In 1888, the construction of the Museum Palace was completed, a building made according to a project by the architect Jakob Klein (1855-1928), in the style of the German Renaissance. Since 1953, the Library of the Romanian Academy, Timișoara Branch, has been operating in this building.
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At the initiative of the great man of culture Ormós Zsigmond, prefect of Timiş County and a group of intellectuals, on July 25, 1872, the first scientific society in Banat (Southern Hungary) was established, called the Society of History and Archeology, which aimed to establish a historical-archeological museum in Timişoara. The year of the Society’s establishment is also considered the foundation year of the Timișoara museum, a precursor of the National Museum of Banat in Timișoara.
In the absence of adequate space, ever since 1876, the museum's patrimony has been preserved in two rooms in the Wellauer House, on Lonovics Street (now Augustin Pacha Street). The official opening of the Society's museum for the visiting public took place on May 24, 1877.
Given that the Wellauer House, the museum's headquarters at the time, was in an advanced state of disrepair, the county authorities decided to demolish the building and build new headquarters, and during this time the museum's heritage was housed in the Prefecture building.
In 1888, the construction of the Museum Palace was completed, a building made according to a project by the architect Jakob Klein (1855-1928), in the style of the German Renaissance.
The building of the museum palace proved from the very beginning to be too small to house the museum's collections, and in these circumstances the decision was taken to move the museum to the Cultural Palace (in the wing facing Alba-Iulia Street), a move that began in the autumn of 1937.
In 1941, the building of the Museum Palace received a new destination, becoming the headquarters of the Communal Library.
Since 1953, the Library of the Romanian Academy, Timișoara Branch, has been operating in this building.
Bibliography:
- Florin Medeleț, Nicoleta Toma, Banat Museum. File de cronică 1872-1918, I, Timișoara, Mirton Publishing House, 1997.
- Florin Medeleț, Vasile Rămneanțu, Banat Museum. File de cronică 1918-1948, II, Timișoara, Mirton Publishing House, 2003.
Romanian Academy Library, Timisoara Branch
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Robert Șerban
to read books from the Academy Library
you have to be a very strong person
no
I’m not talking about intellectual strength
but I look at the huge new gate
of the library
and I notice that for almost two hours
no one has opened it
almost no one
June 2022
“Mrs. Rațiu lived in one of the houses owned by the professors at Politehnica University, a small group of houses around the bushes, at the end of the football stadium. I was trying to grasp, in the whole neighborhood - quiet, without any shops, the now lost status of the university professor before the war. It was probably fiction, but maybe fiction with a grain of truth, as was today when, on Loga Street and on the alley leading off to the park, one would think, while passing by the houses where old storyman and Ș.F. live, about the mystery of literary, scholarly being.” (Livius Ciocârlie, The Sunken Bell, Cartea Românească Publishing House, 1988, p. 291)
My Timisoara...
by Ecaterina Harcău, class XII
"Grigore Moisil" Theoretical High School Timișoara
The day started well, normally. I woke up, had breakfast, stretched, read a bit, got dressed and finally left for work, just like any other day of the week.
We had a presentation at three in the afternoon, but I promised a colleague that we would see each other before, so that we could go over it together and add some details. We decided to meet downtown. The sun was shining, making the chilly early March day a little more pleasant. The sunshine was the reason I decided to walk, as I was spending too much time either in the car or on the tram. On this occasion I could also buy a little something in one shop or another, as I used to do when I walked. I looked at it as a reward for choosing the "healthy" way of transportation.
I had arrived quite close to the center and, as I hadn't chosen a specific terrace for our meeting, I had nowhere to go, so I wasn't in too much of a hurry. I still wanted to be on time. Being a weekday, the streets weren't too crowded, but that didn't mean that there weren't people walking, in a hurry or not, to a destination.
I was listening to music, a bad habit but hard to break. It turned green at the stoplight I was waiting at. As I gave way, a speeding driver cut me off, which caused me to not see the second one, who grabbed me on the windshield.
...
I remember I had a headache, it was banging like a loudspeaker. I looked at my watch. It was half past one in the afternoon, I still had time to make it to meet my colleague if I hurried. I got up quickly and picked up my pace.
A tree made me stop. The crown had a purple tint and the trunk was a dark blue, they were all colored that way. When did they have time to paint the trees in the park? The grass was also purple, the color was a little lighter than the crown of the trees. Before I could better analyze the phenomenon, I remembered the encounter and continued on my way, more hurried than before.
The closer I got to the venue the more bizarre the landscape around me became. Buildings once old and shabby were now restored and colored in all the colors of the rainbow, in pastels and neon, with all sorts of decorations hanging from balconies. The cathedral was colored aqua blue, the grass around it pink, looking like a coral plantation washed ashore. The towers were orange, and where once stood crosses, there were now tiny trunks from which balloons popped, bursting into fireworks once they reached high enough.
I walked to the traffic light and waited for the green light. The streets were shades of brown, the vegetation was multicolored, and the people, beyond the usual skin colors, stood out in all sorts of hues, some pastel, some vibrant.
A person in a silver tuxedo with curly, bright green hair shoved me once the traffic light turned white. What shocked me was that everyone was acting as if what was happening was completely normal.
I hurried to the terrace, increasingly frightened by my surroundings: men in three-foot hats, women in shawls made from real foxes, snakeskin boots hissing, tigers walking like dogs on leashes made of silk, with bells around their necks, and many other things that made my skin crawl.
As soon as I arrived, I began to wander around, desperate to find my colleague in the amalgam of colors and sounds around me. I thought I saw her. When I was somehow convinced that she was my colleague, I ran towards her and sat down next to her, hoping that at least she was normal among the oddities I saw today.
- Whoa! Sorry I'm late, but someone managed to pick me up. He didn't even stop to ask if I was okay, he just drove on! Can you believe it?! Anyway, I gave up looking for him... Did you know they painted the cathedral? Do you realize what an internet scandal it's gonna be when other people see it? I'm surprised nobody's said anything yet...
But I suddenly stopped when I got a closer look. She had dyed... it was as if her skin was a different color too, and now she was wearing a man's suit, with her knees cut off and held by a viper-headed belt. She looked at me confused, like I was the crazy one.
Was I in my Timișoara...?
