The Restoration - Moskovits Palace Transformed (Lost Lands #177)

The first time I visited Oradea six years ago many of the city’s most beautiful secessionist buildings were in terrible condition. Structurally they were subpar, cosmetically they were eyesores. Glass in windows was missing and sometimes the entire window frame as well. Paint had long since peeled off, plaster was chipped, busted or missing. The buildings may not have been officially condemned, but they were not far away. I usually find a bit of charm in half ruined buildings. That was not the case in Oradea. Those dilapidated, aged beauties made me feel melancholic. I could sense that something great had been lost. Trying to recover it seemed improbable, but not impossible.

Malign Neglect – Visual Evidence

The communist regime that ruled Romania from the late 1940’s until 1989, deliberately neglected buildings that were constructed during the Austro-Hungarian period in Oradea. Their idea of architecture can be seen in the gloomy residential concrete blocks outside the city center. Brutalist style buildings always look like a paint by number plan gone horribly wrong. Concrete is best known for its excesses and the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu saw it as the framework for the entire country. Architecturally Oradea is two cities, one from the Austro-Hungarian era and interwar period, the other from communism. The two exist in relative proximity to one another, but other than that they have nothing in common. I saw this for myself during both of my visits to Oradea.

While walking around the city center on a cold and sunny December day, I did not give a second thought to the communist era in Romania until I saw not the poor condition of all the beautiful buildings from the late 19th and first half of the 20th century. Communism was too blame for allowing some of the greatest works of architecture found anywhere in Europe to fall into disrepair. Their unsightliness was visual proof of malign neglect. The funny thing was that though these grand buildings had been in decline for decades, they still looked better than anything I saw in parts of the city that had been developed during the communist period. I would rather have taken my chances by stepping inside the broken and busted Austro-Hungarian era buildings, before stepping inside any of the concrete apartment blocks. Brutalist architecture has a way of making a building look like a perpetual crime scene. Austria-Hungary had plenty of faults, but architecture was not one of them.

Candy Land – A Vibrant Version

I am sure that some Austro-Hungarian era buildings did not survive communism. Fortunately, the majority were still standing after 1989. These would be ripe for restoration, if they did not collapse first. During that initial visit, I spent time wandering the city center while snapping photos of the finest examples of secessionist architecture I had ever seen before. There was plenty to pick from, even if many of them were in lamentable condition. In a weird way this made them more appealing. There was enough left of some buildings to imagine what might have been if they had been kept in good condition. I noticed that some restorations were in the works. Romania had joined the European Union a decade earlier and funding for cultural preservation efforts was now available. When applied to restoration projects the result could be astonishing. I did not want to get my hopes up too much.

Romania had come a long way in fighting corruption, but it still plagued the country. This made it harder to get funding from the EU, and even when the money came through, it still might pad pockets rather than repair plaster. Based on past performance, I figured any restoration process would be long and slow. Now imagine my surprise when I returned several years later on a blazingly hot summer’s day and that a massive restoration effort had been undertaken. The upshot was buildings whose features were now eye popping in the extreme. Fresh coats of radiant paint covered facades, ornamentation was immaculate, details had been rendered and refined with the utmost precision. The confectionery coatings of the buildings made me feel like I was in candy land. The streets were bustling with life. Oradea had returned to the most vibrant version of its early 20th century self. One building summed up the transformation for me.?

?Fascination Street – Rising From Ruin

I had snapped a photo of the Moskovits Palace on my first visit to the city. Above the entrance I saw a crumbling facade with glassless windows beneath a turret turned to rust. Though covered with grime, ornamentations were still visible. The palace commissioned in 1903 by engineer Miksa Moskovits was badly in need of repair. The palace’s designer, Kalman Rimanoczy Jr. was a stylistic adherent of the Munich secession, also known as Lilienstil. Rimanoczy covered the fa?ade in lavish stylistic elements. Among these are a “Tree of Life” motif with a woman’s head emerging amid tree branches, flowers, and leaves. There is also an eclectic array of symbols including floral ornamentation, an anvil, cogwheel, compass and Mercury’s wand.

I did not notice most of these details on my first visit. There was no mistaking them upon my return. The building had been lavishly refurbished, covered in a distinct shade of blue. The turret was now a sparkling silver. I could not take my eyes off the building. The Moskovits Palace was one of many secession, and Art Nouveau buildings that had been restored to their former glory along Calea Republici. I decided this was the most beautiful street I had ever seen. A ruins to restoration story being retold as Oradea’s finest architecture rises again.