Charming Majolikahaus, or Majolica House, shapes the left of the two adjacent apartment Linke Wienzeile Buildings standing on the north side of the namesake main street in the Mariahilf (district), central Vienna in Austria.
Occupying No 40, the edifice was designed and raised in 1898 by prominent Austrian architect and urban planner Otto Wagner on the lines of the Vienna Secession style that he so passionately advocated against the long prevalent historicist trend in the Austrian capital in his time.
The building owes its name to its entirely majolica (lead-glazed earthware tiles) laid façade that is bursting with floral motifs and vibrant colours, designed by Wagner’s student Alois Ludwig, while it features colourful wrought iron balconies beautifully nestled on either far side.
The Gellért Baths (Gellért gyógyfürdő in Hungarian), also called the Gellért Thermal Bath, shapes a magnificent bath complex that is integrated into the noted Hotel Gellért situated on the west bank of the Danube in Buda, the old capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and western half of Budapest.
The effervescent swimming pool
Gellért the name of the first bishop of Hungary (Gerard of Csanád, c. 977 – 1046 AD), the bath complex was built between 1912 and 1918 in the Hungarian Secession (Art Nouveau) style on the site of an earlier Turkish baths laid out in the 16th century under the name ‘Sárosfürdő’ during the time of the Ottoman Empire.
The latter name spells ‘muddy baths’ due to the mineral mud settled at the bottom of the pools against the modern second component of ‘gyógyfürdő’ conveying ‘thermal/medical baths’ come to that.
Opened in 1918, the complex expanded into an outdoor wave pool in 1927 and a glass-domed thermal bath in 1934 in the hotel’s old Winter Garden but the women’s section suffered heavy damage during bombardments towards the end of World War II.
Following a long wait due to financial circumstances, the thermal bath was eventually redesigned and the complex underwent a wholesale reconstruction in 2008, restored to its former splendour.
The main hall, featuring a gallery and a glass roof above, and the effervescent swimming pool (picture) are probably the highlights of the complex which also lines up thermal baths, supplied with water from Gellért Hill’s mineral hot springs, as well as plunge pools and a Finnish sauna.
The beautiful Queen Anne-styled Pinney House, built in 1887, lies on the west side of Lima Street in the central-western quarters of Sierra Madre in Los Angeles County, southern California.
This elaborate beauty was designed and built by well-known brother architects Samuel and Joseph Cather Newsom on account of former Civil War surgeon Dr. Elbert Pinney intended as a railroad hotel to accommodate East Coasters that arrived in great numbers during the Los Angeles land boom.
Among others, it has served as filming location for classic films such as ‘Great Man’s Lady’ (1941), starring Barbara Stanwick, and ‘The Seven Little Foy’s’ (1955), featuring Bob Hope.
The beautiful Italianate Guthrie Mansion, built in 1879, lies on Tunnelton Road on the east edge of the community of Tunnelton in southeast Lawrence County, southern Indiana.
It was raised by entepreuner Alfred Guthrie who made the most of the arrival of railway at Tunnelton and a fortune as he set up a general store that engaged the locals for miles around.
Nowadays, the mansion functions as a Bead & Breakfast (Guthrie Meadows BB).
The fabulous Casa Fuster, constructed between 1908 and 1911, is located on the upper end of the Jardins de Salvador Espriu and the prominent Passeig de Gracia in the affluent district of Eixample, central east Barcelona.
It represents architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner’s last work in the city, in tandem with his son Pere Domènech i Roure, that was fashioned on account of wealthy Mallorcan Mariano Fuster as a hefty gift to his wife Consol Fabra.
The edifice applies a subtle neo-Gothic touch to its modernista frame and features two façades bound through a cylindrical turret on the southwest corner as well as characteristic pink columns, trilobate windows and floral motifs shaping a fine example of Catalan Modernism.
Largely refurbished in 2004, it has been converted and operating since as a luxury hotel containing as many as a good 105 rooms.
The magnificent Throne Room (Sala del Trono) was the very last to be completed in 1845, nearly a century since construction of the palace itself commenced (1751), during the reign of King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies at the Reggia di Caserta (Royal Palace of Caserta), Campania in southern Italy.
It measures 40m long and is located on the Royal Floor carved out under the direction of architect Gaetano Genovese in the final stages, with the fresco on the vault furnished by Gennaro Maldarelli, on the occasion of the Congress of Science, held in Naples that final year (1845).
The Second Empire-styled beauty of John Bremond House, built by contractor George Fiegel in 1886, at 700 Guadalupe Street between 6th and 7th Street shapes the centrepiece of the Bremond Block Historic District, Downtown Austin (Texas).
Original owner John Bremond Jr, hence the name, spared no expense and a hefty $49000 towards the building of his mansion that contains no less than five bedrooms while it displays fine plaster archways carved black-walnut woodwork on the interior as well as topped with a mansard roof and wrapped with wrought-iron balconies around.
The historic district is a Victorian upper-class patch that primarily takes in eleven historic houses, constructed between 1854 and 1910, lying within a square block bounded by West Seventh, West Eighth, Guadalupe and San Antonio Streets.
Six of those houses were built or expanded as residences for members of the families of prominent brothers John and Eugene Bremond whilst the district further extends over several houses located on the west side of San Antonio Street and the south side of West Seventh Street.
Nowadays, the John and Pierre Bremond houses are owned by the Texas Classroom Teachers Association with the former forming the headquarters thereof
The Hôtel Solvay is an imposing large mansion that is situated on the major thoroughfare of Avenue Louise (Louizalaan in Dutch) in Ixelles (Elsene in Dutch), south central Brussels in Belgium.
It was designed by Belgian architect Victor Horta and built between 1898 and 1900 on account of wealthy chemist Armand Solvay, hence the name, in the Art Nouveau style.
Solvay spared no pains as regards his future home and afforded Horta full latitude over the design and materials required, the latter’s stamp evident down to the furniture, tableware, carpets and even the very doorbell.
The edifice and most of its content was salvaged from demolition and decay courtesy of the Wittamer family, who acquired the property to set up their haute couture, in the 1950s.
The massive Royal Palace of Caserta (Reggia di Caserta in Italian) is situated in Caserta, capital of Campania in southern Italy, and makes the largest of its kind to have been constructed during the 18th century across Europe, the swansong of Baroque as it has been dubbed.
It further shapes the largest former royal residence as it served as the main quarters of the Kings of Naples, formally the Kingdom of Sicily at the time, that were part of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon (France).
Construction of the palace started in 1751 under Dutch-Italian architect Luigi Vanvitelli on account of King Charles VII of Naples, who nonetheless never got to live there as he left to become King Charles III of Spain in 1759, and was only partially completed for the latter’s third son and heir Ferdinand IV of Naples.
It was largely modelled on its counterpart of the Versailles (France) intended to serve as both a royal court and administrative centre while placed in a location well-protected from a potential seaborne invasion as well as away from ever trouble-brewing Naples, with barracks of troops even accommodated within the palace.
The project took decades to complete and well beyond Vanvitelli’s own lifetime (died 1773), taken up by his son Carlo and then other architects in his wake, whose envisaging of the palace was never entirely fulfilled.
Today’s edifice bears a rectangular shape of a massive 247 x 190m in dimensions that comprises four sides interconnected by two orthogonal arms while it boasts no less than 1200 rooms, 56 staircases, 1026 fireplaces allocated between five storeys as well as a sizeable library and a theatre patterned on Naples’s historic Teatro San Carlo.
Out in the grounds, a picturesque large Baroque park stretches over around 11 acres beyond the back side of the palace, featuring a botanical English garden in the upper section, lining a long alley of fountains and cascades such as the Fountain of Diana and Actaeon or the Fountain of Venus and Adonis either side.
The palace made a filming location as the set for the Naboo Palace of Theed City in the movie “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace” in 1998.
Breaking through History 