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Lajos Weisz House

- Piața Unirii 6 -
The two-story residential and commercial building, which is also known by the name the House with Lions, was reconstructed to its current form took place between 1906 and 1909. The first time that the house with lions appears on the plans of Timișoara was in 1758, and in 1818 it was known as the house of Johan Palick, after the name of its owner. After 1840, the building housed in turn the Golden Sun eating house, the White Dog grocery store, and the Big Whistle shop. In 1851, Angelica Palick, who inherited the house, married István Damaszkin from . He sold the house in 1871, to businessman Sándor Weisz, who, for decades, had a famous haberdashery and wholesale business. Lajos Weisz, one of Sándor's sons, expanded the warehouse on the ground floor and restored the facade in 1906. This is when the emblematic lions on the roof appear. During the socialist period, in the 1950s, the building was the headquarters of Siguranța, a secret police agency, that turned the cellars into detention centers.
The building before the restoration
On top of the southern side of the building, which is built in the Eclectic style with Neo-Baroque and Art Nouveau elements, you can see two laying lions. The fragment they are part of is embellished with alternating and circles, as well as some laurel twigs. One of the two contains a fragment that's adorned with foliage, , and two , which are holding up the Weisz family coat of arms. The two tympanums that are supported by several , as well as the roof , are both adorned with even more dentils. The corbels originate from a that's crowned with an Ionic . A statue of an eagle is placed underneath the , which is crowned with a bell-shaped dome. The band that's placed underneath the dome is, in addition to acanthus foliage, also decorated with some beautiful angels. There's another band running along over the turret, but this one also continues to run along the rest of the facade, and this band is embellished with even more acanthus foliage and rosettes. Above the second floor windows, you can either see a pointed adorned with a , or a , which in some cases is adorned with a . Above the main entrance, which contains a beautifully decorated wrought iron W, you can see a balcony secured with a cast iron railing and supported by seven corbels.
An old postcard that shows the building