The city of Campulung in the county of Arges has been for a brief period in the c14th the first capital of the Principality of Wallachia, the core of modern Romania. The landscape setting of this urban centre and its satellite villages is one of outstanding natural beauty, in a valley within the Sub-Carpathian piedmont, dominated by the craggy peaks of the Transylvanian Alps. It is located on the old trade route between Wallachia and the Saxon towns of Transylvania, part of the important continental commercial road that linked in the Middle Ages central Europe to the markets of Constantinople and later those of the Ottoman Empire. The rich cultural traditions of the local communities and the propitious location for economic development have produced a beautiful historic architecture abundantly seen in that of the peasant houses, the well preserved old aristocratic villas or in the emblematic buildings that house local government authorities or industrial establishments. The architectural styles are diverse and range from specific ethnographic Romanian, Ottoman Balkan to c19th Alpine chalet, Art Nouveau, Neo-Romanian, Art Deco and even International Modernist. In an attempt to impart a glimpse from that amazing architectural heritage I have put together here a photomontage and a slide show of contemporary photographs and old postcards. The photographs were kindly supplied by Daniel Bobe, a Campulung citizen who has indeed very good reasons to be proud of his city’s heritage.
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Valentin Mandache, architectural historian 
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