MAIN ATTRACTIONS:
The Council Place
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The Council Place is the area with the biggest density of objectives of architectural interest. If during its first centuries of existence, the centre of „Brasov's Stronghold” used to have a different configuration, in 1420 the perimeter of the town’s main market used to have the same dimensions as the actual one, with the constructions of the Council House located in its centre. The rivulet flowing from „Schei” neighbourhood, on the Horses Fair Street (today George Baritiu Street), used to split in the market on the Monastery Street (Muresenilor) and the Gate's Street (Republicii), at the level of The Pillory, where used to be the Lies' Bridge, mentioned for the first time in 1523.The market sides used to have names connected to the commerce practiced across the time: The Flax Course (on north), The Tubbers’ Course (on west), The Flowers Course and the Fruits' Fair (on south), the Wheat’s Course (on east).
The buildings which border the market's perimeter have a late aspect, due to the renewals undertaken after the big fire occurred in 1689. However, there are still conserved medieval remnants of the inhabited buildings (George Baritiu Street no. 2, Council Place no. 20 and 25), buildings dating back to the Renaissance, such as the Merchants' House (no. 14) or the houses of the urban patriciate (no. 15-16), highlighted through the restoration works undertaken during the last years. From the XVIIIth century dates back the Seuler House (no. 27), with its facade remodelled in Baroque style, from the XIXth century – The Safrano House (no. 23) and from the beginning of the XXth century, The Czell Palace (no. 26, today a bank seat) and the parochial house of the orthodox church The Assumption, erected in neo-byzantine style, on the eastern side of the assembly.
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The Council House
On December 23rd 1420, it has been issued the act that mentioned for the first time the chamber destined to „justice rendering” and the sittings of the town’s Magistrate, located above the vault of the furriers' guild on the main market place of “Brașov's Stronghold”. The following documents record the works that took place at the above mentioned building of 1503 under the name of Praetorium. In 1521 are mentioned the guardian’s chamber and the prison located in the Council’s House, while the older tower, became part of the assembly, suffered an increase in height during the years 1515 and 1528; it was endowed with a pyramidal roof surrounded by the four little towers, symbolizing in the Middle Ages the supreme town’s jurisdiction – jus gladii.
Destroyed by the devastating fire of 1689, which affected the most part of the representative buildings of the „Brașov's Stronghold”, the Council’s House is rebuilt in baroque style, between 1774 and 1778, with the loggia decorated with the town's blazonry and the tower’s „domed roof”, conserved in this form until 1910. At the end of the XVIIIth century, the clock of the „Trumpeters’ Tower”, with their quadrants painted by Joseph Moor in 1775, used to represent one of the town’s attractions.
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The Merchants House has been erected between 1544-1545 from the funds donated by Apollonia, the widow of the judge mayor of Brasov Lucas Hirscher, at the crossroads of the marketplace with the street, which bears today the benefactress’s name. Destroyed by the fire of 1689, the building has been repaired in 1759 and taken to its pristine aspect following the restoration works undertaken between 1957 and 1961. The edifice is considered nowadays as the major commercial program of the Renaissance architecture in Transylvania.
The southern front of the market, towards the Black Church, is occupied subsequently by an assembly of three houses, erected in the XVIth and XIXth centuries. The residences of the families Closius, Hiemesch and Giesel (no. 15-16), reflect the houses’ typology of the urban patriciate during the Renaissance in Transylvania, conserving elements characteristic to the period, such as the representation halls with semi-cylindrical vaults and plastering moldings, the interiors decorated with vegetal-floral and figurative mural paintings, elements of decorative stone works. At the ground floor of Giesel House, which closes the buildings front of the market westwards, the restoration works highlighted the portico with arcades on profiled stone pillars on the ground floor.