bg Timisoara

Arnold Merbl Palace

- Strada Doctor Nicolae Paulescu 2 -
The plot on which the four-story building, which was built for residential and commercial purposes, was purchased in 1910. The construction permit was issued on March 8, 1911, and the construction was completed in that same year. The construction was commissioned by the architect Arnold Merbl and executed according to his own design and by his own company called Arnold Merbl & Co. Arnold was born in 1876, in Felsőireg, nowadays , and studied architecture in . He was active in the leadership of the Orthodox community in the Iosefin neighborhood and in the curatorship of the Israelite High School.
Arnold Merbl
Arnold participated in a delegation to a Zionist Congress in and, according to his only nephew, Andrei Teodor Merbl, he was in contact with , the founder of Zionism. On January 17, 1907, Arnold established his architecture firm in Timișoara, and in 1915 he founded a firm in Budapest focused on military architecture. Arnold Merbl died in Timișoara in 1950 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery. During the communist period, the first floor of the building housed the Mihai Eminescu Bookstore, the largest bookstore in the city.
Arnold Merbl and his wife in 1946
On top of the corner of the building, which is built in the Art Nouveau style with some Neo-Baroque elements, you can admire a majestic dome crowned with a . The building features multiple top gables containing and garlands, which in most cases originate from a . The building also contains three , which are supported by either two or four . The two balconies that are placed on the southern side of the building are secured with a cast iron railing, and only one is supported by corbels. In addition to all this, the building also contains some geometric and floral decorations.
The building is visible in an old postcard