Mature phase Neo-Romanian style houses

I photographed the Neo-Romania style houses presented bellow during the walking architectural tours which I organised in the Patriarchy Hill area. They date from the apogee phase of the development of Romania’s national style, which took place between the second part of the 1900s (starting with 1906, more precisely, when this architectural style was presented to the larger public with the occasion of the Great Royal Jubilee Exhibition of that year in Bucharest) and the late 1920s (when the Art Deco and Modernist styles became serious contenders on the local architectural scene).

This is a well proportioned house embellished with a beautiful roof crest flanked by finials. The ample veranda is particularly attractive with tri-lobed arches, short columns decorated with the rope motif and elaborated floral gallery panels. The ceramic tile roof is inspired from the shingle roof encountered on peasant houses in the region.

The above edifice is again amply embellished with Neo-Romanian motifs, the most prominent being the mock cula tower (fortified yeoman house from south western Romania) at its centre, a beautiful colonated  first floor veranda with tri-lobed arches and a well designed attic that is also provided with a veranda boasting ethnografic motifs. On the ground floor is space for shops, while on the floors above are living quarters. Unfortunately the recent renovations have disfigured this remarkable building, the old ceramic tile roof being replaced with an ugly metallic one, while most of the wooden window frames are now impersonal plastic frame double glazing.

The mock cula tower is again obvious on the Neo-Romanian style dwelling from the above photograph. The building is provided with an impressive arched doorway and two ethnographic verandas.

The omnipresent mock cula tower is again visible in the make up of the house presented in this image. Apparently there are not references to the holy trinity in its decorative and structural elements, as the Neo-Romanian style would usually require, probably because of the small space available for such expressions. I believe an exception was the main window, which now has a plastic double glazing frame, where the original one would have been a church triptych inspired one.