Historical quarters Fabric District Tourist attractions - Fabric
Fabric District
Until after 1716, today’s area of the Fabric district, located east of the Cetate (Castle) district, was not inhabited.
In 1716, in the area were only two water mills. The one on the north was located on one of the River Bega’s branches, which no longer exists, approximately in today’s Mitropolit Sterca-Şuluţiu Square, and may also have served as an ammunition storehouse or factory around the 1660s. The second mill was located on the other branch of water, several hundred meters south-west of the first.
After the Habsburgs took over Timişoara, the first “production units”, or manufactures were located east of the city, in the eastern part of former Palanca Mare district, i.e. in the current University of Medicine – Copiilor (Children’s) Park area. After the building of the new bastion was decided, whose construction began in 1732, it was found that the manufactures were too close to the new citadel. The building of new manufactures was decided to be made to the east of the first locations, i.e. in today’s Fabric district. The first manufacture in this area, a “cloth factory”, appears located right next to the first mill mentioned above. Afterwards, other manufactures were built: brick factories, a paper mill, a wire manufacture, a silk factory and, of course, the cloth factory. All these manufactures (excluding the silk factory set up in a house that already existed) were located east of the Esplanade’s boundary, the 948 m wide area, on which building was forbidden.
The nowadays residential district was approved (and probably charted) in 1744, on the east of the Esplanade’s boundary. The districts’ outline was determined by the sinuous shapes of the surrounding marshes and water branches. However, insofar as possible, the streets were straight and crossed paths at right angles.
Initially, the district was composed of the “Rascian Fabric”, a neighborhood with Orthodox inhabitants, developed to the north, east and south of today’s “Traian Square”, and the “German Fabric”, smaller and developed around the Şcolii (School) Street, inhabited mostly by Germans. “Rascian” comes from the name of the river Raška (Serbian) = Rascia (Latin), from the region considered to be the “cradle of the Serbs”. The Serbs held the leadership of the Orthodox Church in Banat for a long time, the term “rascian” becoming a synonym for “orthodox”, regardless of the nationality of the believers.
The district experienced great development in the first half of the nineteenth century. In the middle of that century, 53.04% of the entire civilian population of Timişoara, therefore more than half of Timişoara, was living in Fabric.
The saying that “all that’s good comes from Fabric” got round in Timişoara: drinking water came through wooden pipelines from Fabric to the Cetate district ever since 1732 (those pipelines were destroyed by revolutionaries during the siege of 1849); beer was made in Fabric after the brewery was moved there following the year 1744, etc.
The main tourist attractions in the Fabric district are:
Other attractions in the Fabric district are:
Josef Kunz Palace
The street light at the entrance into the Colterm Company Building
Stefania Palace
Countess Ana Mirbach Palace
“Mercur” Palace
Nägele Palace
Sf. Maria Greek Catholic Church in Fabric
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