Liberty Square

Liberty Square lies in the historic centre of Timișoara, Romania, surrounded by Baroque and Art Nouveau buildings. The mostly traffic-free space connects with Union Square and Victory Square, forming an important axis through the old city. Its open paving, green areas and monuments create a setting for gatherings and public events.

The square became Timișoara’s centre after the Habsburg conquest in the early eighteenth century, when the fortress and garrison town developed around it. The old city hall, built between 1731 and 1734 on the foundations of a Turkish bath, still displays a historic coat of arms on its gable. The building served the German magistrate, reflecting the city’s German, Serbian and Romanian communities. Nearby, the Baroque monument to Saint Mary and Saint John of Nepomuk commemorates the plague epidemic of 1738 and 1739.

Viennese sculptors created the monument between 1753 and 1756, and barges carried it along the Danube, Tisza and Bega rivers. Red paving stones laid in concentric circles around the column in 2013 gave locals a playful nickname: the city’s own “red square.”