Profiting of a tourist-empty Brasov/ Kronstadt in Saxon Transylvania during the pandemic, to sketch some Gothic architectural details of the remarkable 14th c built Black Church, the easternmost Gothic cathedral of continental Europe.
Tour in Cismigiu area
Dear Readers,
I would like to invite you, in my quality as the author of Historic Houses or Romania – Case de Epoca blog, to an architectural history tour in Cismigiu area of Bucharest. This cultural excursion, open to all interested in Romania’s capital history and identity, is scheduled to take place this Sunday 13 June 2021, for two hours, between 11.30h – 13.30h.
I will be your guide throughout this beautiful expanse of Bucharest, which borders and includes the Cismigiu Gardens, the “Central Park” of this town, which is also its oldest surviving landscaped garden. The quarter boasts a balanced mix of architectures ranging from Little Paris, Art Nouveau, Neoromanian to Art Deco and interwar Modernism, and also Read more
Tour in Bellu Cemetery
Dear readers,
I will be conducting a thematic walking tour this Saturday 12 June 2021, between 11.30h – 13.30h, on the less conventional subject of funerary architecture found within the confines of Bellu Cemetery, the most famous and exquisitely embellished necropolis of Romania, the equivalent in these parts of Europe of Paris’ Père Lachaise or London’s Highgate cemetery. It may be of interest to any of you visiting the town as a tourist or on business, looking to find out more about its fascinating historic architecture and identity.
Bellu Cemetery is considered the National Pantheon of this country, containing the graves and remarkable funerary monuments of important personalities that built the modern Romanian nation, people such as Mihai Eminescu, the national poet, Ion Mincu, the initiator of the Neo-Romanian architectural style or general Christian Tell, one of the heroes of 1848 Revolution. It was opened in 1858 as a public burial ground, part of the city’s advanced urban planning developments of the Victorian era, occasioned by a fast increase in population, when Read more
Tour in Mantuleasa
Dear Readers,
This is an invitation to an architectural history tour in Mantuleasa quarter of Bucharest, open to all of you who would like to accompany me, the author of the Historic Houses of Romania blog, this Sunday 6 June 2021, between the hours 11.30h – 13.30h.
I will be your guide in this fabled part of the old city, much talked about in the novels of Mircea Eliade, one of the brightest writers and historians ever produced by Romania, who spent there his childhood and early formative years. The quarter used to be one of the most ethnically mixed areas of Bucharest, endowed with a very diverse and exuberant period architecture ranging from beautiful Wallachian style churches, some dating from the late c17th, picturesque French c19th historicist and Art Nouveau architecture to flamboyant inter-war Neo-Romanian and Read more
Tour: Kiseleff area & the late Neoromanian style
Dear readers,
I would like to invite you to a thematic walking tour this Saturday 5 June 2021, on the subject of the late phase of the Neo-Romanian architectural style, which unfurled mainly in the fourth and the fifth decades of the c20th, a period when this order peculiar to Romania reached a crisis in terms of expression, mitigated by a fascinating synthesis with the Art Deco, Mediterranean and Modernist styles. The tour takes two hours, between 11.30h – 13.30h, and it may be of interest to those of you visiting the city as a tourist or on business, looking to find out more about its enchanting historic architecture and identity.
The modern construction technologies that emerged in the roaring twenties affording the development of light, airy structures expressed in the Art Deco and Modernist architecture, were quite antithetical to the traditionally ornate, heavy-built Neo-Romanian style edifices, as typical to its early and mature phases. That led to a crisis within this indigenous architectural order, threatened also by the Read more
Bratianu political family tomb, Florica domain
A short overview of the architecture of the tomb (1898 built) of the famous Bratianu family, the leaders of the Romanian Natioanl Liberal Party during the era of state building of the second part of the 19th c and the first half of the 20th c. The tomb is located on their estate at Florica in Wallachia, while the architect was Lecompte du Nouy, a French architect and former student of Viollet-le-Duc.SHOW LESS
Tour: Art Deco and Modernist Bucharest
Dear readers,
I would like to invite you to an after working hours walking tour, this Sunday 30 May 2021, between 11.30h – 13.30h, on the subject of the Art Deco and inter-war Modernist buildings of Bucharest. The tour may be of interest to any of you visiting the city as a tourist or on business, looking to find out more about its fascinating historic architecture and identity.
The Art Deco style, which emerged during the “roaring ’20s” and became a global phenomenon in the 1930s was the first truly international architecture, embraced with gusto by the Bucharest people and the rest of urban Romania. The city became in those years a veritable Art Deco architectural regional “power“, embellished with high quality edifices in this style, many of which are still around, for us to admire and examine, despite the terrible historical upheavals of the last eight decades in this part of Europe. A favourite Art Deco theme in Bucharest was that of the ocean liner, reflecting the longing of the inter-war locals to travel to exotic places in the southern seas, far away from the local harsh, continental winters. The inter-war Modernist style and syntheses with Art Deco are also Read more
Tour in Dacia area
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 Saturday 29 May 2021 between 11.30h – 13.30h.
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 Read more
Tour: the Ottoman Bucharest & the Wallachian style
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 22 May 2021, between 11.30h – 13.30h. 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, Read more
The historic peasant cemetery of Cotorca, Buzau county
In the middle of the Baragan Prairie, of southeast Romania, there is a historic peasant cemetery conserving Wallachian style stone crosses from the 19th c to the early 20th c. The place is an extraordinary time capsule and a testimony of a long gone way of life, traditions and culture of the rural communities in the plains at the foot of the Great Bend of the Carpathian Mountains.
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My aim, through this series of blog articles, is to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania and Southeast Europe, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of world’s architectural history and heritage.
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If you have a historic house project in Romania or other country in Southeast Europe, I would be delighted to advise you in aspects pertaining to its architectural history and ways to preserve as much as possible from its period fabric and aesthetics in the course of restoration or renovation works, or to counsel you with specialist consultancy work related to that project. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this website.
