At the beginning of 20th century, Romania was much indebted to Western European architectural currents. The recently created national style had only a feeble impact on the public. Foreign architecture, mainly Neoclassicism and Romanticism, was progressively introduced in the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia during the 19th century as a consequence of the process of opening up to Western European civilization. The two principalities, vassals of the Ottoman Empire, sought a model for emancipation and also political assistance, aspiring to create an independent unified state. After this state was founded in 1859, and particularly after it obtained its independence in 1878, its first institutions embraced foreign architectural currents as a sign of modernization. At this time, the most widespread was the ecclecticism of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which eventually became the official style of the Romanian kingdom. French architecture was practiced not only by French nationals but also by the first Romanian architects, who were themselves trained at the École.

Some of these young architects trained in France, where they came in contact with the theories of E.E.Viollet-le-Duc, the French archaeological school, and the innovative concepts of Guadet. Once home, they relentlessly worked to create a new Romanian architecture based on the local tradition. Among them, the most fervent was Ion Mincu, the father of this new style called either “national” or “Romanian,” which mirrored the national ideology that animated the Romanian intelligentsia of the time.

Yet the first decade of 20th century was still strongly dominated by French ecclecticism, which maintained its status of official architecture and was also very in vogue for the rich residencies. The Beaux-Arts style was displayed in a variety of forms, going from classic solemnity (the Palace of the Chamber of Deputies, 1907, by Dimitrie Maimarolu in Bucharest) to a light elegance (the Casino, 1913, by Petre Antonescu in Sinaia) or to flamboyant fantasies (the town hall of Iasi, 1907–26, by loan D.Berindey). If the Beaux-Arts style was perfectly assimilated, Romanian architects were less familiar with other currents, such as Art Nouveau, one of the rare examples of which is the Casino in Constanta (1910) by Daniel Renard. In contrast, Art Nouveau was very popular in Transylvania, where it radiated from Central Europe. A province of the Austro- Hungarian Empire until 1918, Transylvania adopted the multiple facets that the inventive vocabulary of Art Nouveau developed on the vast territory of the empire: the aesthetic of Lechner’s Art Nouveau, as in several works of Jakab Deszö and Marcel Komor, including the “Black Eagle building,” 1907–09, in Oradea and the Palace of Culture, 1913, in Tîrgu-Mures; the researches of a new Hungarian national image of the “Young Architects,” including the Museum, 1911, by Karoly Kos, in Sfintul Gheorghe; and compositions inspired by Sezession and Jugendstil, including the work of E. Thoroczkai- Wigand in Tîrgu-Mures.

Starting in 1906, the date of the General National Exposition in Bucharest (Stefan Burcus and Victor Stefanescu), which celebrated 40 years of reign of King Carol I, the national style gained an important place on the architectural scene of Romanian kingdom. The exposition, with its multitude of pavilions, brought recognition for this style. In their quest for an expression of the Romanian specificity, the exponents of the national style sought relevant examples in local tradition that they referred to as both major art history monuments and folk art. Among the chief promoters of the national style were Petre Antonescu, Paul Smarandescu, Statie Ciortan, Toma T.Socolescu, and Nicolae Ghika- Budesti.

As its doctrine responded perfectly to the aspirations of national unity and as its aesthetic satisfied the taste for picturesque dispositions, the new style was progressively embraced in several architectural programs. First adopted in residential architecture, it spread progressively to administrative buildings, schools, and post offices, some of the most significant examples of this period being the Prefecture of Galati (1906) by Ion Mincu, the Prefecture of Craiova (1912–13) by Petre Antonescu, and the town hall of Constanta (1913) by Victor Stefanescu. At the creation of greater Romania, by the unification of the ancient kingdom with Transylvania, Bessarabia, and Bukovina at the end of World War I, the national style was unsurprisingly appropriated as an official architecture. The establishment of the new state generated a period of prosperity and of economic as well as cultural effervescence, which explains the unprecedented growth of architecture. The sustained building campaign obviously benefited the national style, which now covered all the architectural programs and all the territory of Romania. To mention the huge operation of rising orthodox churches in Transylvania, the construction of oversize churches, called “cathedrals,” was a symbolic act of recuperating a territory released from Catholicism.

Whereas the national style responded to the new context of the acknowledged national spirituality, modernism expressed the opening toward European culture and the efforts of synchronizing Romanian culture with European tendencies. The architect and artist Marcel Iancu played an important role in the introduction and assimilation of the principles of Modern architecture. He contributed to the initiation to modernism through a sustained publishing campaign, writing numerous articles in the style of the avant-garde manifestos in the magazine Contimporanul from 1924 to 1930. The diffusion of modernism was encouraged by the commands of the intellectual milieu, opened not only to the new architectural trends, but also by the prosperous members of the middle classes as well as by several societies, institutions, and industries that appropriated Modern architecture as the emblem of their efficiency. After 1930, the period of early modernism in Romania, the incontestable center of new trends was Bucharest. However, several examples, remarkable by their perfect adherence to the formal vocabulary of modernism, were erected in other areas of the country. These examples belong less to the housing program (except for the villas executed by I. Boceanu in Cîmpina or the villa Tataru in Cluj, designed in Gio Ponti’s studio) than to the field of public buildings. It was an architecture that advanced the idea of autonomy from the geographic environment—such as the sanatoriums in the mountain zones (Toria, 1933–34, by Grigore Ionescu in Ciuc and Bucegi, 1934, by Marcel Iancu in Predeal) and the hotels in the seaside resorts (Belona, 1933, by G.M.Cantacuzino in Eforie)—and that underscored the expressive potential of the reinforced-concrete structure—such as the Central Market in Ploiesti (1931–33) by Toma T.Socolescu. The industrial buildings of the 1930s exclusively adopted the vocabulary of modernism, employing vigorous structures with large openings in reinforced concrete (the IAR Industries building, 1933, by G.M. Cantacuzino in Brasov) and emphasizing the expressiveness of the volumes and the materials, particularly brick (the Banloc Plants, 1937–38, by O.Doicescu and the Astra Plants, 1936–37, by Costinescu in Brasov).

Parallel to the boom of modern architecture and obviously influenced by its principles, the national style developed a new expression that adopted the formal simplicity and functionality of modernism. Not only was this new image a transgression of a clear decline of the style (the result of an epigonic production), but it also brought a change of vision. Instead of the historic examples, sometimes quoted in a historicist manner, tradition was now understood as the essence of Romanian spirituality through the perspective of folk art values. The new expression found adepts among the old exponents of the national style (Andrei Saguna Orthodox College, 1938–39, by George Cristinel in Sibiu), but it was particularly popular with young architects (the Military Club by C.Iotzu in Brasov and the numerous villas designed by H.Delavrancea-Gibory at the seaside) The second half of the 1930s was a time of increased authoritarian politics, which culminated in the dictatorship of King Carol II and was followed at the beginning of the 1940s by the creation of the military state. The adoption of the new classicism perfectly mirrored this shift in the state politics. Frequently called “the style Carol II,” this tendency became the symbol of the official architecture and was developed mainly in the capital. The important political changes that followed World War II and that culminated in the installation of the Communist regime on 30 December 1947 brought a radical transformation for the development of architecture. The state established almost total control over architecture and urbanism, which became dependent on the strictly centralized economic and social politics. The evolution of postwar architecture was decisively conditioned by the dominance of standardized plans and of serialized industrial methods of construction, by the reduction in investment costs, and by the replacement of theoretical and critical discourse with the authoritarian intervention of the party ideology. However, this pattern was transgressed in particular cases, as when requested by the importance of representation. This representation emphasized either the regime itself or its ideology, either the urban role of the building or the uniqueness of its function—in the city or in the whole country.

The regime exercised a progressive control over architecture that was reflected in each phase of this period. The first part of 1950s was marked by the so-called realist-socialist architecture of Soviet influence. In these years, housing developments were built in numerous cities in Romania, as were plants and the infrastructure for the International Youth Festival, which took place in 1953 in Bucharest. The utmost symbol of this architecture remains Casa Scînteii (House of the Spark, 1950–51, by architects H.Maicu, L.Staadecker, M.Alifanti, N.Badescu, and others in Bucharest), a local reproduction of the Soviet models, where the forms, mainly classical, were adorned with details inspired partly by national tradition. Parallel to that, the old generation of architects continued to use the vocabulary of the interwar rationalism that was present in Romanian architecture until the end of the decade. The most relevant examples are the Clothing Industries APACA building (1948) by M.Alifanti, I.Ghica Budesti, and others and the Palace of the National Broadcasting (1960) by T.Ricci, L.Garcia, and M.Ricci, both in Bucharest.

The most interesting period of evolution in Romanian architecture started in the 1960s and lasted until the mid-1970s against the background of an apparent ideological liberalization. Functionalist architecture became official, and the urbanist prin-ciples of the Athens Charter were conclusively adopted. The dormitory districts built in almost all Romanian cities, with their impersonal architecture and huge dimensions (up to hundreds of thousands of inhabitants), were erected according to these principles of the Athens Charter. Starting at the end of the 1960s, the Black Sea littoral became the experimental ground for both New Urbanism and Modern architecture. The necessity of modern public equipment in the cities brought the opportunity for various architectures, some of them of an incontestable value, to be employed. Among the most significant buildings of this period are a series of hotels (particularly at the Black Sea in the resorts Neptun, Olimp, and Aurora and in the mountain resorts, such as Poiana Brasov), theaters (the National Theater, 1972–74, by Al. Iotzu in Craiova), cultural centers (such as those built in 1968 by N.Porumbescu in Suceava and in 1975 in Baia Mare, where he employed a stylized interpretation of the traditional decorative patterns), and higher-education institutions and administrative centers (the Administrative Center 1972, by M.Alifanti in Baia Mare is considered one of the most valuable works of the period). The Catholic church (1976) by I.Fackelman in Orsova is unique in the whole postwar period.

The years following the devastating earthquake of 1977 coincided with the emphasis of the totalitarian and nationalistic ideology of the Communist regime. This mutation in the official ideology had dramatic consequences for architecture. Although numerous cities were affected by rapid degradation because of the demolitions of their historical downtowns (increasing the damage caused by the earthquake), the tentative decision to rebuild urbanlike villages, according to controlled planning, threatened to destroy the environment of traditional life. The architectural structures that replaced the demolished edifices, often reorganized as new civic centers, reflected the strict application of the regime ideology, resulting in a schematic and simplistic vocabulary. The control over architecture harshened, and a reduction in the quality of architecture became evident. Official architecture clearly was oriented to a rhetoric of monumentality that was specific to dictatorships, the most significant example being the Pharaonic complex of the House of the People in Bucharest by Anca Petrescu and collective. This enormous architectural complex concentrated the most important part of the state investments, a fact that drastically diminished the construction activity, and only a few buildings succeeded in escaping the anonymity of a common architecture. This explains why the Postmodernism of the 1980s did not produce noteworthy experiments.

Starting in 1990, after the fall of the Communist regime, Romanian architecture entered a new period of intense researches and the rediscovery of former local marks and of integration in the contemporaneous international movement. Unlike previous periods, Bucharest is no longer the only center of architectural experiments. Several other cities have developed such experiences, the most significant example being the city of Timisoara for the refined architecture of Serban Sturdza, I. Andreescu and V. Gaivoronschi, R. Mihailescu, and others.

CARMEN POPESCU AND NICOLAE LASCU

Sennott R.S. Encyclopedia of twentieth century architecture, Vol.3 (P-Z).  Fitzroy Dearborn., 2005.

BUCHAREST;

FUTHER READING

Centenar Horia Creanga 1892–1992, Bucuresti, Romania: Editura UAR, 1992

Constantin, Paul, Arta 1900 in Romania (Art 1900 in Romania), Bucuresti: Meridiane, 1972

Echilibrul uitat. Timisoara 1991–1996; as Romanian Catalogue at the Venice Biennial, Bucuresti, Romania: Simetria, 1996

Ionescu, Grigore, “Arhitectura romaneasca dupa al doilea razboi mondial,” Arhitectura, nos. 3–4, 1991

Ionescu, Grigore, Arhitectura pe teritoriul Romaniei de-a lungul veacurilor, Bucuresti, Romania: Editura Academiei, 1982

Machedon, Luminita, and Ernie Schoffham, Romanian Modernism: The Architecture of Bucharest 1920–1940, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: MIT Press, 1999

Union of Romanian Architects, Bucuresti, anii 1920–1940: între avangarda si modernism; as Bucharest in the 1920s–1940s, between avant-garde and modernism, Bucuresti, Romania: Simetria, 1994