by Sandor Nagy and Miksa Roth (we saw Roth's mosaic on the Turkish Bank our last visit to Hungary).



From the main facade.

A window from the secondary facade.

Details of the mosaics.

From the top frieze: (sexy) muses.

A detail of the balcony.

All of this (and more) building was because of a very active major, Gyorgy Bernady.

Targu Mures: County Council Building

This was the City Hall in of Marosvásárhely (now the County Council Building of Mures in Targu Mures). The bell tower is supposed to be a reference to the Pallazzo Publico in Sienna, an "archetype for nineteenth-century city halls" (Stefanut). But the polychrome ceramics are inspired by Szekler embroidery.

It was designed and built by Marcell Komor and Dezso Jakab (1907-1908).

The details are gorgeous.

The polychrome roof.

From the ceiling of the Hall of Honor.

The tiled interior.