I finally found an apartment in Montevideo, where I can afford and enjoy to live in. Two weeks ago I discovered it, well, while visiting my dearest friend Titi, who happened to own the place!
The building, known as Edificio Soler, belonged to the owners of the luxurious department store which was located on the first two floors of the building. As you can see in the picture, it is an amazing piece of architecture. I am yet to see an apartment there, but I am sure they are all fabolous. There is an eliptic interior courtayard, which has beautiful vitralles (painted glass) windows and a lot of light. The elevator is an original OTIS, and the staircases are marble with bronze railings. The building itself is pheonomenal. Unfortunately the department store is left to its own devices; I don't know why they do not re-open it as another store, it is intact but deserted for some weird reason.
Titi bought the penthouse and the cupula, years ago with a friend. She lives at the penthouse and her friend rents the cupula to those who are brave enough to live up there! As soon as I met Titi, I knew she was the coolest chick in Montevideo, then I saw where she lives and it made me happy to see that someone like her owns such an incredible home and on top of it enjoys and appreciates it.
Cupulas are the domey towers, they are essential to Montevidean architecture. I have been researching about them, so far I did not find anything, there are no coffee table books explaining these beautiful pieces of national architecture. (Javier and I belive they are mystical, other than the esthetics of it, we will soon find out more).
In this case, the cupula has four floors in it, built as servants quarters. I will be living on the very top part, with three side windows which give me 270 degree view of the city and when one climbs all the way up to the to big round windows, can see an actual 360 degrees. It has not been used for a while, so I will have to repair a couple of things, most importantly the bathroom and a good paint job after fixing the leaks from the top windows--Second photo is the view from my future bedroom, I can see Cerro and the bay!
As you can imagine, I am anxious to get my hands on it and fix it, as a DYI freak, after years of watching BBC's Changing Rooms, and being the daughter of an architect, I think I can manage to do so. Plus I have an expert carpinter (Javier) and a plummer (Coco) who already committed to help me out. We also will be filming the process as a memory!
You are invited to the inauguration, dont forget to bring me a plant as a house warming present!
