Black Adler Inn, Baia Mare

The Black Adler Inn (Romanian: Hanul Vulturul Negru) is located in the historical center of Baia Mare, Northwestern Romania.

According to the historical sources, the inn existed already in 1736, when it was mentioned for the first time as being property of the town. Its name was inspired probably by the coat-in-arms of the Habsburg family and in the documents of the time it appears also as Fekete Sas (in Hungarian), Aquila Nigra (in Latin) or Schwarzes Adler (in German).

The inn had rooms, a pub, and a games room (pool, cards, ninepins). At the floor of the northern wing were the ballroom and the concert hall. The inn was leased each year, the tenants having to restore the building and to guarantee the quality of services offered. Because the wooden building was degrading, the town restored it in 1784 and build another wing (the architect was János Gáspár Huzel). In 1802 was built a floor and the facade was modified in neo-classical style. In 1870 the in was modernized in neo-Renaissance style.

In 1925 the building became the headquarters of the City Hall and in 1950 here moved also the Courthouse. In 1970 the City Hall moved into a new building, and in 2003-2004 the former inn was renovated and transformed into a business center. The building has a L shape, with basement, ground floor, and floor. In the wall of the inn were discovered medieval carved stones, obviously reused as masonry material. These stones came, most probably, from St. Stephen's Church (14th century), that in the early nineteenth century was already ruined. The main facade of the building has 11 articulated goals. In the first goal from the center was opened the access into the basement, whose door had a stone frame as the handle of a basket, and unfortunately was closed during recent rehabilitation.

In the old central axis - the fifth goal from the center - opens the main gate of the inn, having the shape of a basket handle. The stone arch is decorated with a bunch of grapes, indicating that the building is an inn. To the spacious patio of the inn opens a string of arches from the ground floor and first floor east wing. Some of these arches were closed prior the last renovation. On the ridge rises a wooden tower.

The Black Adler is one of the most significant historical buildings in the central square of Baia Mare.

Photos from here

Stephen's Tower, Baia Mare

Stephen's Tower (Romanian: Turnul Ştefan; Hungarian: Szent István-torony) is a tower located on Citadel Square in Baia Mare, Romania. Over 40 meters (130 ft) high and built in a neo-Gothic style, it is a symbol of the city.

Eventually used for strategic observation and detecting fires, Stephen's Tower was initially a bell tower for Saint Stephen's Church, built in 1347-76 as the only double-naved church in medieval northwestern Transylvania. The church (50.6 m long and 19 m wide, with naves 25 m long), though not quite finished, was dedicated in 1387, when it was first mentioned as St. Stephen's. The bell tower was added in 1446 on the church's southwest side; it was begun during John Hunyadi's reign in honor of his 1442 victory over the Ottomans near the Ialomiţa River and completed in 1468 under his son Matthias Corvinus.

In the mid-16th century the tower and church were partly destroyed by powerful lightning. The tower was rebuilt in 1559-61; the church passed from Roman Catholic to Reformed control in 1588. In 1619 both structures underwent a thorough restoration: the tower received a new roof, high and sharp-pointed, in the shape of a square-based pyramid. In 1628 four mechanical clocks with moons (one on each face), manufactured by a Prešov clockmaker, replaced the tower's bell. Another lightning-induced fire in 1647 devastated the church and tower. Yet another fire seriously damaged both structures when they were again hit by lightning in 1769.

The tower was rebuilt the following year, when the gallery was raised a level and the roof redone in Baroque onion-dome style. The church was in ruins and repairs estimated to be very costly, so the authorities decided to demolish its remaining walls in 1847 using gunpowder; the former church site became a park in 1856, with Ferenc Schulz's 1870 plan for rebuilding it remaining unimplemented, and only the bell tower remained standing. This was destroyed by fire in 1869 and rebuilt in 1898-99 in neo-Gothic style, a form it preserves to this day.

The aged light green slate roof was damaged by a storm in 2007; repairs, finished the following year at a cost to the city of some €200,000, included its replacement with a copper roof. The tower is open to visitors.

From Wikipedia