Margina Cooperative. Distillery conversion and rehabilitation, Margina commune, jud. Timiș

Diploma project, class of 2013, UPT, Faculty of Architecture

Author: MIHAI SILVIU BUȘE

Supervisor: Codruța Negrulescu

The diploma project deals with the rehabilitation of the former distillery in the village of Margina, Timis County. What remains of the former distillery building is located 100 km from Timișoara, in the north-east of the county

The context in which the building was erected classifies it as one of the most interesting testimonies of the industrialization process of the sec. XIX-XX. At the end of the 19th century, Banat benefited from a series of infrastructure works initiated in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With the completion of the Lugoj-Ilia railway in 1910, a long process of transformation began for the life of the inhabitants of the area. The beechwood distillation plant in Margina was built in 1910 on the orders of a Hungarian company on the basis of a project drawn up in Germany. Starting from the carefully designed architecture of the factory and the programs complementary to the industry: housing for management and workers, canteen, public baths, cinema/show hall, gardens, we could draw an analogy with a Familister-type program. A strong community was built around the factory, but its substance has gradually weakened with the transformations linked to changes in ownership. Nostalgia for the exemplary community of the factory's heyday is still present today in the discourse and consciousness of those who worked here.

Read the full text in issue 4/2013 of Arhitectura magazine