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Budapest, Hungary
Drechsler Palace
Railway workers' pension fund built a palace, then it sat empty for two decades.
From the CommunityClassic Facades
The stunners contained within this theme scream AWA. Guess what, they are all real places, each with a story to tell. We invite you to explore some of the most "classic" spots around the globe.
Tabriz, Iran
Qajar Museum
This diplomat's mansion nearly became a school parking lot before a 13-year rescue transformed it into Tabriz's Qajar Museum.
From the Community
Dallas, Texas, United States
The Kessler Theatre
The last U.S. theater built before WWII survived Gene Autry's ownership, a tornado, a fire, and fifty years of abandonment.
From the Community
Venezia, Italy
Palazzo Tetta
At the fork of three canals, this 17th-century palace is surrounded by water on three sides. A rarity even in Venice!
From the Community
Lugano, Switzerland
Villa Ciani
Two brothers fleeing Austrian-occupied Milan built their 1843 villa atop the ruins of their oppressors' medieval castle.
From the Community
Chicago, Illinois, United States
St. Ignatius College Prep
One of five Chicago buildings to survive the Great Fire of 1871, this school conducted the first X-ray demonstration in the city.
AWA visted here
Galveston, Texas, United States
Ashbel Smith Building
Texas's first medical school opened in 1891 with 23 students and almost no equipment, but survived America's deadliest hurricane.
From the Community
London, United Kingdom
Lacy Gallery / Pippa Small
A frame dealer's son and an anthropologist-turned-jeweler hold down neighboring pink and yellow shopfronts on Westbourne Grove.
From the Community
Corfu, Greece
Banknote Museum of the Ionian Bank
Greece's first bank issued banknotes in Spanish dollars for a British protectorate; now its HQ displays a 100 billion drachma note.
From the Community
Tehran, Iran
National Garden Gate
Tehran's pre-Azadi icon: a gate to a garden that barely existed, where a bugler once announced dawn and dusk to the city.
From the Community
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States
Farmers Public Market
Built to end a farmer-versus-business feud, this 1928 market hosted Count Basie upstairs and produce vendors downstairs.
From the Community
Kohukohu, New Zealand
Tauteihiihi Marae
This marae has outlasted Kohukohu's timber boom, when 2,000 people lived on land literally built from kauri sawdust.
From the Community
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Yucatán, Mexico
Convento de San Antonio da Padua
The world's second-largest atrium was built in six months by 6,000 Maya workers—using stones from their own demolished pyramid.
From the Community
Corfu, Greece
Corfu
The only Greek island never conquered by the Ottomans, Corfu's Venetian soul survived four centuries of sieges.
From the Community
Vienna, Austria
Louis Vuitton Vienna
Julius Meinl kept one store when selling 700+ locations. Louis Vuitton now occupies the building next door to it.
From the Community
Kashan, Iran
Mahinestan Raheb Hotel
A Qajar mansion with three courtyards (one for family, one for guests, one for servants) now welcomes everyone equally.
From the Community
Broc, Switzerland
Maison Cailler
This 1898 chocolate factory powered an entire Swiss village: its hydroelectric plant brought electricity to Broc in 1899. What a uniquely sweet history!
From the Community
Odense, Denmark
Hans Christian Andersen’s Childhood Home
The home of the most popular Dane & his 168 fairytales.
AWA visted here
Presented with
Odense, Denmark
Klods Hans
Named after Andersen's 1855 tale of a "stupid" brother who wins a princess with mud, dead crows, and a wooden shoe.
AWA visted here
Presented with
Kerkira, Greece
Tobacco House 1941
Since 1941, this family tobacco shop has outlasted an empire of smoke.
From the Community
Gressoney-Saint-Jean, Italy
Pasticceria Gran Bar Follis Dario
A medieval Germanic dialect survives in an Italian valley, eight centuries after the migration over the Alps.
From the Community
Miami, Florida, United States
The Carlyle
This Ocean Drive hotel has appeared in more films than some actors.
From the Community
Monteroni di Lecce, Italy
Chiesa dei Santi Medici Cosma e Damiano
A church honoring twin doctors so committed to free healthcare that a talking camel had to intervene in their burial dispute.
From the Community
Tallinn, Estonia
Restoran Olde Hansa
This Tallinn restaurant bans potatoes, tomatoes, and chocolate—only ingredients available before 1492 make the cut.
From the Community
Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
Queen’s Arcade
Before the arcade, the site belonged to Belfast's harp-playing doctor who taught blind children music and founded a hospital.
From the Community
Uayma, Mexico
Santo Domingo de Guzmán Church
Built from stones of dismantled Maya temples, this church took priests over 100 years to convince locals to enter.
From the Community
Savannah, Georgia, United States
Lucas Theatre for the Arts
Savannah's Lucas Theatre reunited with its Wurlitzer organ after a 50-year separation.
From the Community
Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica, Chile
Torres del Paine National Park
British ranchers shipped prefab buildings to Patagonia's edge, where puma hunters were once paid per kill until 1980.
From the Community
London, United Kingdom
Royal College of Music
The future King Edward VII opened a music college in 1883 where talent mattered more than birthright.
From the Community
Weymouth, Massachusetts, United States
Jefferson School
After designing 140 churches, architect Shepard S. Woodcock finally built something you could skip on Sundays.
From the Community
Stockholm, Sweden
Stockholm Palace
Stockholm's Royal Guards rotate in from across Sweden for week-long shifts, and once doubled as the city's firefighters.
From the Community
London, United Kingdom
Chelsea Embankment
How a river too putrid for Queen Victoria became one of London's most pristine waterfronts.
From the Community
Oamaru, New Zealand
Oamaru Opera House
The architect designed it in 1907, then sailed to Australia in 1911 and never returned to see it age.
From the Community
Tabriz, Iran
Sound & Music Museum
Forty years of collecting led to Iran's first sound museum, where fruit-core instruments share space with oil-powered radios.
From the Community
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Slovenian School Museum
Slovenia's oldest specialist museum once lived in a bar and a castle before finding its permanent home in 1938.
From the Community