Tag: Window

Art Deco staircase tower window

Valentin Mandache
Art Deco staircase tower window, mid-1930s house, Matei Basarb area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

I like the svelte lines of this staircase tower window from an Art Deco house in east-central Bucharest, which is excellently preserved despite the inauspicious conditions that prevailed in the country ever since the beginning of the WWII. Its quite austere lines remind me of the high tech factories of that era (e.g. automobile or aircraft industry), a main source of inspiration for the Art Deco style.

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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

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

Amber glass decorated Neo-Romanian style window

Valentin Mandache
Neo-Romanian style window, mid-1920s house, Kiseleff area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

This is a delicate and also impressive Neo-Romanian style window, where the main visual effect is given by the small rhomboidal amber coloured glass panes that define the casement at regular intervals. Other well designed elements are the double arch of the wall opening, the two Neo-Romanian columns flanking the window and the grape vine and leaf motif panels that decorate its apron. The whole assembly excellently suggests the romantic medieval ambiance, which is a feature of this architectural order, of the times of yore when these lands were part of the restless borderlands between the christian and worlds of the Middle Ages.

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

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

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

Early Neo-Romanian style window

Valentin Mandache
Early Neo-Romanian style window, dating from the 1890s, Armeneasca area, Bucharest. (©Valentin Mandache)

The window and the building which it adorns date from the last decade of the c19th, a period when the Neo-Romanian architectural style was still in its infancy. I documented in previous blog articles a number of such exquisite houses, which display decorative and structural features from that fascinating formative period, click here or here to access some examples. This particular window displays an interesting transition between between elements peculiar to the Little Paris style (French c19th historicist styles interpreted in a provincial manner in the late c19th Romania), such as the two classical like columns or the flower garland rim, and Wallachian church and Ottoman decorative elements, where most conspicuous are the type of the broken arch crowning the top of the window and the repeating leaf motif decorating the pediment.

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

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

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing 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.

Art Deco windows frames with Romanian ethnographic carvings

Valentin Mandache

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One of delightful aspects of the Art Deco architectural style in Bucharest is its assimilation and recycling of indigenous decorative motifs, resulting in surprising adaptations of this decorative order to the local cultural environment. I found that fact nicely reflected in the window frames, which adorn Bucharest houses built in the mid-1930s, shown in the above slide show. The frames are carved with Romanian ethnographic motifs, typical of the peasant art of rural Romania, representing examples of the creative artistic fusions that give a strong local flavour to an international architectural order.

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

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

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing 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.