PRIMĂRIA VECHE DIN SIBIU casa, oamenii, muzeul

Primăria Veche din Sibiu - casa, oamenii, muzeul 109
the details on the framed decorations. The passage of the building’s architectural style left
traces on the interior as well. A door pane was engraved with a scene having Hercules with a
club in the close-up image, a representation reminding us of the last owner of the building, the
royal Comit, Marcus Pemfflinger, famous army general, who preferred to spend his fortune to
equip his army rather than maintaining his house. In fact, we can accept the hypothesis of the
finishing of the residence ensemble along with the one with representative functions during
the Lulay period can be endorsed until new information arise. We can thus wonder what the
interior space was meant for. The first floor of the tower and of the segment behind it to the
north were certainly used as housing spaces, as they were heated by two fireplaces: a large
one in the residence tower and a smaller one placed in an adjoining room. Beginning with the
18 th century we have documentary information of the heating using a terracotta tiled stove, of
the large room on the first floor, the Landtagsaal.
On the ground floor the spaces were meant for domestic activities. The noblemen kept
their horses on the ground floors of all towers in the city. It would have been only natural that
Thomas Altemberger has done the same. Behind the tower was a small chamber that still
retains a large diameter chimney place. In this case the assumption of the existence of a place
for cooking food, or baking bread, is quite at hand. To the north there is a large chamber with
windows opening towards the lower city that used to be directly linked through other spaces
to the leisure garden, to the cellar and the assumed latrine. We presume that this was a
socializing space. The house had a large cellar and an attic with a skylight window.
The proposed partition of the spaces in the house is intricate only at first glance, as in
the last quarter of the 15 th century the aristocracy in Sibiu becomes emancipated in contact
with the new cultural values promoted in Western Europe. In this context, the arranging of a
latrine with access directly from the inside of the house is a plausible reality. We are however
less interested whether the latrine was built by Thomas Altemberger or Johannes Lulay. The
technique used for building a brick enclosure that starts in the basement of a house, and
deepening further 8.5 metres, using discharge arcs built in the structure of the brick walls, is
quite impressive. The latrine booth was ventilated through an opening in the wall up to the
roof.
After the year 1545 the building was turned into residence of the City Magistrate, the
county, and sometimes of the Saxon University. The old housing building needed to suit its
new functions: hosting the magistrate’s meetings, the trials, the archive and the prisoners.
There were also, at least in the 19 th century (when they were first recorded in the documents),
offices for the civil servants. The building was extended during the 16 th century towards the