Marschall Palace
As you cross the bridge from
the old Citadel, on the border between the old Iosefin and Elisabetin
neighborhoods, i.e. on the current 16 Decembrie Boulevard, once called
Petrovaradin, the gaze rises in amazement to encompass the Franz Marschall
palace – a spectacular stone canvas on which master hands carved rich
decorations.
Being part of the Citadel′s
esplanade, this area could only be developed after 1892, when the town planning
plans accepted the expansion of the city and the construction of buildings. It
is the time when the architect Martin Gemeinhardt designs beautiful buildings
in the styles of the era - Secession and Art Nouveau. Participant in the First
World War, politically active and entrepreneur (co-owner of a brick factory),
therefore perfectly integrated in the realities of life, Martin Gemeinhardt
obtained certification as a construction engineer in 1902 and used his skills
to compensate for the everyday gray endowing of the city with fabulously
decorated buildings. Generous with vegetal, zoomorphic and figurative motifs, h
designed the palaces of Jakab Csendes, Ferencz Marshall, Johan Harlauer (House
with Peacocks and Owls), Romulus Nicolin House, Timișoara Savings House Palace,
Károly (Karl) Weisz Palace (former Royal Hotel) and Salamon Schnürer and Adolf
Hanecker Palace. Their façades, elaborate, elegant and with life pulsating in
them, captured the attention of his fellow citizens, who welcomed them with joy
and with inaugurations mentioned by the newspapers of the time.
As the end of the 19th century
and the beginning of the 20th bring the finalization of the boulevard 16
Decembrie, the area has a unity and a symmetry that adds to the monumentality
of the buildings. The façades are richly decorated, the roofs are high and at
the corners the architects went for towers or aedicula. Thus, the Franz
Marschall palace is framed in continuous street fronts formed by buildings of
the same style and height regime, arranged on the ground floor and two floors;
as a rule, the owner lived in the front part, the rest of the apartments being
rented out to those who wished.
