The Thick Tower

The Thick Tower, located on Cetății Street and on Corneliu Coposu Avenue, is a massive construction on a semicircle U-shaped layout, protruding approx. 25 meters outside the exterior wall. The walls are made of brick, with stones at the base, having a platform on which the cannons used to be placed.

The tower was built around the year 1540 by Markus Pempfflinger, the royal judge of Sibiu, and it was part of the fortifications subsequently included into the city’s defensive belt. On the inside there used to be blockhouses provided with fire holes. Two brick ducts have also been discovered, one thought to have served for water drainage from the exterior ditch and the other one for the communication between the defence soldiers standing on each side of the tower.

At the initiative of Martin Hochmeister, typographer and initiator of the first bookshop of Romania, who became the mayor of Sibiu, a hall was included into the massive Thick Tower in 1787 – the Thalia Hall, where the first Romanian theatre was established and one of the few existing in Europe. The style of the hall was rococo and it used to have two balconies and one box reserved exclusively for the Governor of Transylvania. After it burnt during a fire, in 1826, the theatre building was rebuilt in a Viennese style.

Romanian theatre troupes conducted by Mihail Pascaly, Tardini-Vlădicescu and Matei Millo have performed on the stage of this theatre. Later on, many personalities of the Romanian culture have performed on the stage of Sibiu theatre, among them the famous composer George Enescu.

The theatre activated continuously in this hall until 1949, when another devastating fire took place.

During 1990-2004, the County Council of Sibiu rebuilt the Thalia Hall, at the same time changing its purpose. Today, the Thalia Hall hosts the State Philharmonic of Sibiu.