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Article: City Certainties; A Sure-Fire Selection Suitable for a Courtyard
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- May 18, 1989
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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Strolling down on a narrow Viennese street paved with
cobblstones, the visitor walks through an arched doorway into a
building the color of wet ashes.
The entrance hall is dim, but sunlight pours in through an open
back door. A few more steps, and the visitor stands on the threshold
of a leafy inner courtyard called hof in German. It is enclosed on
three sides by three stories of apartments-each with three rows of
identical casement windows, each window the same width as the wall
space that separates them. The fourth side is a 12-foot-high brick
wall, beyond which is another three-story apartment building.
A courtyard is a brave little world of its own, an urban oasis
in a desert of ...