bg Sofia

Ivan Patev House

- Ivaylo Street 17 -
The residential building was built in 1912, according to a project of the Austrian architect Karl Heinrich. The building was built for the Bulgarian merchant Ivan Lipov Patev and his family. After his death, the building was inhabited by his heirs, Hristo Lipov, Nadezhda Dosehva, and Maria Damyanova.
An old photo of the building made somewhere in the 1970s
On the south side of the Art Nouveau building, you'll see an , which reaches all the way up from the second to the attic floor. On both sides, it contains two balconies, which are located on the second and third floor. A beautifully decorated is placed above the circle top window. At certain points, the oriel window flows from having angular to flat corners. The two supportive underneath the oriel window are richly decorated with and bay leaves, as well as and . One strange observation is that only the balcony on the third floor, left of the oriel window, has two corbels below it. In this case, the corbels are decorated with a lion's head, instead of a human head.

The roof of the top gable on the eastern side of the building, as well as the ornament above the circular window, are decorated with volutes. The fragment between the second and third floor is embellished with a . From the window on the third floor, a drop drips all the way down to the first floor. On the same level as the drops, you'll see a small fragment with a in it. There are three beautifully decorated cartouches located on this side of the building as well. The two under the windows on the second floor are decorated with floral and volute ornamentation.
The lion's head corbels underneath one of the balconies