The Neo-Romanian style street and exterior wall lamp artefacts are very rare occurrences within the build historic environment of Bucharest and Romania in general, in sharp contrast with the abundance of their Art Deco counterparts, a consequence of the fact that the Neo-Romanian style is essentially a historicist order that makes references to the romantic medieval past, where the light and its various uses have commonly a secondary place. The interesting lamp hanger presented in the photograph above is affixed at the centre of a window arch, which adorns a grand Neo-Romanian style house dating from the early 1910s. It was quite difficult to spot, high up from the street level, surrounded by other architectural embellishments that dwarfed it. The lamp hanger, used for hanging petrol or candle lanterns, dates from an era when the street lighting in Bucharest was done using mainly petrol lamps; the electric bulb shade attached to it, seen in the photograph, being a decades later addition. The ornamentation of this particular hanger is represented by the typical Neo-Romanian curly grape vine and leaves motif, with a flower at its centre, similar with countless of other decorative artefacts such as in the case of wall and balcony panels, which I documented in an article on this blog a few days earlier.
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I endeavour through this daily series of 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.
Valentin Mandache, architectural historian 