Oradea - Architecture

Architecture

Oradea's current architecture is a mix of Communist-era apartment buildings, mainly in the outer quarters, and beautiful historical buildings that are remnants of the era when the city was part of Austria-Hungary. In addition to many Baroque buildings, Oradea is remarkable for its particularly rich collection of Art Nouveau architecture.

Art Nouveau is easy to discern because of its curved, undulating lines « flowing » naturally, in syncopate rhythms, as a musical leitmotif. The numerous open curved lines – parabolas and hyperbolas – important elements of Art Nouveau “panoply”, give dynamism and rhythm to these buildings and artefacts.

It is fully expressed in decorative arts, design and architecture. The main ornamental characteristic is the asymmetric undulating line, terminated by an energetic whiplash.

Oradea may be considered one of the most representative centres of 1900 architecture in Romania; it can be compared with those of Secession architecture in Central Europe.

Located at the Romanian western border, Oradea was, at the beginning of the 20th century, part of the Central European Austro-Hungarian Empire and, thus, was influenced by the artistic currents of this space.

The buildings of the early 20th century are richly marked by Lechner and Vienna Secession influence, inheriting an important legacy from the great architects of the artistic movement of the late 19th century and the early 20th century. The architecture and habitat of Oradea are to be approached only in the context of Central European architecture.

By its independence and personality, Oradea has a place among the large great European families of the firmly contoured 1900 Art, especially regarding the area between the Citadel and the Main Railway Station. There are here rental buildings, (Moskovits Palace I and II, Apollo Palace, Stern Palace, Adorjan Houses I and II, Darvasy Palace), villas (La Roche, Vágó, Okany Schwartz), hôtels (Pannonia, Emke, Rimonoczy, Weiszlovics, Vulturul Negru), military buildings – on Armatei Române Street, industrial buildings and warehouses (beer-, spirit-, bricks-factories, electric plant’s chimney), public institutions (City Hall, Palace of Orthodox Bishopry, Palace of Greek-Catholic Bishopry, Palace of Justice, banks, houses of commerce and industry etc.), signed by architects who have a prime place in the European 1900 Architecture record: Odon Lechner, Dezső Jakab, Marcell Komor, László and József Vágó, Valér Mende, Ferenc Sztaril, Ferenc Löbl, Kálmán Rimanóczy Sr.and Jr., Anton Szallerbek. All these sites offer a very diverse research and development material. These great architects brought in Oradea the influence of Vienna and Budapest through their work, featuring a new style, different from the academic ones, thus creating the premises of a stylistic diversification based on inventions and originality.

Like many European cities, “Small Paris”, as Oradea was named at the beginning of the last century, has a belle-époque charm given by its Secession, eclectic, New-Romanian, Neoclassic and Baroque architecture. Not impressing by size or opulence, the buildings of Oradea have an aura of welfare, refinement and quality that imprints on the memory. The early 20th century is well represented in the centre, but almost every zone of the city has something especially particular. The history centre of the city has a great historical, cultural, architectural and urban planning heritage value. It includes settlements nuclei, architectural relics, monuments of architecture and urban planning beginning with the sixteenth century up to a well represented beginning of the twentieth century, and none of the monuments is annoying or discordant.

Analyzing the unity of style and ornamentation as an intrinsic value of Art Nouveau, we can find a coherent style combining the architectural structure and its artistic means; stucco mouldings, statues and medallions, ironwork, stained glass, opaque and coloured glass – they all justify ornamentation as a principle of architecture, based on the value of the line, on the organic power of the plant and on the structural symbol. Oradea architecture is a result of the values created by an extremely interesting and valuable ethnic mix, which materialized in a value exchange of a rare richness, and in a shared heritage of great majesty and beauty. In its evident and rare specificity, it appears to be exceptionally valuable. The heritage represents here a unifying element, a social cohesion instrument, which engendered a cultural mosaic and an original synthesis, like the dialects of a language – the result is a stylistic dialect resulting from mutual embellishments and fertilizations.

This contribution, a Romanian stylistic intervention in an important European current, is worth a special attention and a significant promotion, to match the quality, generosity, authenticity and exceptional value of the harmonious resulting interlacing.

The authenticity of the place was very well kept and fed by the previous generations. If the local specificity is not well-preserved, much of the cultural identity, so important in identifying a people, will be lost. The entire community must feel obliged to a greater attention and sensitivity concerning the heritage protection, and the authorities and experts must develop policies and actions to preserve such a valuable heritage. It is necessary to study and know the different views of conservation, to carefully choose the appropriate ones, in order to avoid possible pitfalls that may stem from trying to maintain a balance between conservation and management of the historic city.