Source: aradcityguide.ro / aradon.ro
The story of the Casino begins in 1872, when it was built, benefiting from an architecture with neoclassical and neo-baroque elements. Over the years, the building has functioned as a showroom, event venue and casino.
Over the past 100 years, the building has been abandoned several times, and after 1990 it has become private property.
In 2007, a company rented the space and reopened the casino, but it did not last long. The last attempt to revive the building, to bring it back to the city’s circuit, was to open a restaurant and a club. But it did not take long and the building was abandoned again. With the last abandon, the old casino has become the “home” of street people.
The squalor took over the historic building, the new “tenants” have destroyed everything they have put their hands on, including the wires from the walls, and also the plaster has been demolished.
Various exhibitions took place inside the Casino, including an agro-industrial exhibition in 1890, where Timisoara Brewery was awarded the bronze award.
Here, a year later, the same Romanian beer brand is awarded the silver medal.
The old casino building is located next to the current Children’s Park in Arad. At first, it was called the Baross Park. There was once a remarkable public fountain with a rich ornamented ironwork. In its glorious times, the Casino was a very attractive touristic point for all those who were on the banks of the river and the parks that stretched towards the Palace of Justice (Baross Park and Salacz – the current Eminescu Park).
At the beginning, the casino building had a beautiful summer garden which customers preferred during the warmer times of the year. During winter, the perimeter in front of the casino was used as a skating rink.
A place very much loved by the young people from Arad of the time, the casino was still functioning before the completion of the current pier between the Mures River and the city, so that from the summer garden of the venue the Mureș riverside panorama offered an impressive sight.
The Arad Casino was one of the buildings that many past personalities, known at national level, passed through. Vasile Goldiș, Ștefan Cicio Pop, Ioan Suciu, Ioan Slavici or Mayor Salacz Gyula were some of those who stepped into the historic building.
Whatever the destination of the old Arad Casino, it is important that this historic building retakes the place it deserves on the tourist and economic map of the city.
