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The group of fountains is the first building erected on this plot, between 1910 and 1913. The name of the designer remains unknown, the sole signature identified on the archival drawings from 1912-1913 belonging to Stan Vidrighin, the engineer of the city, acting as approving officer of the design. Some say that this is the work of the first head architect of the city, Laszlo Szekely.

The role of the group of fountains was to extract deep water, from the aquifer, and to send it to the filtering equipment in order to make it suitable for drinking. In order to drink a glass of water, one has to bring it closer to the mouth. If water is far away, one can use a straw and slurp it. The same principle is used for the operation of the group of fountains.

But before diving deeper into the complexity of the engineering project, let’s take a better look at the building. Don’t you think it looks like an UFO?  Well, you are not alone. Actually, it is informally known under this funny name of UFO. The UFO’s story starts in 2010, when an Italian who believes in the existence of aliens on Earth was certain that he had found the proof! Where? Right here! Seen from above, from a satellite, via Google Earth, this round building and the dome on top of it actually resemble like a flying saucer. Photos of it have flooded the Internet, and there were even press articles titled “Aliens Invade Romania”. It wasn’t long before a Romanian, a passionate about Unidentified Flying Objects, looked for the mysterious object on site. So, it turns out there is no spaceship belonging to a mysterious civilization, but a building erected by humans during the Austro-Hungarian empire. 

All jokes aside, the group of fountains no.1  strikes by the complexity of the technical and architectural project, highly innovative and challenging for the means of those times. The group of fountains is a cylindrical building, with ground-level access and two underground levels, deepening to around 10 meters below ground level. The particularity of its structural design is given by the way in which it combines functionality and esthetics. The project of the group of fountains was replicated thus becoming the standard in the following years. Currently, two more similar buildings exist in south-east Timisoara, under the status of preservation. All three groups of fountains were designed as to jointly ensure water supply for 46.000 locals and to cover future needs of Timisoara.