Bánffy Palace Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca)
History
The Bánffy Palace is a defining building of the main square in Cluj-Napoca. It is located on the eastern side of the square, with its main façade facing west, and features a three-arched gateway entrance. Above the gate is a balcony crowned by the Bánffy coat of arms bearing a griffin, while the attic is adorned with statues of mythological deities and Rococo-style urns. The palace’s impressive halls are arranged along one axis in the side wings and two axes in the western and eastern wings. The ground floor facing the street was built with doorways intended for separate shop spaces, which were soon leased. In his will, the governor left the palace to his children and encouraged them to rent out additional rooms. Behind the building block, there were stables, several carriage houses, and staff quarters. Count György Bánffy lived in the palace with his wife, Countess Jozefa Palm, until his death in 1822. The building continued to serve for a time as the governor’s residence even after his passing.
Style
The palace features a wealth of Classicist, Renaissance, and Baroque elements. In the construction contract, the client specified that the main façade should follow the Roman architectural order, while the inner courtyard should follow the Ionic order, and also addressed various roofing methods for the building. The balcony on the façade, divided by composite columns, is supported by a central projection with a curved floor plan. The inner courtyard is surrounded on the ground floor by an arcade and on the upper floor by an external corridor with Ionic columns.Famous residents
Hosted several royal and noble guests, including:
Emperor Francis I and Empress Caroline Augusta (1817),
Archduke Maximilian,
Emperor and King Franz Joseph (twice),
Historian Count József Teleki,
Composer Franz Liszt.Present day
The basement of the wing facing the main square preserves the foundation walls of earlier townhouses. Most of the Czech vaults and groin vaults in the ground-floor rooms have been reconstructed. The spectacular decorations of the Bánffy apartment—wall paneling, door frames, window recesses, mirrors, and window shutters—are still in place. The tiled stoves, made redundant by the central heating system introduced in the 1960s, are now gone, with only the stucco-decorated stove niches remaining. The furnishings of the palace have disappeared. The memory of the extraordinary lifestyle of the Bánffy family lives on only in a storage room, where a large, griffin-adorned, gilded horse-drawn sleigh lies forgotten.
