The Mashfa al-Qassis is a historic mansion, which was later converted to a hospital (mashfa). The building is named after Dr. Qassis, a member of an old Aleppine family who built the house as a summer retreat in 1892 when the surrounding neighborhood of Aziziyya was just being established and was still on the edge of town, close to the open air of the countryside.

The house combines elements of both local traditions dating back to Ottoman and Mamluk times, as well as European ideas. The floorplan incorporates some ideas of traditional Aleppo houses in its use of space and elevation to distinguish between levels of privacy. Guest bedrooms are on the ground floor, while the main salon is on the second floor, but along the house's central axis at the top of a grand staircase. The second floor has more private rooms for the family off the central axis. The ornamentation also combines styles, mixing classical elements such as acanthus ornament, engaged columns, and pediments with vegetal roundels reminiscent of local Ottoman architectural decorations. 

Sources:

Kikoski, Andre. "Cultural Interchange in The Late Ottoman Period: Transformations of Typology and Ornament in the Aleppin Bourgeois House." Aga Khan Summer Travel Grant Report, Submitted March 7, 1994. Aga Khan Visual Archive, Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT Libraries (AKDC@MIT).