Zonal Restoration and Conservation Laboratory

The Zonal Restoration and Conservation Laboratory within the National Museum of Banat in Timișoara was established in 1975.

From the very beginning, it was one of the most important and largest profile laboratories in the country, with sectors specialized in the restoration and conservation of metals, ceramics-glass-porcelain, old-paper-paper, painting, textiles, stone and wood-furniture, archeological. It was staffed by 32 restorers and investigators.

In the 46 years since its establishment, the laboratory specialists have restored and preserved, in many cases, saved tens of thousands of objects from the national cultural heritage, from all historical epochs and from all typological categories, many of them being classified in the category Treasure. The beneficiaries were museums, churches and religious denominations, other institutions as well as private individuals from Timişoara, Banat and Crişana area, but also from the country.

Currently, the laboratory has high-performance equipment, used in scientific research for analysis for the reunification of cultural assets. These are: XRF Portable Bruker Tracer 5i, ZEISS AXIO Imager A2m Microscope; which identifies the chemical composition of objects.

The resulting scientific documentation is a valuable database for interdisciplinary research of cultural heritage, in many cases it is the basis for research in history, archeology or art.

The applied, specific scientific research has materialized in numerous participations in national and international sessions, in the country and abroad, as well as with the publication of numerous works in the volumes of museums from all over the country.

Due to the special professional quality, several specialists of the laboratory were asked to participate in various national restoration and conservation actions.

The specialists of the laboratory obtained from the Ministry of Culture the title of expert, respectively of specialist in the restoration and conservation of the heritage, a quality that gives them the right to intervene on cultural goods classified in the Treasury category.

Unfortunately, after 1990, the space of the zonal restoration laboratory was gradually reduced, reaching that today, the sectors of paper – old book-binding, metals, ceramics and wood – furniture, archeological to be dispersed in several locations.

Old Paper-Book Restoration

Metal-Ceramic Restoration

Restoration of Wood- Archaeological Furniture

Preventive conservation

Chemical-physical investigations