Tag: Resort Town Architecture

Art Deco Spa Building in Saxon Transylvania

Valentin Mandache
The 1929 Art Deco style of the 'mud-bath" pavilion in Bazna spa town (Baussen in local German dialect) in Saxon Transylvania, central Romania. (old postcard, Valentin Mandache collection)

Bazna is located in the region known as Saxon Transylvania, traditionally inhabited by ethnic Germans from the c12th until c20th. This industrious and highly civilized community was forced to emigrate during the communist period to West Germany because of the harsh economic conditions and unbearable nationalist policies against ethnic minorities of the state of Romania. This is also an important natural gas producing area, known as the Transylvanian salt domes region, endowed with a geology that contains large such hydrocarbure deposits, which in the inter-war period made Romania one of the main European gas producers and today makes this EU region much less dependent on the capricious Russian gas supply. That complex geology favoured the development of an important spa resort town in Bazna during the Victorian period, when the area was within the confines of the Habsburg Empire. The old post card above shows the mud-bath pavilion (“Schlammbad” in German) during the brief inter-war flourishing of the local German community. It is built in an attractive minimalist, essential early Art Deco style (the year 1929 as is mentioned on the central tower). I like the “Salve” inscription on the pediment of the Art Deco doorway which greets the customers, a typical cheerful spa town decorative artefact used since the Roman times. The photograph is a glimpse of a long gone happy epoch reflected in architecture. Bazna nowadays is littered with ugly modern buildings of uncouth architecture, a consequence of the wild Romanian property boom of the last few years. It is also an expensive place, despite its run down infrastructure in terms of holiday resort. That makes even more poignant the contrast with the beautiful inter-war atmosphere and architecture depicted in the postcard above.

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

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If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contactpage of this weblog.

The Glazed Façade of c19th Beer Restaurant

Valentin Mandache
A well preserved intricate late c19th beer restaurant glazed façade located in Sinaia city park; the Transylvanian Alps. (©Valentin Mandache)

The mountain resort of Sinaia, in the Transylvanian Alps undertook a fast development in the last quarter of the c19th once the railway that crossed the mountains, connecting Bucharest with the rest of Europe was opened, and the Romanian Royal Family built its magnificent summer retreat there, the Pelesh Castle. A multitude of private individuals also erected attractive Alpine chalet type villas throughout the town as week end or summer residencies to escape the sweltering weather of Bucharest. Businesses were flourishing in the booming resort and the restaurants and casinos were some of the most obvious manifestations of the emerging prosperity. The above photograph, which I took in early spring last year, shows an early example of such Sinaia establishment: a beer restaurant with what once must have been a large front garden. It uses a relatively cheap timber frame structure and glazed surface, with interesting saw-cut latticework on some of its sectors.  It lays now empty, perhaps because of ownership disputes among the descendants of pre-communist owners, or more probably because the new owners intend to demolish it in order to make way for a more profitable modern building (the structure is listed and the easiest legal way to obtain a demolition permit is to leave it, in a discreet way, deteriorate beyond repair- a terrible phenomenon affecting the built heritage of Romania on a huge scale). The timber-frame restaurants were popular in late c19th small town Romania, many of them still surviving in various states of repair, constituting excellent potential renovation projects for those willing to undertake such an enterprise.

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.