PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS FOCUS ON TIMIȘOARA’S RICH ART NOUVEAU LEGACY

June 2022

The National Institute of Heritage (INP / NIH) dedicated a set of promotional materials to the city of Timișoara and used them as a connecting point between the tourism industry and cultural heritage promoters.

Timișoara has a very rich Art Nouveau heritage and, in 2023, the city will be a European capital of culture, with potential to draw a record number of local and international tourists. INP/ NIH wanted to make sure that this particularly rich Secession / Art Nouveau legacy is also being acknowledged, celebrated and included in the city’s promotion future strategies and activities. The set of promotional materials consists of a guide featuring the city’s most important Art Nouveau buildings, a brochure with three thematic Art Nouveau routes and a map (see photos).

The guide - "A chronological approach to Art Nouveau in Timișoara" - explores the architecture of the city of Timișoara at the beginning of the 20th century focusing on the Art Nouveau style and its various influences. It offers a chronological overview of how the Art Nouveau architecture penetrated and developed in Timisoara by featuring descriptions of 20 of the city’s representative buildings. Different stages and mechanisms that facilitated the adoption of the new style (including urban and social particularities) and the effects it produced in local art and architecture are presented.

The foldable map is complementary to the guide. The 20 representative buildings that are featured in the guide are also marked on the map, together with a photo for easy identification and a brief description. This is useful for traveling around the city of Timișoara in search of buildings of interest for the Art Nouveau style.

The brochure proposes three thematic routes through the city of Timișoara. They present the main directions of manifestation of the Art Nouveau style and feature the most relevant architectural edifices built in the first decades of the 20th century.

The set of promotional materials was launched in Timișoara on June 10, 2022, on the occasion of World Art Nouveau Day, and was hosted in a building representative of the style, the Piarist High School which also served as starting point for one of the guided tours offered on the occasion. Amongst the participants were representatives of the tourism sector or of organizations active in the cultural promotion of the city of Timișoara.

The set of promotional materials was made in collaboration with one such organization -  "Prin Banat" Association, an association that runs projects to promote the history, architecture and heritage of the city of Timișoara and its surroundings.