A village of rare beauty

The historic buildings of a Transylvanian settlement have been restored and preserved with the help of several foundations and backed by The King’s personal enthusiasm. Jeremy Musson reports on this remarkable place

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VISCRI in southern Transylvania is one of a group of seven Saxon villages declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999. All sit within a landscape of rolling hills and open valleys, ringed by the Carpathian mountains, and remain part of a traditional way of life linked to the seasons. Today, several charitable foundations—including the King Charles III Charitable Fund and the Mihai Eminescu Trust (MET)—help protect the village's built heritage and support the local community, as others, such as Fundația ADEPT, work to preserve the continuity of its agricultural economy.

In Viscri, cattle are let out from farmsteads to be driven down the main street to pasture in the morning (Fig 9), returning in the evenings. The surrounding hay meadows have, so far, largely been spared industrial farming practices and their rich biodiversity offers an insight into an interdependence with Nature that has all but vanished in Europe.

At Viscri’s main crossroads is a farmstead restored by the King Charles III Charitable Fund. Now called the King’s House, this pair of blue-washed buildings has shuttered windows under clay-tile roofs, linked by a high wall and gateway (Fig 6). It provides a model of a repaired and sensitively extended farmstead and is used to promote the conservation and use of traditional building practices.

As well as temporary installations, the King’s House hosts permanent exhibitions on tile-making, on the multi-artist