page_title: Oradea
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Oradea / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: Synagogue, Oradea, Romania
context_page_description: Oradea is a city in Romania, located in Crișana, a sub-region of Transylvania. Seat of the Bihor county, Oradea is one of the most important economic, social and cultural centers in the western part of Romania. The city is located in the north-west of the country, nestled between hills on the Crișana plain, on the banks of the Crișul Repede River, that divides the city into almost equal halves.
  Located about 10 km from Borș, one of the most important crossing points on Romania's border with Hungary, Oradea ranks tenth in size among Romanian cities. It covers an area of 11,556 hectares, in an area of contact between the extensions of the Apuseni Mountains and the Crișana-Banat extended plain.
  Oradea enjoys a high standard of living relative to other Romanian cities and ranks among the most livable cities in the country. The city is also a strong industrial center in the region, hosting some of Romania's largest companies. Besides its status as an economic hub, Oradea boasts a rich Art Nouveau architectural heritage and is a member of the Réseau Art Nouveau Network.
context_section_description: Oradea's current architecture is a mix of Communist-era apartment buildings, mainly in the outer quarters, and beautiful historical buildings that are remnants of the era when the city was part of Austria-Hungary. In addition to many Baroque buildings, Oradea is remarkable for its particularly rich collection of Art Nouveau architecture.
  Art Nouveau is easy to discern because of its curved, undulating lines " flowing " naturally, in syncopate rhythms, as a musical leitmotif. The numerous open curved lines – parabolas and hyperbolas – important elements of Art Nouveau "panoply", give dynamism and rhythm to these buildings and artefacts.
  It is fully expressed in decorative arts, design and architecture. The main ornamental characteristic is the asymmetric undulating line, terminated by an energetic whiplash.
  Oradea may be considered one of the most representative centres of 1900 architecture in Romania; it can be compared with those of Secession architecture in Central Europe.
  Located at the Romanian western border, Oradea was, at the beginning of the 20th century, part of the Central European Austro-Hungarian Empire and, thus, was influenced by the artistic currents of this space.
  The buildings of the early 20th century are richly marked by Lechner and Vienna Secession influence, inheriting an important legacy from the great architects of the artistic movement of the late 19th century and the early 20th century. The architecture and habitat of Oradea are to be approached only in the context of Central European architecture.
  By its independence and personality, Oradea has a place among the large great European families of the firmly contoured 1900 Art, especially regarding the area between the Citadel and the Main Railway Station.  There are here rental buildings, (Moskovits Palace I and II, Apollo Palace, Stern Palace, Adorjan Houses I and II, Darvasy Palace), villas (La Roche, Vágó, Okany Schwartz), hôtels (Pannonia, Emke, Rimonoczy, Weiszlovics, Vulturul Negru), military buildings – on Armatei Române Street, industrial buildings and warehouses (beer-, spirit-, bricks-factories, electric plant's chimney), public institutions (City Hall, Palace of Orthodox Bishopry, Palace of Greek-Catholic Bishopry, Palace of Justice, banks, houses of commerce and industry etc.), signed by architects who have a prime place in the European 1900 Architecture record: Odon Lechner, Dezső Jakab, Marcell Komor, László and József Vágó, Valér Mende, Ferenc Sztaril, Ferenc Löbl, Kálmán Rimanóczy Sr.and Jr., Anton Szallerbek.  All these sites offer a very diverse research and development material.
  These great architects brought in Oradea the influence of Vienna and Budapest through their work, featuring a new style, different from the academic ones, thus creating the premises of a stylistic diversification based on inventions and originality.
  Like many European cities, "Small Paris", as Oradea was named at the beginning of the last century, has a belle-époque charm given by its Secession, eclectic, New-Romanian, Neoclassic and Baroque architecture. Not impressing by size or opulence, the buildings of Oradea have an aura of welfare, refinement and quality that imprints on the memory.
  The early 20th century is well represented in the centre, but almost every zone of the city has something especially particular.
  The history centre of the city has a great historical, cultural, architectural and urban planning heritage value. It includes settlements nuclei, architectural relics, monuments of architecture and urban planning beginning with the 16th century up to a well represented beginning of the 20th century, and none of the monuments is annoying or discordant.
  Analyzing the unity of style and ornamentation as an intrinsic value of Art Nouveau, we can find a coherent style combining the architectural structure and its artistic means; stucco mouldings, statues and medallions, ironwork, stained glass, opaque and coloured glass – they all justify ornamentation as a principle of architecture, based on the value of the line, on the organic power of the plan
caption: Orthodox Synagogue
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