Architectural history fieldwork tool: Binoculars Pentax Papilio 6.5×21

Valentin Mandache

This is a brief presentation of the Pentax Papilio II 6.5×21 binoculars, which are an important tool in my fieldwork as an architectural historian. Being able to distinguish ornamental or structural details from a distance, on roofs, high on the wall of a tall building, or the ceiling of a reception hall or other architectural nook and crannies is essential in the work of a field architectural historian. A good pair of binoculars are invaluable in that regard. In choosing them I have to strike a balance between price, performance, lightness, and usefulness. Pentax Papilio II 6.5×21 seems to be the best choice available now on the market.

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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

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If you plan acquiring or selling a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing and transacting the property, specialist research, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Acanthus leaves – Italica

Valentin Mandache

The Acanthus leaf is among the most frequent architectural motifs encountered in Roman architecture, with its origins in the Greek classical one (ie the capital of the Corinthian style columns), used in Romanesque, Byzantine, and even Gothic, resurrected on a large scale by the Renaissance, then a staple of Baroque and Rococo, and essential in Neo-Classicism. Here is how the leaf looks in its natural state, as a plant, in a patch of Acanthus next to the amphitheatre of Italica, the Roman colony founded by Scipio Africanus, not far from contemporary Seville.

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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

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If you plan acquiring or selling a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing and transacting the property, specialist research, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Italica, Seville – the birthplace of Emperor Trajan

Valentin Mandache

Italica is the oldest Roman colony outside Italy, founded by Scipio Africanus in 206 BCE, with legionaries who fought in the Second Punic War campaign in the region. It is the birthplace of emperors Trajan and Hadrian. This video is an evocation of Trajan’s actions and importance in the conquest of Dacia and how laden with symbolism is the place where he was born for events that have happened at the other end of Europe, and their historic consequences.

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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring or selling a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing and transacting the property, specialist research, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Tour in Mosilor area

Tour in Mosilor area

Valentin Mandache

Dear readers,

This is an invitation to an architectural walking tour in Mosilor area of Bucharest, open to all of you who would like to accompany me, the author of the Historic Houses of Romania blog, Sunday 18 December 2022, for two hours, between 12.30h – 14.30h.

I will be your guide through one of the most picturesque areas of historic Bucharest, that has known a spectacular development after the unification of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in the aftermath of the Crimean War. It is located on the road stemming from the old city toward Moldavia, known in the olden times as “The Highway” (“Drumul Mare”). Its name comes from that of the famous Mosilor fair, held outside Bucharest’s walls, where traders and peasants from Moldavia and north-eastern Wallachia came with their goods Read more →

Tour in Dacia area

Tour in Dacia area

Valentin Mandache

Dear readers,

This is an invitation to an architectural history walking tour in the area centred on Dacia – Eminescu and Polona streets of Bucharest, endowed with some of the best quality historic architecture of Romania’s capital, open to all of you who would like to accompany me, the author of the Historic Houses of Romania blog on xxxxxxxx 2022 between 13.00h – 15.00h.

I will be your guide in this distinguished Bucharest quarter, packed with impressive building designs, especially Neoromanian, belonging to its mature (such as the image on the left) and late flamboyant phases, along with Art Deco and Modernist designs. Dacia also encompasses Little Paris and a multitude of mixed style buildings of a powerful personality. The architects of many of these structures were from among the Read more →

Tour: Plantelor area

Tour: Plantelor area

Valentin Mandache

Dear readers,

I would like to invite you to an architectural walk in the picturesque Plantelor Street area, located just east of Mantuleasa. It has an alluring residential character, with well presented historic buildings of architectural value, many surrounded by efflorescent gardens. Plantelor area is a sample of how pleasant and stimulative for artistic creativity this town has been in the La Belle Époque and the interwar periods.

The tour is scheduled to take place this Saturday 19 November 2022, between 13.00h – 15.00h. This cultural excursion could be of interest to any of you visiting Romania’s capital as a tourist or on business, looking to understand the character of this metropolis through discovering its peculiar and fascinating old architecture.

The name “Plantelor” (Engl. for “Plants”) given to this iconic street, is an echo of the La Belle Époque times, when Bucharest’s houses of its famous Little Paris and also Art Nouveau architecture were provided with gardens and orchards, and the windows were sporting jardinieres full of Read more →

The early Wallachian style of Balteni church (1626)

Valentin Mandache

This is a brief examination of the emergence of the Wallachian architectural style in the example of Balteni church, 20km north of Bucharest. The nave dates from the early 17th c, and is of a transitional architecture between the old Bulgarian style (the north Balkans Byzantine style) and the indigenous Wallachian one, which emerges properly in the mid-17th c. Here we can also see what I consider elements of Moldavian style (a Byzantine architecture imbued by the Gothic) influence. All of these give tantalising clues about the roots of the architecture native to the principality of Wallachia, the Wallachian style, aka Brancovenesc.

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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring or selling a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing and transacting the property, specialist research, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Tour in east Cotroceni

Tour in east Cotroceni

Valentin Mandache

Cotroceni East-13-3
Costache Negri fountain, east Cotroceni

Dear Readers,

I would like to invite you to an architecture history walk in one of the prestigious quarters of Bucharest, Cotroceni, its eastern, older, part, centred on the area between Dr. Nicolae Staicovici Street and Dr. Joseph Lister Street. This cultural excursion is open to all of you who would like to accompany me, the author of Historic Houses of Romania blog, for two hours, between 13.00h – 15.00h, on Sunday 13 November 2022.

I will be your guide through one of the best quality historic architecture areas of Romania’s capital, constituted from an array of exquisite Little Paris, Neoromanian, and Art Deco and Modernist style houses, intercalated with some alluring examples of Art Nouveau and Mediterranean. The eastern part of Cotroceni is also its oldest, containing one of the best preserved laid out property developments from the Fin de Siècle years. These edifices were built mainly by people belonging to the professional classes of Romania, especially medical doctors and army high echelon officers, of the La Belle Époque and interwar periods. They constructed their residences close by the former Royal Palace of Cotroceni, where the crown couple lived, today used as the Presidential Palace, and the Medical Sciences University, the most prestigious such institution in the south east of Europe, making the area one of the high status quarters of the capital. We will examine and admire the Read more →

Tour: the Ottoman Bucharest & the Wallachian style

Tour: the Ottoman Bucharest & the Wallachian style

Valentin Mandache

Dear readers,

I would like to invite you to a walking tour on the subject of the unique to Romania, Wallachian architecture, also known as Brancovan, an enthralling artistic current of fusion between local Byzantine traditions, Islamic ones of the Ottoman Empire, together with European Renaissance and Baroque elements, an expression of this land being at the juncture of the European and the Oriental civilisations. It emerged in the Principality of Wallachia, chiefly in the 18th century, in an age of stability and prosperity for this frontier province of the Sublime Porte. Bucharest became firmly established as its capital in that period, and, as a result, is endowed with a great assembly of architectural monuments displaying this singular style.

The tour is scheduled to take place on Saturday 12 November 2022, between 13.00h – 15.00h. This cultural excursion could be of interest to any of you visiting Romania’s capital as a tourist or on business, looking to understand the character of this metropolis, through discovering its peculiar and fascinating old architecture, and the social and economic processes underlying it.

Although Bucharest is now a national capital within the European Union, linked primarily with Central and Western Europe, for most of its history, until the last quarter of the 19th century, the town was part of the Ottoman world, of the same mighty empire as Mecca, Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo or Tunis. That will give you a perspective of the enormous influence of the Turkish sultanate in this corner of Europe. Add to those geopolitical and cultural coordinates, the remarkable situation of Wallachia, together with neighbouring Moldavia, as the only Christian protectorates of the Islamic empire of the Porte, with their own Christian princes and aristocracy, not colonised with Muslim populations. The mix constituted a civilisational Petri dish inside which the Wallachian (Brancovan) art and architecture got crystallised and evolved. Its European Renaissance and Baroque inputs came via the circuitous route of Istanbul too, through the absorption of Enlightenment ideas by the cosmopolitan Ottoman capital, fanned over to its provinces, and not how one would expect, from the next door Austrian Empire, present over the Carpathian mountains, in Transylvania, where their rugged crest was not only a geographical obstacle with Europe, but also a cultural barrier. Read more →

Sketching Palermo Cathedral

Valentin Mandache

This was a small break during my October 2022 Sicily Study Trip, where I focused on the Arabo-Norman style architecture. The exterior of the Palermo Cathedral is one of the most extensive such relics in existence, and dates from the time of the Norman King William the Good and English archbishop Walter, inaugurated in 1185. The altar apse and its eastern end, which were the object of my sketch preserve the highest concentration of Arabo-Norman style designs and symbolism. There can also be glimpsed Byzantine and Romanesque elements.

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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring or selling a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing and transacting the property, specialist research, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contactpage of this weblog.