The historical ages of the tower – most likely built in the last decades of the 15th century, the Firefighters Tower, formerly the Weavers’ Tower, was part of the second medieval precinct of the city, guarding the “Săpunarilor” neighborhood for centuries (soap making people). After the demolition of the gate towers of the city, in the early 1870s, the possibility of demolishing this tower of the fortified enclosure was also formulated, but the city council voted for it to be transformed into a firefighters tower. On this occasion the old medieval tower was raised with a new segment, becoming a firehouse for the surveillance of fires in the surrounding area. These events were quite frequent, including the tower being affected by two consecutive fires, which mostly affected its interior and resistance structure. For this reason, in 1960 a project was developed to restore the building, which meanwhile became a historical monument of national importance. The restoration was done in the paradigm of those times, introducing reinforced concrete floors and ramps inside, in strong contradiction with the heritage structure of the tower. In 1985 the tower was transformed into a popular astronomical museum, receiving a glass pyramid at its top, which replaced the old picket of the firehouse. The new glass pyramid was also intended as an astronomical observatory, but due to the tower’s location in the heart of the city, this observatory never functioned. Over time, the function of the astronomy museum was lost and the tower space was transformed into a firefighters museum, but without much success among the public. At the time of the initiation of the restoration and revitalization project in 2017, the tower was suffering from semi-abandonment and disinterest from the public.
The argument of the third age – the tower, built in successive layers, used for defense and then for watching the city, remains an urban observatory through the new age, a place of contemplation and reading of urban development. The third age is materialized through a discrete, integrated and unitary intervention, which aims, by simple and reversible means, to obtain a consistent activation of the tower, while also providing a reading on the past and future city. The diorama, as a mode of exposition, becomes a part of the expression of this reading, both on the scale of an emerging reality (the proposed new level) and of past realities, captured in different stages of the city’s evolution.