Part of the EAHN tour group in the courtyard of the Stavropoleos Church, Bucharest
Photograph: Hildegard Sahler

Mogoşoaia Palace, Bucharest, 1702
Photograph: Hildegard Sahler

Ion Mincu, Doina Restaurant, Bucharest, 1892
Photograph: Hildegard Sahler

Henriette Delavrancea-Gibory, Villa Valcovici, Bucharest, 1932, after restoration
Photograph: Hildegard Sahler

Parking garage, Boulevard Gheorghe Magheru-Nicolae Bălcescu, Bucharest, 1930s (unknown architect)
Photograph: Hildegard Sahler

Monastery church of the Annunciation, Moldoviţa, 1532-37, pronaos dome
Photograph: Hildegard Sahler

EAHN Romanian Study Tour Report

Bucharest and the painted monasteries of Bucovina, 1-7 July 2008

The second EAHN study tour began in Bucharest on the evening of 1 July with a dinner at which group members enjoyed Romanian food, introduced themselves, and quickly got to know each other. The following three days we explored Bucharest and its development with excellent guides. In her presentation at the “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism, Ana-Maria Zahariade gave a historic overview of the city, after which we met Romanian colleagues. Nicolae Lascu then described the history of the school during a tour of the building. On a walking tour later, Irina Criveanu introduced us to Bucharest’s urban development from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. We observed the city’s beginning as a commercial center at a crossroad near today’s Piaţa Unirii and then passed to the merchants’ quarter of Strada Lipscani, built in a European style. The impressive early nineteenth-century han Hanul lui Manuc, now under restoration, vividly illustrated this district’s former commercial importance. The fascinating painted Stavropoleos church (1724/1897), with its peaceful court, is an oasis of religious life. During a walk back to the hotel in the dark of night, Irina explained the topographical structures of her residential neighborhood which reflect its development in the early eighteenth century. These include, for example, twin houses in backyards such as those we saw constructed for the families of the daughters of the main house’s owner. This unusually well-preserved neighborhood includes many one-story buildings now at risk due to the current real estate boom.

The next day, Carmen Popescu, organizer of the entire Romanian tour, guided us through the urban development of the city from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. Mogoşoaia Palace (1702) on the outskirts of the city with its lovely park on a lake was built for prince Constantin Brancoveanu, creating a style named after him. The palace was linked to the city center with the main axis of the old city, the newly-prolonged Podul Mogosoaiei which was later renamed Calea Victoriei. After the 1870s the major palaces were built by architects who studied in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts. Planning was regulated with the canalization of the Dâmboviţa River, the construction of new boulevards, public spaces and parks. We could detect the western lifestyle of a metropolis like Paris. After the unification of Walachia and Moldavia in 1859 and their final independence from Ottoman domination in 1878, a national and cultural identity was promoted by Romanian intellectuals. A newly invented National Style arose in reaction to the predominance of the imported western architectural currents. In 1892 the School of Architecture was founded, the predecessor of the current University of Architecture (constructed 1912-1928 by Grigore Cerkez). We visited one of the first important and most successful examples of the new National Style, the Doina Restaurant (or Bufetul) by Ion Mincu, commissioned as a pavilon for the 1889 universal exhibition in Paris, though unexecuted, and finally constructed in Bucharest three years later near the Kiseleff Park. We discussed the birth of national museums in other European capitals in comparison with the former Museum of National Art on Piaţa Victoriei (now the Museum of the Romanian Peasant) built 1912-1938 by Nicolae Ghika-Budeşti. This museum, important in this context, incorporates influences from Wallachian eighteenth-century art (the “Brancoveanu Style”), from Moldavian Gothic church ornament, and from vernacular architecture.

Beginning in the early twentieth century, many residential areas were developed such as the Filipescu Park which we visited; its luxurious villas are in the national style, by then established and fashionable. In 1934 the first master plan was developed. We were fascinated by the quality of the interwar modern architecture, especially of the 1930s, rarely known outside Romania. Major architects such as Marcel
Iancu and Horia Creangă (the two pioneers of Modernist architecture), Rudolf Fraenkel (a Jewish architect emigrated from Germany), Henriette Delavrancea- Gibory and Duiliu Marcu deserve broader recognition in international research. We saw many hotels, apartment buildings, a cinema and parking garage erected during the interwar period in Art Deco and modern styles along one of the new major axes of the urban development plan, the Boulevard Gheorghe Magheru-Nicolae Bălcescu. We also visited several striking examples of socialist architecture from the period after World War II. Both the House of the Sparkle (1948-1951) by Horia Maicu and the enormous (and ugly!) House of the Republic (1980s) are reminiscent of historical palace architecture with imposing dimensions and abundant marble, though the latter also used aluminum windows.

After a night in the train to Suceava we spent two intense days visiting the marvellous painted monasteries of Bucovina which were designated UNESCO World Heritage Monuments in 1993. We visited the monasteries of Moldoviţa, Voroneţ, Humor, Suceviţa, Probota, Dragomirna and the Metropolitan church of Suceava, most of which were founded in the sixteenth century by Ştefan cel Mare (1457-1504), Prince of Moldavia, and his descendent Petru Rareş (1527-1538, 1541-1546). Vlad Bedros gave a detailed explanation of the architecture, the function of the different architectural spaces and the iconographic programs of the exterior and interior frescoes. (His description of the Bucovina churches appears in the Virtual Tour published in this issue of the newsletter.) Overwhelmed by the quality of this marvellous architectural heritage, we also noticed the problems of its preservation which we hope will be resolved in the near future. Vlad also informed us about many other aspects of Romanian life and culture such as orthodox rites, life in the monasteries established after the revolution in 1989, and the evolution of the Romanian language. We became familiar with many varieties of Romanian food, wine and beer (especially “Ursus”), survived high temperatures in trains without windows that open and low temperatures of 11° C in a mini-bus with a cantankerous driver. The tour ended with a visit to the Metropolitan of Suceava at 9:30 p.m., a final, delightful late-night outing at an outdoor café, and the night train back to Bucharest. All of us are grateful to the organizational skills of Carmen Popescu and to both Carmen and Vlad for their marvellous introduction to the architecture and urbanism of Romania.

Hildegard Sahler
Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, München