Month: January 2020

Knyazheska Gradina The institution of the Zoological Gardens in Sofia is closely tied to the election of Ferdinand I as Prince of Bulgaria in 1887. The monarch’s passion for natural sciences was well known and the inaugural gifts included quite a few animals, which the prince initially kept at the Vrana Palace’s park. Before long,…

St. Alexander Nevsky Sq. and 1, February 19 Str. One of the first representative buildings after the Liberation is the State Printing House, erected by a proposal of the Prime Minister Petko Karavelov. Designed by the Viennese architect Friedrich Schwanberg in Neoclassical style, it is completed in 1887. In the 1920s, on the grounds of…

19, ‘St. Nedelya’ Sq. The colourful building on 19, St. Nedelya Sq. houses the Faculty of Theology of Sofia University, the St. Clement of Ohrid chapel-monument, an Ecclesiastical Library and the Church Museum of History and Archaeology to the Holy Synod. Ever since its inception, the impressive building has been thought of as a home…

151, G.S. Rakovski Str. In 1920, a new centre emerged in the cultural life of the capital – the House of the Arts, founded by a long list of eminent and active in the public sphere artists, writers and artists, including Alexander Balabanov, Dobri Nemirov, Stiliyan Chilingirov, Georgi Stamatov, Dimitar Gyudzhenov, Nikola Kozhuharov, Sirak Skitnik,…

1, 15 November Str. The building of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is one of the most valuable national architectural and cultural monuments – a centre for generations of scholars and scientists, champions of modern Bulgaria. The first stage of the construction, designed by the Swiss architect Herman Mayer, took place from 1890 to 1892,…

2, Saborna Str. The oldest state museum of Bulgaria – successor of the Sofia Public Library’s Valuables ​​Department, was established in 1892, under the title “National Museum”. For its future exhibition and storage for the cultural valuables, it received the building of Buyuk Mosque, erected in 1494 by order of the Grand Vizier Mahmoud Pasha.…

139, G. S. Rakovski Str. The first home of the Bulgarian Archaeological Institute was a small end-of-the-19th-century building on 139, Rakovski Street (later, reassigned no. 149). Instituted in November 1920, as a private research institute after the Western European model, it succeeded the Bulgarian Archeological Society. First director was Prof. Bogdan Filov and the Board…