Timisoara’s No. 1 Water Works is a milestone the city’s industrial heritage. When Timisoara was chosen as 2021 European Cultural Capital, one of the city’s main objectives in its cultural development strategies is defined by raising awareness of built heritage, rehabilitating and emphasizing it. In the same time, a better connection of the city to the national and international cultural dynamic is desired. Urban renewal through industrial conversion for culture has an important role in the city’s future development.

The museum ensemble is located in the southern part of Timisoara, inside the Nr. 1 Water Works. It consists of three existing buildings and a new pavilion for receiving guests.

The industrial interiors of the Deep Well Building become exhibiton areas, emphasizing the water’s circuit through the existing machineries and technological installations. The architectural intervention in this building will be minimal and will not affect the original equipment.

Timisoara’s No. 1 Water Works is a milestone the city’s industrial heritage. When Timisoara was chosen as 2021 European Cultural Capital, one of the city’s main objectives in its cultural development strategies is defined by raising awareness of built heritage, rehabilitating and emphasizing it. In the same time, a better connection of the city to the national and international cultural dynamic is desired. Urban renewal through industrial conversion for culture has an important role in the city’s future development.

The museum ensemble is located in the southern part of Timisoara, inside the Nr. 1 Water Works. It consists of three existing buildings and a new pavilion for receiving guests.

The pavilion in the courtyard of the Timisoara’s No. 1 Water Works was designed as an access point to all the buildings of the Water Museum ensemble. The concept of gradually perceiving the existing heritage in the courtyard of the Museum generated its geometry. Inside visitors will find extensive resources needed to study water treatment, an information point, a coffee shop and a bookstore.

The area bordered by the Pavilion, the Deep Well Building, the Prefilter Station and the Pump Station becomes an exterior exhibition space, with alleys connecting the new and the existing buildings to the decorative pools and interactive water works, pedestrian platforms, and large scale exhibits.

Timisoara’s No. 1 Water Works is a milestone the city’s industrial heritage. When Timisoara was chosen as 2021 European Cultural Capital, one of the city’s main objectives in its cultural development strategies is defined by raising awareness of built heritage, rehabilitating and emphasizing it. In the same time, a better connection of the city to the national and international cultural dynamic is desired. Urban renewal through industrial conversion for culture has an important role in the city’s future development.

The museum ensemble is located in the southern part of Timisoara, inside the Nr. 1 Water Works. It consists of three existing buildings and a new pavilion for receiving guests.

The industrial interiors of the Prefilter Station Building become exhibiton areas, emphasizing the water’s circuit through the existing machineries and technological installations. The architectural intervention in this building will be minimal and will not affect the original equipment.

Timisoara’s No. 1 Water Works is a milestone the city’s industrial heritage. When Timisoara was chosen as 2021 European Cultural Capital, one of the city’s main objectives in its cultural development strategies is defined by raising awareness of built heritage, rehabilitating and emphasizing it. In the same time, a better connection of the city to the national and international cultural dynamic is desired. Urban renewal through industrial conversion for culture has an important role in the city’s future development.

The museum ensemble is located in the southern part of Timisoara, inside the Nr. 1 Water Works. It consists of three existing buildings and a new pavilion for receiving guests.

The industrial interiors of the Pump Station Building become exhibiton areas, emphasizing the water’s circuit through the existing machineries and technological installations. The architectural intervention in this building will be minimal and will not affect the original equipment.

“Arta Cinema” [built in 1926] is part of the city’s interwar period heritage. Located in the Josefin district, it also had a summer garden for open-air shows. When Timisoara was chosen as 2021 European Cultural Capital, one of the city’s main objectives in its cultural development strategies is defined by raising awareness of built heritage, rehabilitating and emphasizing it. In the same time, a better connection of the city to the national and international cultural dynamic is desired.

The ensemble of buildings on the site of the cinema consists of three existing buildings, only one of them being a performance hall. Since the mid ’90s it had multiple uses, but lately, it stands abandoned and degraded.

The project is aimed at reviving the performance hall through theatre and dance shows, cinema, contemporary culture projects, educational as well as community programmes.

…I would like to start at the beginning. I would like to say that a church, the building with the people in it and the particulars of the rituals, do not illustrate anything. A church is not a simile. A church, in this sense, should not be ” beautiful”. We should reexamine certain basic concepts. For instance that the church is the house of God. If anyone were to take this seriously, even for a moment, whether he sits in church with many others or in solitude, he would have to fall on his knees, or better yet, he’d have to fall down on the floor with his face to the ground in the fashion of friars. I cannot take anything else as my starting point except this.

Imre Makovecz

The ensemble of The New Millenium Reformed Center is made up of 7 distinct parts, the main building being the church. The work was based on plans by Imre Makovecz, the central figure of Hungarian organic architecture who created an eye catching trademark piece of architecture with unique appearance located on the Bega river bank in Timisoara.

Sprouting from organic walls of reinforced concrete, the lattice wood roof is spread out over the church like the canopy of the tree line around a clearing. An oculus – a recurrent theme in Imre Makovecz’s architecture inspired by nomad people’s yurts – provides not only light, illumination, but is the link between the Earth and the Heavens.

From the busy street, through a an intimate square dominated by the main, monumental entrance with zoomorphic towers, the nave and choir of the church can host up to 635 people. The lighting and use of warm colours, the gigantic wooden roof give a strong and memorable impression to all visitors – the feeling of divine domination transcends ages.

The underlying concept was to build a unique and exceptional structure due to its own inner logic and clean static system, integrating the rational tendency of contemporary cultural architecture with more complex forms and structures in an innovative manner.

Our main objective was to design according to Imre Makovecz’s original plans, introducing current thermal and acoustic requirements, as well as adapting to the technologies at hand at the time of the build.

“A church can not be the product of the constancy of Aristotelian geometry but a drama that, as it unfolds, embodies and expresses change. This dynamism, filled with new life and constantly kept alive, calls for a new manifestation of the created world. It must accommodate itself to the rising and the setting sun, the male and female principles, the fixed and the moving stars, the animate and the inanimate materials of the earth.”

Imre Makovecz

The ensemble of The New Millenium Reformed Center is made up of 7 distinct parts, one of them being a concert hall. The work was based on plans by Imre Makovecz, the central figure of Hungarian organic architecture who created an eye catching trademark piece of architecture with unique appearance located on the Bega river bank in Timisoara.

The volume of the building resulted from an organic intersection of a circular shape [the concert hall itself] and a triangular shape [housing related spaces], appearing like a protruding bud ready to bloom from the outside.

Sprouting from pillars of reinforced concrete, the lattice wood roof is spread out over the concert hall like the canopy of the tree line around a clearing. The underlying concept was to build a unique and exceptional structure due to its own inner logic and clean static system, integrating the rational tendency of contemporary cultural architecture with more complex forms and structures in an innovative manner.

Our main objective was to design according to Imre Makovecz’s original plans, introducing current thermal and acoustic requirements, as well as adapting to the technologies at hand at the time of the build.