bg Sofia

Nikola Tomalev House

- Pozitano Street 3 -
The residential and commercial building, which was built in 1911, was built according to the design of the Austrian architect Karl Heinrich. It was built for the Bulgarian merchant Nikola Tomalev, who was born in 1865 in , then the Ottoman Empire. He was married to Maria Tomaleva, and together they had four children, Elisaveta, Ruska, Spiridon, and Kiril. His brother Hristo is the father of the famous revolutionary and the writer, essayist, fiction writer, and publicist, . After the death of Nikola Tomalev in 1934, his children Kiril and Elisaveta kept on living in the building. In more recent times, the commercial part of the building became in use as an office for the Union of Bulgarian Motorists.
An old photo showing the building
The building, which was built in the style of Art Nouveau, contains two . One of which is on the northwestern corner and the other on the west side of the building. Both contain two richly decorated and a balcony secured with a wrought iron railing. The beautiful fragments under the second floor windows are a tracery of geometric elements and embedded flowers. Above the windows on the first floor, you'll see a garland ending up in a shaped . Some of the keystones even have a decorative shell on top of them.

The keystones above the third floor windows are more geometric in shape as well as the which contain a lot of . The four with relief lines are all crowned with a . Another cartouche can be seen in the segmental gable on the corner of the building. The circular window on the other gable on the west side of the building is surrounded by a garland. A strip of can be seen underneath the roof .
The oriel window on the west side of the building