Solly Gold building

This small and luxurious tenement house located in the commercial centre of Bucharest is probably the most spectacular building that Janco ever designed. It is also the only project where he designed a hall with a double height void, a living room with a gallery (at that time, a certain attribute of modernity). The aesthetic of the exterior seems to be a synthesis of two compositional directions: an expressionist organicity and cubist elements, originally explored in the Janco building (1926) and the Fuchs villa (1927). The volume develops unexpectedly both vertically and along the facade, its volumetric decomposition becomes obvious from the crossing of the streets: starting from the smooth, convex form of the ground floor, it unfolds its articulation of unequal volumes, generating a powerful hollow space where the terrace above the second floor seems to be carved.

All the same, seen from the right side, the building reveals a cubist, rectangular architecture, where the parapets generated by the projecting bar spring outward on bold cantilevers over the courtyard entrance. There is no hint that would make one perceive how this almost brutal language shifts to a vibration of vertical accents spreading over a wide blind surface on the left. Facade. Thus the corner facade becomes the major articulation element between two completely different facades. These do not only penetrate each other in the hollow space on the top floor, but also horizontally merge with the continued parapet line of the two balconies, which play an important role. The upper floor apartment, well preserved, is an example of Janco's expressive interior and furniture design.

IDENTITY OF THE BUILDING/GROUP OF BUILDINGS

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BUILDING TYPE

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STYLISTIC AFFILIATION

AUTHOR

ORIGINS OF THE BUILDING

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CURRENT CONDITION AND ALTERATIONS

PROTECTION STATUS

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DESCRIPTION

EVALUATION (A,B,C,D)

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DOCUMENTION & REFERENCES

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