"In translation, Fackelmann means "Fackelman""

"For a certain generation of architects in Timișoara, "Fackelmann's Time" marked a distinct stage in the evolution of the city's post-war architecture, perhaps its most fruitful period.

The "Periclean Century", the heyday of ancient classical Greek architecture, lasted almost 50 years. In Timișoara, "Fackelmann's Time", the period during which the architect was professionally active, lasted less than 20 years.

Hans Fackelmann graduated from the Faculty of Architecture in Bucharest in 1958. In the fall of 1978 he retired due to a serious illness. He was not yet 45. To fully analyze Fackelmann's architectural work would probably require several volumes. The almost 20 years were a short period for the history of the city. For the architect's creations, from the geometric functionalism of the West University to the round, undulating shapes inside the concert hall of the Music High School, and from there to the Church of Orșova, the architect's masterpiece, the 20 years have meant a prodigious creative activity. One might also wonder whether the church in Dumbrăvița might not have been Fackelmann's masterpiece. Both churches were built while in Bucharest they were being demolished.

We see and understand the world from our own experience. I studied for six years at the Institute of Architecture in Bucharest. For a year and a half, between February 1977 and September 1978, I was Fackelmann's assistant at the Department of Architecture at the Polytechnic Institute of Timișoara. Subsequently, I taught for 10 years at the Institute of Architecture "Ion Mincu" in Bucharest. It was only there that I learned to properly value the Timișoara experience. The Timișoara school, marked by the work of several personalities, including the architect Fackelmann, was in reality a laboratory in which architecture was experimented in the noblest sense of the word.

In professional terms, Hans Fackelmann, the Flame Man, burned and enlightened for no more than 20 years!"

(Text written in 2009, 30 years after the disappearance of the esteemed architect, when the Hans Fackelmann exhibition and the publication of the book dedicated to the building of the West University materialized).