House, Saschiz, Mures 1762
Situated on Târnavelor plateau, Saschiz is a village built by Saxon settlers in the 14th century, together with the area of Sighișoara. From this place, the house of Băcișor Dumitru was transferred in the Village Museum in 1995, representing a specific example for the popular architecture of the villages with Saxon ethnicity majority. Among the main occupations in Saschiz, there were the pastoralism, growing of animals and the agriculture. Subsequently, they took over from the Saxon people also the crafts of sheepskin coat making, pottery, barrel making, smithery. In fact, the habit of Romanian people to bring their children to serve the Saxon people in order to learn professions, was kept up to the second world war.
As in the whole area marked by the German-profile culture, the architecture from the village has Saxon influences, the houses being usually placed with the narrow fronton towards the road. Their frontons have a triangular shape and are lifted up to the ridge of the roof reduced to two slopes. The households are closed by massive walls and gates.
The house transferred in the museum was built in 1762 in the place called “Românime”. Built in massive oak beams of impressing dimensions, rudimentarily carved with the hatchet and connected with “German” joints, the house has two rooms: the hallway and the living room. Under the latter, is the basement where the craftsman from that period successfully combined two types of masonry materials; stone alternated with bricks rows. The access in the basement is made on the side to the road, and during the cold period of the year, through a cover fixed in the flooring of the living room. The roof on two steep slopes is covered in “scale” tiles. The household is complemented by the bread oven, the brick wall fence, covered with tiles, and the large wooden gate.
