We are in the year 1900 and the city of Timisoara has a rare chance. A few years before, in 1890, the civil authorities of the city succeeded in obtaining, after long negotiations, the army's permission to demolish the massive fortifications that surrounded the city center for more than 150 years. The disappearance of the fortifications meant the disappearance of the "esplanade", an approx. 1000 m wide area around the …