Offices and stores.
Guttman Guttman
About
A tenement house, designed and constructed by its owner János Guttman in 1892. Guttman was a wealthy man holding important offices in the city. He was the director of a debt-purchasing bank, a successful construction entrepreneur and a member of the city council. The Guttmans, who were of German origin, specifically the Alsace-Lorraine territory, settled in Oradea in the 18th century. The building on Iosif Vulcan Street no. 4/6 was finished in 1892, taking the place of the old house of the Radeovojevich (Radivoievici?) family. It is a tenement building with an upper floor rendered in the eclectic style and formed from two wings: one on Republicii (“Republic”) Street (Fő utca), and the other on Iosif Vulcan Street (Rimanóczy utca), while the structure of the building was planimetrically adapted to the available land and borders the Kolozsváry House on the corner.
The ground floor of the building featured stores with large windows on both pediments, which were leased to Lipót Róna’s furniture showroom, to the hosiery / haberdashery of salesman Freyberger and his associate, and to Herbst the jeweler. Starting from 1901, Ármin Adorján – the well-known lawyer and man of culture – opened an attorney practice on the first floor. A dentist’s office was also set up on this floor.
The architecture
The pediments are plated with visible brown bricks in geometrical shapes. The bays made from visible bricks are fractured by pilasters of a light color. The windows feature frameworks made of columns with volutes and architraves above them, featuring decorative stucco elements (female heads, urns). Upstairs, the façade facing Republicii Street is heavily ornamented. The part of the edge which protrudes outside the roof is decorated with a row of stucco cornices that alternate with portions of bas-reliefs. The roof on this pediment is of the attic type with two smaller side windows, and, in the middle, a small tower that rises and frames the middle window, investing the building with a Baroque touch. The window frameworks resemble accentuated stucco volutes. A discrete bulwark of snow extends across the eaves.
The visible brick ornaments continue on the façade facing Iosif Vulcan Street, but lack that same amount of stucco. The bay made of visible bricks is interrupted by a plastered portion. Also on this pediment is the entrance gate, which is arched with a double portal.
The builder used construction materials and decorative elements manufactured in the workshops of Oradea. The building suggests the social position of the owner – their bourgeois standing – who owns an apartment within. The Guttman House perfectly fits into the eclectic landscape of Piața Ferdinand (”Ferdinand Square”).