Trajan Square () is a

square In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...

in the center of the historic district

Fabric Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, and different types of fabric. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is no ...

Timișoara Timișoara (, , ; , also or ; ; ; see #Etymology, other names) is the capital city of Timiș County, Banat, and the main economic, social and cultural center in Western Romania. Located on the Bega (Tisza), Bega River, Timișoara is consider ...

. It was designed by military engineers in the 1740s and is a smaller replica of the Union Square.

History

In 1734 there were only the trails of the present-day Dacians' and Stephen the Great streets, which were not yet bordered by buildings. The current square was drawn in 1744 in its original shape as a rectangular square of about 115 × 70 m. It was the center of the Orthodox district Rascian Fabric. Temesvar - Postcard

Until late 18th century, Trajan Square had fronts made up of isolated houses with only a ground floor, with a rural aspect, probably many of these houses being made of beaten

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

. It was not until the 19th century that continuous fronts were built both in the square and along the adjacent streets. One-storey buildings also appeared in the 19th century; Trajan Square thus acquires an urban character. If during mid-19th century there were only houses with a ground floor or one floor, towards the end of the century there were also two-storey houses. Around the 1900s, the buildings that dominate the square today are built: the House of the Serbian Community (built in 1895), the House of Countess Mirbach (built in 1905), the Mercury House (also known as Béla Fiatska House, built in 1909) and the Municipality Tenement House (named after 1918 Ștefania Palace, built in 1910). From an architectural point of view, the House of the Serbian Community belongs to the

eclectic Eclectic may refer to: Music * ''Eclectic'' (Eric Johnson and Mike Stern album), 2014 * ''Eclectic'' (Big Country album), 1996 * Eclectic Method, name of an audio-visual remix act * Eclecticism in music, the conscious use of styles alien to th ...

historicist Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying the process or history by which they came about. The term is widely used in philosophy, ant ...

style typical for the second half of the 19th century, and all the other buildings to different currents of the

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

style. Two public monuments are also located in Trajan Square: the obelisk or pyramid with a cross, erected in 1774 by the Timișoara high official Stojša Spasojević, and the stone bell, the work of the sculptor Ștefan Călărășanu, erected in honor of the 1989 Revolution. During the

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a Multinational state, multinational European Great Powers, great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the Habsburg monarchy, realms of the Habsburgs. Duri ...

, Trajan Square was called ''Hauptplatz''. As a result of the

Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 (, ) established the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, which was a military and diplomatic alliance of two sovereign states. The Compromise only partially re-established the former pre-1848 sovereign ...

, this name was translated into Hungarian: ''Fő tér''. From the mid-1890s the square was named after the Hungarian national hero

Lajos Kossuth Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva (; ; ; ; 19 September 1802 – 20 March 1894) was a Hungarian nobleman, lawyer, journalist, politician, statesman and governor-president of the Kingdom of Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, r ...

, who died in 1894. It got its current name after the partition of

Banat Banat ( , ; ; ; ) is a geographical and Historical regions of Central Europe, historical region located in the Pannonian Basin that straddles Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe. It is divided among three countries: the eastern part lie ...

in 1919.

References

{{PlacesTimișoara Squares in Timișoara