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Medical doctors advise you to drink at least 2 liters of water daily. But what if it were a true challenge to obtain 2 liters of drinking water daily? Or what if each sip of water were to jeopardise life itself? Well, for centuries, the inhabitants of the territory we call today Timisoara lived this way, under the threat of water they consumed.
Today, when one says Timisoara, one says the city on Bega, the river that crosses the city center. We do not know the name used for it by the first people who settled here, 6.000 years ago. However, one thing remains certain: since the dawn of time, human communities have gathered next to a water source. Meanwhile, the relation between people and the water source crossing their city has never been simple. Quite the opposite.
The unflooded area located in present-day Cetate district has always hosted human settlements, as the river surrounding it provided drinking water for people as well as it served as defense against invaders. Furthermore, around the end of the first millennium of our era, the first fortification rises, that also used the river as a defense belt. The semi-rural settlement evolved into a city and fortress in the early 14th century, under Charles Robert of Anjou, the King of Hungary. He ordered the construction of a stone fortification and a castle, where he had lived for eight years, between 1315 and 1323, when Timisoara was the capital of the Hungarian kingdom. Wishing to have an alternative for drinking water besides the river, as people used to wash and throw all sorts of things in it, the king ordered the digging of a well in the inner courtyard. This was a first attempt in using deep water, but the technical capacities of the time did not allow to reach the necessary depth for quality water.
According to documentary records, Timisoara’s former Fortress was surrounded by marshland which expanded all the way to the edge of its walls. Following numerous floods, the water from dug wells was unsuitable for drinking, harmful, as a vector for many diseases. One could say that contaminated water played a key role in spreading the plague epidemics in 1738, 1762 and 1763, when the population of the city was decimated.
After Timisoara was conquered by the Habsburgs, the city entered a new stage in is development. In 1717, the first military governor of Banat, count Mercy, pays particular attention to the wetland sanitation, drafting the first river regulation project on Bega (between Făget and Becicherecul Mare). He is also able to implement it, partially. 1759 is the year when the level of standing water around the city and catastrophic floods reduce substantially, due to the construction of Timis – Bega hydrotechnical system.
In 1774, engineer Karl Alexander Steinlein builds a mechanical installation, a hydraulic machinery, using the water from a well dug by the Bega river. By means of a hydromechanical wheel installed in the riverbed, water was pumped to a 16 meter high tour located in Fabric. Locals admired this hydraulic machinery to the extent it appeared on the first coat of arms of the city, the one in 1781, and also on all the following coats of arms of Timisoara, including the current one.
Timisoara’s status as garrison city fostered the army’s engagement in the organization of the settlement. Thus, the army built a drainage ditch in order to clean the moat of the fortress. This moat used to collect domestic waste water coming from the military barracks and private homes from the Fortress and evacuated in Bega. In 1827, the construction of a new one was required, having 4 kilometers in length, crossing all built-up areas of the city. This was an open canal, called the “sanitary canal” which was used up to the introduction of the general sewerage network, almost 100 years later. And for this reason, Timisoara gained the reputation of being unhealthy.
The unhealthy city remained a source of great concern to the army, specialists and physicians. In his memorandum from 1870, physician Gedeon Becsi stated that a sewerage network could not exist without a proper cleanup of the canals. Plus, the drinking water available in the city was not recommended for drinking purposes, while Bega canal was unfit. The need for deep wells was concluded.
Improving the locals’ life was a desideratum of the turn of the 20th century, including, among others, improving air quality and water quality by systemizing the parks and regulating the Bega river. For Timisoara to become cleaner, the subject of drinking water supply and sewerage was on the table. Carol Telbisz, the longest-serving mayor of Timisoara, starts dismantling the old fortifications in 1891. He thus embarks on a journey to develop the city following a modern urbanization plan. During his term in office, between 1885 and 1914, Timisoara flourishes. Wide boulevards, new districts, sumptuous Secession style buildings appear. The industrial development is unprecedented, as well. In “Little Vienna », numerous factories open, such as Kandia chocolate factory, a chain factory, Paltim hat factory, a wagon factory, a match factory, Turul shoe factory and Filatura textile factory.
In 1894, the City of Timisoara organized an international competition for the drafting of the waste water collection system of the city. Participants were given the following data: total area of the city, population, city maps, daily consumption, estimated population growth and groundwater level measurement. There were 10 submitted papers and 3 winning projects (1st prize - engineer Paul Wicher from Sofia, 2nd prize II – engineer Herbert Berger from Koln, 3rd prize III – inspector Carl Steurnagel from Koln). None of them was carried out, because the natural very low slope of the city entailed very high implementation costs.
Also in 1894, the specialist – construction consultant Salbach from Dresden was the one to start drilling deep wells in the outskirts of the city. In 1897, the technical department of the city hall pursued Salbach’s efforts. This resulted in finding geological conditions and water-rich sand strata towards Cerneteaz, Covaci and Sânandrei, on Calea Seghedinului (today’s Torontalului), Moșnița, Urseni and Giroc.
The “Study on water supply and waste water collection systems of Timisoara, the royal free city”, drafted by Timisoara’s chief engineer Ignaz Orban, in 1899, displays the prerequisites for the design of Timisoara’s water supply and sewerage. It presents the adverse financial situation hindering the implementation of projects and the pursuit of research on water quantity and quality from different aquifers. It also states that for the water supply network, a water source should be identified that fully meets the city’s needs on hygiene. Furthermore, this source should be at 2 kilometers away from the city, at least (to protect it against infestation), and it should have a daily flow rate of least 5.000 cube meters.
In 1904, Mathias Kajlinger, deputy director of Budapest Waterworks, took the lead in Timisoara’s water supply research and design works. He carefully studied the materials made available by the municipality and stated that the results obtained up to that point were valuable. However, these results had to be coordinated with both the daily volume required, and the number of past, present and future population. In his view, groundwater is the most suitable source for Timisoara’s water supply, and stop the use of other water sources, if possible. Tot Kajlinger is also the one who proposes, for the first time, to ensure the city’s water supply from two sources: groundwater for slow domestic consumption, and Bega’s raw water for industrial purposes, watering of the streets and restrooms.
In 1907, Stan Vidrighin, an engineer working in the technical department of Timisoara Municipality, was assigned the task to identify a proper solution for the sewerage and water supply of the city. For documentation purposes, Stan Vidrighin travelled, spending city’s money, to Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg, Köln, Strasbourg, Karlsruhe and London, to study designs that could be adapted to the local conditions. After having returned to the county, he successfully designed and commissioned the sewerage and the water supply systems of the city.
The city’s sewerage was designed to operate in a unitary system. This means that both used water and rainwater are transported through the same system. Sewerage works start in 1909, with two collecting tanks, on the right bank and on the left bank of Bega canal. In 1911, the construction of the wastewater treatment plant started; it was commissioned in late 1912. Timisoara’s modern sewerage system was one of the most ambitious but also much needed projects, a city on the rise in early 20th century. It was a 7-year project which developed along with the dismantlement of the fortifications, turning the entire city into a huge construction site.
Under the supervision of Vidrighin, test drilling sites continue to operate both north and south-east of the city, between Moşniţa, Urseni and Giro. A total number of 139 exploratory wells were dug. Following these studies, Vidrighin came to the conclusion that the identified water sources met the qualitative and quantitative requirements needed for future developments of the city.
Thus, in 1910, the construction of the Water Treatment Plant no.1 started, located 5 km away from the city, representing the southern limit of the built-up area. The Museum has three historical buildings that had been operating since 1914 as a “body”, supplying drinking water to the locals: the group of fountains, the iron removal room I and the pumping house. At that time, there was also a dwelling house for the plant’s employees. After being commissioned in 1914, the Water Treatment Plant was the subject of numerous extensions. Since 1918, the issue of building a second iron removal room had arisen, intervention that most likely was completed between 1932-1934. In 1928, the building was equipped with a transformer (power plant). In 1992, the new deep water treatment station was commissioned, on the same plot with Plant no.1, all buildings erected between 1910 and 1934 being decommissioned.
Based on his specialization as engineer at Polytechnic University of Budapest, Vidrighin comes into contact with current specialized technical education as well as with a plastic-type design specific for the reference period, that is the Secession movement. This is a trend that flourishes in arts and architecture between the late 19th century and early 20th century. As the name suggests, Secession means a break, a split – a rupture from historical and conservative tradition, and also the creation of new forms correlated with modern times.
In Germany, it was called “Jugendstil”, Youth Style; in France, it was referred to as “Art Nouveau”, New Art; in Wien and in Budapest, it was known as “Secession”, respectively “Szecesszió”.
The Water Treatment Plant no.1 Urseni is one of the most representative ensembles from Timisoara and Romania, both for its industrial architecture from the early 20th century XX, and for spreading the Art Nouveau style.
The plant’s facilities are buildings where technical reasoning and industrial functioning prevail, however, they are all submitted to a design type highly influenced by the Industrial Secession style. This entails the use of materials and techniques new for that moment in time (for instance using concrete to build the plant’s facilities), and also the use of stylized designs, inspired by nature.
Originally called the Groundwater Establishment, the Water Treatment Plant where you are now was commissioned on June 1st 1914. For four decades, this plant had supplied the needed water to the locals, on its own, and it had operated uninterruptedly for almost 80 years!
Let's dive deeper into the story of the water plant!