The historical ages of the tower – most likely built in the late 15th century, the Firefighters Tower – once the Weavers’ Tower – was part of the city’s second medieval fortification, guarding the “Săpunarilor” neighborhood. After the demolition of nearby gate towers in the 1870s, it was preserved and transformed into a firewatch tower, raised with a new upper level. Damaged by fires, it was restored in 1960 using reinforced concrete, reflecting the restoration principles of that time. In 1985 it became an astronomical museum, crowned with a glass pyramid meant to serve as an observatory, though it never functioned due to its central location. Later turned into a firefighters museum, it gradually lost its public role. By 2017, the tower faced semi-abandonment, leading to a new restoration project that aims to revive it as an urban observatory and reconnect it with the city’s cultural and civic life.

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.