Extension and regeneration of the historical and museal space in Turda

Authors’ Comment

The proposed intervention for the expansion of the Turda History Museum through the addition of a lapidarium and the urban regeneration of its adjacent spaces aims to reintroduce both the movable and immovable heritage into the city’s cultural circuit. The Roman fort of the Fifth Macedonian Legion in Turda (ancient Potaissa) is one of the most valuable and well-preserved Roman fortifications on the territory of Romania, constituting an essential historical landmark.

In the context of its transformation into an archaeological site, a symbolic connection is established at the city level between the ruins of the Roman fort and the fragments displaced from it over time, and the History Museum, which becomes a dedicated space for the preservation, interpretation, and enhancement of the recovered movable heritage. Due to the museum building’s status as a historical monument, dating back to the 15th century, the intervention unfolds within a sensitive historical context, requiring a careful approach aimed at raising collective awareness about the importance of heritage in shaping the cultural, touristic, and communal identity of the city.

The proposal follows a dual-level approach: on an urban scale, by reestablishing the connection between the Roman fort and the museum, as well as revitalizing the surrounding public space; and on a local scale, through the architectural proposal for extending the museum’s exhibition space. The site is located on the bank of the Racilor Stream, an area that, due to the lack of proper urban development, has become inaccessible as a result of uncontrolled vegetation, isolating the History Museum from the rest of the urban fabric. By redeveloping this area, both improved circulation within the urban island and access from two opposite sides of the museum site are ensured, allowing the museum to be reintegrated into the public visitation route of the city.

Currently, a significant portion of the vestiges discovered in and around the archaeological site of the Roman fort are stored in inadequate conditions, which accelerates their degradation and severely limits public access to an essential component of the local heritage. For this reason, the expansion of the museum through the creation of a lapidarium becomes not only timely but absolutely necessary. The intervention proposes a non-invasive approach, with small-scale, targeted actions at ground level and an underground extension, which includes the new lapidarium and a conference space, opening directly onto the vegetated bank of the stream. In this configuration, the museum building is perceived as an artifact in itself—a witness to the superimposed historical layers—within which the contemporary intervention is subtly embedded below ground. Through the use of a unified material palette in the basement, the new museum space becomes a neutral display, intended to highlight the presence of the artifacts, turning the archaeological object into the true protagonist of the exhibition space. The geometry of this space is discreetly expressed on the surface through the treatment of the pavement.

This approach does not merely propose a functional expansion of the museum but an act of reconnecting the city with its own heritage, inserted into a complex and continuously evolving urban tissue. By reconfiguring the relationship between past and present, the intervention becomes both a tool for urban and cultural regeneration and a catalyst for collective memory, offering the community a living, dynamic, and accessible cultural, historical, and educational space.