This is my first weekly architectural video blogpost!
The Bucharest Anglican church with its standard issue late Victorian Gothic style, designed by the Romanian architect V. Stefanescu, is quite a singular architectural presence in Bucharest, a city endowed with a rich Byzantine church architecture and a very incongruous mix of civilian architectural styles from French inspired, native Neo-Romanian, Art Deco, modernist to communist brutalist. The church was built in 1914-’20, and during the Cold War has been the sole functioning official Anglican church behind the Iron Curtain.
I mentioned in the video Queen Marie of Romania as a ‘niece of Queen Victoria’. She was in fact the British Sovereign’s granddaughter. The inadvertence was generated by the fact that ‘niece’ and ‘nephew’ in Romance languages such as my native Romanian, cover both English ‘granddaughter’/ ‘nice’ and ‘grandson’/ ‘nephew’ terms.
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I endeavor through this weekly architectural history video series series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.
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If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contactpage of this weblog.
Valentin Mandache, architectural historian 
i love your site! we lived in romania for 6 years, first in timisoara, then in bucharest. while there, i loved to take photos of the churches and had a blog of them. if interested, you can see them here: http://www.biserica.blogspot.com/
we are in texas now, but much of our hearts are there, especially in timis county…. so many fond memories and dear friends there!
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Thank you for your nice words! I looked at your site and found it an excellent collection of church building types from throughout Romania. In fact I never seen, such a gathering of images on this fascinating subject in one place, apart from your site 🙂
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I much enjoyed this video. I hadn’t realised that the church was designed by a Romanian architect — because it looks as if it had fallen out of the sky from Victorian/Edwardian England I’d assumed that an English architect had been employed!
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Thank you for your nice comment! Juxtapositions like Victorian/Edwardian architecture-Romanian architect seem indeed odd to us, but it just shows how globalised the Victorian world has been and how extensive was the destruction of that good work by the Great War, Nazis and the communists. I am glad that this church, a beautiful sample of Victorian/Edwardian Britain from Eastern Europe, is now back into public gaze through the Internet, the new globalisation conduit.
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I shall certainly look for this church when I next have the chance to visit Bucharest. Last summer I visited Romanian friends who gave me a wonderful tour of parts of the country. I did see some of the modernist architecture of Bucharest, plus some of the famous older buildings. But there is much more that I want to see one day.
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