Before the advent of the telephone, public services sometimes involved a more proactive effort on behalf of the institutions. In the case of the firefighters, while initially relying on churches and church towers, in the latter years they started building their own structures for keeping an eye on any possible fire and ensuring quick reaction.

This was also the case of Bucharest, Romania. After relying on observation points at The Church New St. George, another one next to the Constantin Vodă Inn and another one in the Tower of Colțea between 18th and 19th century (the latter one was demolished in 1888), the decision was taken to build a new facility for this purpose, which now looks like this:

The 42 m building (or just about 137 ft), situated at the crossroad of streets Traian, Zece Mese, V. Stroescu and the Ferdinand Boulevard, was constructed between 1891 and 1892, after the plans of George Mandrea, the chief-architect of Bucharest at that time. Here's how the building looked like after completion (photo of a vintage postcard found on Pinterest via Ecosia search):

It was projected to also function as a water tower, however, the pumps received did not have the adequate capacity for it.

The building became less and less useful, after the advent of the telephone, and as more high rise building were being constructed in the city. The firefighter department eventually chose a different main building, and left the fire watch to be used as storage. In 1960, colonel Nicolae Ioanovici began some efforts for the building to be repurposed as a firefighter museum. Between 1961 and 1963, the building was renovated for the first time, while getting a more gray aspect - which it held until 2021.

The Wikipedia page of the building still features an older picture of it:

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia…

The later renovation works on the museum started in 2021 and took 3 years. They included restoring the original look of the building (as much as possible) and retrofitting earthquake shock absorbers, making it one of the only three buildings in Romania to have this solution implemented so far, in a country otherwise at risk for earthquake, many of them having the epicenter in the Vrancea county. The building reopened to the public on September 13, 2024, on the National Firefighter's Day.

If you want to visit it, the Firefighter's Museum is opened Monday to Friday, from 8 AM to 4 PM local time. It exhibits more than 10,000 objects, mostly donated, showcasing the activity of the Firefighters throughout history: from helmets and other protective equipment, to pumps and model firetrucks.

Sources for the photos and info:

• Digi 24
• Libertatea (1 and 2)
• Photo Explorers blog
• Wikipedia (just for reference)
• The museum's FB page (there's a nice drone video of the building in the final stages as well).

Hello all, I decided to post this on Lemmy too, and this community seems to be the best place for it - and represents an opportunity to revive this community.

So this weekend, during the renovation works being done on the main building of the University of Bucharest, the statue of the crowned eagle and the two gargoyles flanking it were restored, more than 80 years after they had been destroyed following WW2 bombings.

Below is the eagle and one of the gargoyles before being towed up and fixed in place:

And here is the eagle being mounted (I couldn't find any public pics with the gargoyles. If you want, I can take a walk tomorrow to the place and if I can see them, I'll take a pic):

The three sculptures are part of an entire sculptural ensemble named “Minerva Protecting the Arts and Sciences.” (which is now being fully restored). The original work was designed by architect Alexandru Orăscu and commissioned to Karl Storck between 1862 and 1869.

Following the Allied bombings of April 1944, the building was partly destroyed, and the ensemble was severely damaged:

After the end of WW2, the whole main building of the University was rebuilt, except for the central body:

In 1966, the central body was rebuilt as well, completing the building once again, but in a more simple form, with fewer decorations. It held the same aspect until a few years ago, when the building went into renovations:

and a detail view of the former look:

The replicas that were fitted this Saturday morning were made from bronze cast in wax. The eagle is weighing in approximately 1 ton and the two gargoyles are weighing 300 kg each - that makes for a total weight of 1.6 tons. The three sculptures were made by sculptor Alexandru Siminic, together with his collaborators, Teodor and Ștefan Siminic.

As a personal note, I graduated from the faculty holding its classes in that exact part of the building, so the fact that this is now being restored to the original design can only make me so much more proud of it. :)

Sources:

• Unibuc's website (University of Bucharest)
• Unibuc's Instagram page
• Alex Gâlmeanu (Insta)Bucureștiul Povestit
• Bucureștiul Povestit (FB)
• Buletin de București

The original building was unfortunately gutted by a fire in March 1922 leaving only the outer walls. Architect Louis Parant was commissioned for the reconstruction who decided to build an entirely new building which included a remodelling of the Mansard roof into a new Beaux-Arts inspired model. The new building opened in 1926

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_City_Hall

Central Chambers was built between 1890 and 1893 and designed by John James Browne of Montreal, an example of Queen Anne Revival commercial architecture. Formerly serving as an office for the Canadian Atlantic Railway, it now houses the National Capital Commission

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Chambers_(Ottawa)

It's not the fanciest ever but it's a building I walk by often and I always stop to look at the brickwork. The amount of detail that went into these town houses is just remarkable. Sorry for the low quality images, they're the only ones I could find. (Source)