The former residential building of Dimitar Yablanski located on "Tsar Osvoboditel" blvd. in Sofia is one of the most representative works of the Austrian architect Friedrich Gruenanger in Bulgaria.

He is the author of several of the most important projects for public buildings from the postliberation period of our country.

In typological terms, the building is a prominent representative of the architecture of residential buildings of the Bulgarian social elite of that time and is emblematic for our capital.

Investor’s plans were to adapt the two-storey residential building to function as a club with upscale restaurants.

In the process of designing and adapting of the existing residential building to a building with public access as a club with restaurant, the designers have approached closely the existing structure, layout and interior.

Within the existing basement are situated all operating rooms of the future club restaurant.

The existing second staircase and elevators annexes to the building in the form of glass boxes give same level of access as the main staircase.

The main entrance from the west leads to the main lobby with centered elegant wooden staircase giving access to the second floor.

The lobby is lit by decorative stained glass windows.

This is the main storey of the restaurant, and the lounge facing to "Tsar Osvoboditel" is its most representative part because of its unique location.

On the second storey of the club restaurant are located several rooms of smaller capacity together with the associated facilities.

At the attic storey of the building, accessible to visitors and staff from the second staircase and the elevator, is extended a piano bar.

In view of the heavy structural condition of the house and serious damage to some of the unique ceilings, an old technology for renovation was applied - mixed technique of gypsum surface layer with extremely high complexity.

All rich plaster ornaments have been preserved and restored.

In terms of the building façade, a precise and time consuming cleaning of all plastic decoration was performed, as well as reinforcement and careful retouch, survey and recovery of elements, including the most difficult, badly damaged "snails", disposed high on the east facade.

With a view of preserving the decoration elements, precise prints of the façade profiles were taken to perform survey of the composition.

These moulds were used for the manufacturing of all the ornaments, and especially for the extremely difficult for replication hollow cast of the ending P-shaped profile of the main cornice of the building.

For the overall performance of the facade were used Baumit materials – the Baumit putty system with silicone plaster and silicone paint topcoats.

Prepared by: arch. Ilka Dishlieva