Places people need to function
My Town—Targoviste
The city of Targoviste in southern Romania, the former medieval
capital of the Principality of Walachia, is endowed with a pair of
impressive Beaux Arts style public buildings dating from the La
Belle Époque, namely the Town Hall (―Primaria‖ in Romanian) and
the former local prefecture headquarters, now hosting the Dambovita County Arts Museum. The style, promoted beginning with the
last decades of the 19th through the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris,
was hugely influential in Europe, North America and beyond, being
suitable especially for grand public edifices and mansions. Both
Targoviste constructions were the work of the architect (some
sources designate him as a builder) Giovanni Baldassare Vignossa
(I found in different sources about a half dozen spelling versions for
his name and settled for this one) and the decorator Giovanni Battista del Basso. They were part of the ―second wave‖ of Italian builders, architects and artists active in the country, who have contributed
to a great extent to the achievement of the built environment of what
is now Romania. A most intriguing element among de rich decorative panoply of the building is the theme of the weathervane (a rarely
used architectural element in Romania) on top of the tower, a whale
with a crown on its head, which makes a sharp captivating contrast
with the environment of this city located at the feet of the Transylvanian Alps, far away from the sea.
The Local Hospital from Targoviste
was founded in1930 in a building
that had a number of 20 beds. In
1938 the expansion of it took place
and another 2 buildings were constructed, the number of beds reaching to 120. from 1940 to 1948 there
were founded sections such as Pediatrics, Gynecology, New Borns and
Policlinic. The General Surgery
section had 80 beds and was built
between 1950 to 1952, not long
after the Cardiology section and the
Medical Analisis were founded. A
new building was inaugurated in
1973, with 700 new beds, that asigurate medical assistance for the population of the municipality and the
majority of villages around it.
The Old Post Office is an edifice
erected in 1908,
according to the
draughts of architect Alex Clavel,
in neo-Romanian
style, with facades
in face brick and
white stone, interiors with indented
floors.
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