Lucian Blaga National Theater, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

© Thomas Mueller/Shutterstoc

A real showstopper. Lucian Blaga National Theater, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

The Lucian Blaga National Theater, in the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca, is a cultural icon. Built between 1904 and 1906, it was designed by the famous Austrian architects Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer in the Neo-Baroque style, popular in the late 19th century. This opulent style nodded back to the grandiosity of the Baroque movement, which began in Rome in the 1600s and flourished across Europe. The building houses both the national theater and the Romanian Opera and plays host to a wide array of cultural events here in Romania's second-largest city.