General Jacob Lahovary House

General Jacob Lahovary House, Lustrului Street, nowadays Ion Movilă Street ( inside Cantacuzino Hospital), restoration period 1884-1886
Code no. List of Historical Monuments B-II-m-B-19264
General Iacob N. Lahovary (1846-1907) met Mincu during his studies in Paris and gave him two orders: the restoration of his house and a vault in the form of a small Romanian church.Referring to the house in Lustrului street, Mincu could not intervene in a major way whereas the structure of the house was concerned. He changed the facades and built the walls higher than before and transformed the large hall into the center of the house. He designed and made the frieze placed near the glass roof, decorating it with military designs appropriate to the rank of the owner of the house. The essential change made to the house was the entrance porch with wooden posts, porch accessible from a ramp for carriages. He put a false cellar gate from which water was pouring into a basin. The colored enameled decoration is of Italian inspiration, most probably seen by Mincu during his travels in Italy. From testimonies during his time we found out that Mincu also designed the fence wall with the high entrance and the wooden pattern of the grid.
This is the first time Mincu innovated based on elements borrowed from vernacular and monastic architecture thus paving the way for a new national architectural style.