Website
The Residences of the Nobility
Monumente Uitate (Unforgotten Monuments)
monumenteuitate.ro wishes itself to be a dynamic database and a platform that promotes the residences of the nobility located in rural areas of Transylvania, Banat, Crișana and Maramureș. The images found on this website have been brought by volunteers from the "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism between 2008 and 2012, by members of the Monumente Uitate Team, or by collaborators of the project. This explains the diversity and the variatying quality of the photographs. The information provided by this website wishes to be as acurate as possible from a scientific point of view, and at the same time accesible to the general public. The site includes buildings which have been recognised as historical monuments, as well as some that are not and others which have disappeared. The residences which have disappeared are portrayed through old images. Each residence has a web page with information about its location, its history and its present condition. Altough we have tried to give the exact location of each residence, in some cases it was impossible, due to the monument's obscurity or to the map's problematic resolution. In these situations, the map shows the center of the village and not the residence itself. If you have any information that could help us fix these incoveniences, please contact us. Regarding the accesibility of the monuments, we have considered accesible those residences which can be seen without the visitors suffering or causing any discomfort. Despite this, not all the residences labeled as accesible are fit for tourism. Some have been abandoned, others are in a state of ruin, others have functions that usually forbid the access of general public - such as psychiatric hospital, foster care centers. The site is to be completed with new photographs, archive images and texts, as the project develops.
The 400 residences of the nobility existing in rural areas across Transylvania, Banat, Crișana and Maramureș form a distinct category of built heritage. Erected between the 16th and the 19th century, they are samples of central and west-European architecture on Romanian territory. They illustrate artistic trends such as Renaissance, Baroque, Classicism, Romanticism, Neo-Gothic or Eclecticism, interpreted in local fashion. The types and forms vary with the region, the owner's financial means and statute, the tastes, mentalities and cultural climate of the time. The ensembles usually consist of the residence of the family, the annexes (fortifications, kitchens, stables, granaries, crypts, greenhouses etc.), and the park or garden. These elements, together with the settlement from the ensemble's vicinity and the surrounding landscape, form a complex economic, social, symbolic, and landscape system. Expropriated at the beginning of the communist regime, these monuments were vandalized in the following years and converted into headquarters for the C.A.P.s (Cooperative of Agricultural Production), foster care centers, schools, clinics, town halls and so on. After the Revolution of 1989, the ensembles have gradually been abandoned. This led to their deterioration and, often, to their ruin. At present, most of the residences have been returned to their previous owners and are declared historical monuments. However, they are still facing a serious crisis concerning their function, their identity and their survival. A small part of the residences have been rehabilitated and opened for the public as museums, guest houses or event locations, but they are still little known to the general public.
The Monumente Uitate Project (initiallu spelled moNUmenteUITATE) was initiated in 2008 by prof. dr. arh. Anca Brătuleanu. It addressed students from the 3rd year of study at the Faculty of Architecture from "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest. Their assignment was to do field research on a category of "forgotten" heritage buildings: the old residences of the Austro-Hungarian nobility, situated in rural areas of Transylvania, Banat, Crișana and Maramureș. The reason: the lack of historical information and recent statistics regarding their present state. In the years between 2008 and 2011, the project put together an archive of images and information from the data brought back by four generations of volunteering students. At the same time, the project tried to bring these monuments into the public’s attention, through a series of exhibitions, articles, events and conferences. In April 201, the first version of monumenteuitate.ro was launched, thus making the project’s archive available to the public. In 2012, the coordinators of the project founded the ARCHÉ Association, an NGO which aims to research, protect, conserve, promote and highlight the value of built heritage. At present, the Monumente Uitate Project is developed by the ARCHÉ Association in partnership with the "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism, the "Sanda Voiculescu" History and Theory of Architecture and Heritage Conservation Department. In 2012, the project received a grant from AFCN (Administration of the National Cultural Fund) for online publishing projects. This determined the enriching of the archive with photographs and information on other over 100 residences, the improvement of the site's design and structure, and its translation into English.
We are grateful to all the students and collaborators which have brought or will bring their contribution to the project, by going on field researches or by helping document and promote the former residences of the nobility located in Transylvania, Banat, Crișana and Maramureș.
