The Hôtel van Eetvelde is a town house designed in 1895 by Victor Horta for Edmond van Eetvelde, administrator of Congo Free State. Together with the Hôtel Tassel, the Hôtel Solvay and his own House and atelier it was put on the "UNESCO World Heritage List" in 2000 as the core of epoch-making urban residences Victor Horta designed before 1900.
The visible application of 'industrial' materials such as steel and glass was a novel for prestigious private dwellings at the time. In the Hôtel van Eetvelde Horta also used a hanging steel construction for the façade. The interior receives additional lighting through a central reception room covered by a stained-glass cupola. An extension to the house was designed by Horta in 1898. This building has a more conventional, beautifully detailed sandstone façade. It was designed to house a garage, an office for van Eetvelde as well as supporting apartments and therefore had a separate entrance.
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The city walls of Avila were built in the 11th century to protect the citizens from the Moors. They have been well maintained throughout the centuries and are now a major tourist attraction as well as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Visitors can walk around about half of the length of the walls.
The layout of the city is an even quadrilateral with a perimeter of 2,516 m. Its walls, which consist in part of stones already used in earlier constructions, have an average thickness of 3 m. Access to the city is afforded by nine gates of different periods; twin 20 m high towers, linked by a semi-circular arch, flank the oldest ones, Puerta de San Vicente and Puerta del Alcázar.