Things are moving toward the restoration of the Fabric synagogue, the beautiful but derelict synagogue in Timisoara, designed by Lipot Baumhorn, which was place on the World Monuments Fund’s 2022 Watch List of heritage sites at risk.
The WMF has made work at the synagogue a project, “made possible, in part, by the David Berg Foundation and WMF’s Jewish Heritage Program Endowment.”
This week, the Timisoara municipality took over the administration of the building, from the Jewish community. It plans work to first safeguard the structure and then carry out consultations with both experts and local residents as to the future role and function of the building.
Timisoara is the European Capital of Culture in 2023.
“The jewel of the Fabric neighborhood is finally getting a new lease of life,” Mayor Dominic Fritz said in a Facebook post Thursday (Oct. 19). “The president of the Jewish community, Silviu Vexler, handed me the key to one of the most beautiful synagogues in Romania, which we are taking over in the administration of the city.”
He describe the synagogue as “in a dramatic state, with the roof close to collapse and the interiors vandalized.”
In the coming months, he said, “we will make the building safe and stop the decay. Then, with the help of a private financing of $100,000 dollars, and from the local budget, we will develop a rehabilitation project together with architects, people of culture and the entire Timisoara community.”
The goal, he said, is to “develop a unique place in Europe, a multifunctional space for artists and not only from different cultures.”
He added:
Saving this heritage is also a clear signal of the recognition of the contribution of the Jewish community to the construction of Timișoara, of which we are proud and for which we have a special responsibility. In these days, when the entire Jewish community is under the most brutal assault since the Holocaust, we say very clearly: Timișoara stands firmly with the Jews not only from Timișoara, but from all over the world.
The so-called Fabric District Synagogue, was built between 1897 and 1899, and today stands in dangerously dilapidated condition. It 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:
The synagogue has a square floor plan with a central dome, connected to the outer walls by deep semi-circular arches. The central dome is high, raised on an octagonal drum, and made of a plastered and painted wooden structure, supported by four pillars.
Baumhorn incorporated several elements of Moorish style, which were widely used in those days to decorate synagogues, but he also added other elements inspired by traditional European architecture, especially by Gothic and Romanesque styles. […]
The roof had been badly damaged by severe water leaks, destroying one side of the balcony completely. However, with the financial help of the local Orthodox Church the roof was fixed, and the interior remains dry. Several of the once grandiose stained glass windows are broken, the beautifully carved furniture is almost all gone.
Still, in spite of the decay, we could recognize neo-romanesque elements (double windows, small decorative column rows), neo-gothic elements (the sculpted rosette windows, the entrance), some Art Nouveau elements (arched volumes, flowers on the windows), and of course the Moorish decorative elements (brick decorations, oriental arches, wrought iron).
Read the Mayor’s Facebook post
Read our Have Your Say article about the Fabric Synagogue