The Timișoara city government is seeking a builder to carry out the first stage of the restoration of the synagogue in the city’s Fabric district. Built in 1897-99 and designed by the prolific synagogue architect Lipot Baumhorn, the grand Fabric Synagogue has long stood empty and in deteriorating condition.
“The Synagogue in Fabric district is one of the jewels of Timișoara whose degradation we will stop with these works,” Mayor Dominic Fritz said in a statement calling for applications for the contract. “The synagogue is a key point in our project to restore the former splendor of the Fabric district. Both the public space around the Synagogue and the Synagogue are to be rehabilitated and opened to the community.”
The first stage of work will be aimed at “making the building safe and stopping the degradation,” the announcement said. It will include repairing the roof to stop water infiltration, replacing gutters, and carrying out structural reinforcement. During these procedures, it said, the “stained glass windows and decorative elements with historical value will be taken down, inventoried and protected.”
Cost of the first stage restoration is estimated at nearly 1 million lei, or around €200,000.
The synagogue, listed as a historic monument, was placed on the World Monuments Fund’s 2022 Watch List of heritage sites at risk.
The Timisoara municipality took over the administration of the building from the Jewish community last October (2023). At the time, the Mayor described the synagogue as “in a dramatic state, with the roof close to collapse and the interiors vandalized.”
The city’s announced plans at that time were first to safeguard the structure of the building and then carry out consultations with both experts and local residents as to its future role and function.
The Fabric synagogue functioned as an active synagogue until around 50 years ago but closed after the local Jewish population dwindled because of the largescale emigration to Israel and elsewhere.
We ran a Have Your Say on the synagogue in March 2020, in which Eszter Nagy-Tóth and Gábriel Szekély described the Fabric synagogue and its dilapidated state.
Read the call for submissions from builders on the City Hall web site
Read our October 2023 post about the City taking over administration of the building
Read our Have Your Say article about the Fabric Synagogue