A short evocation of the place where the Goths buried in a hurry their treasure in 376 CE, when threatened by the marauding Huns, in what is now Pietroasele, southeastern Romania. They left in haste dashing towards the safety of the nearby Roman Empire frontier, burring there one of the important golden treasure troves found in Europe. It was discovered by local peasants in the 1830s, with a dramatic and checkered history afterwards, including a stint in Moscow during the Great War and the Read more →
This is a video from my recent visit at Pietroasele, in Buzau county, southeast Romania, famous for a large Gothic treasure trove find, which it is now the main exhibit of the National Museum of History in Bucharest. The place also hosts a castrum/ fort, of no lesser historical importance, which was part of the advance warning outposts of the Roman Empire in the early 4th c CE, watching the corridor between the Great Bend of the Carpathian mountains and the Danube bend at Galati, a geographical feature linking the frontiers of the empire with the highways of migratory peoples roaming in the Pontic Steppe, the north Caucasus and Central Asia. Through this corridor fearsome peoples like the Goths, the Huns, the Avars or the Bulgarians will emerge like a Read more →
The example of house entrance pediment pictured above is from the town of Buzau in south east Romania, from the period when the Little Paris style (what I call the c19th French and other western historicist styles interpreted in a provincial manner in Romania) was in vogue throughout the whole country. The finish is a bit crude, but charming, the assembly truing to emulate the entrance of a Corinthian order temple. I like the monogram of the owner flanked by the year of construction of the house, at the beginning of the La Belle Époque period.
Buzau is located in southeastern Romania at the great bend made by the chain of the Carpathian Mountains, a place of many bloody conflagrations between enemy empires and also nation states. The video presents the Military Cemetery of that town, the sections for the Second Balkan War and the Great War.
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I endeavour through this series of periodic 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 Contactpage of this weblog.
The roof finials are some of the most conspicuous elements of the Neo-Romanian style, a sort of apotheosis of what that architecture represents. They come in many shapes expressing a multitude of national-identity symbols. There are thus finials symbolising peasant ethnography and way of life (ethnographic totemic poles, abstract haystacks), abstractions of fortress towers, religious symbols or medieval weapons. Bellow are two eloquent mace shaped finial examples, which I found in the town of Buzau in south eastern Romania. The mace, a fearsome medieval weapon, is seen as a national-romantic symbol of the armed resistance of the Romanian principalities, as Christian states, against the invasions and menacing power of the Ottoman Islamic califate, one of the main messages of the Neo-Romanian architectural style during its early and mature phases. The first image shows a mace finial crowning the stairs tower of an early 1920s house, while the second embellishes the roof of the Commune Palace, which hosts the town hall of Buzau, a magnificent public early Neo-Romanian style building designed in 1899 by the architect Alexandru Savulescu.
I endeavour through this series of periodic 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 Contactpage of this weblog.
This is a rare architectural history find: an example of Neo-Romanian style public fountain. It is located in the courtyard of Buzau county court house, south-east Romania. The designer of the whole court assembly, built between 1909 – 1912, is the architect Petre Antonescu, the most prolific and one of the best Neo-Romanian style designers, whose origins are in the Buzau county area (born in the city of Ramnicau Sarat).
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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.
***********************************************
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 Contactpage of this weblog.
The Buzau Commune Palace has been inaugurated in 1903 and is the work of Alexander Savulescu, a prominent Fin de Siecle era architect of Romania, famous as the designer of the Post Office Palace in Bucharest, which today hosts the National Museum of History of Romania. The Buzau edifice quarters the mayoralty and its name comes from that of the old administrative unit that in the late c19th described towns or districts grouping villages, a “commune”. It is the most flamboyant creation of Savulescu’s career, in a very peculiar style that blends Neo-Romanian elements rendered in part in an Art Novueau matrix, local architectural motifs found in the Little Paris style houses of Buzau tradespeople or aristocrats and decorative patterns inspired from the grape vine plant, a main crop of the area, symbolising an important component of Buzau’s economy.
Bellow are a photographs depicting a few columns and column elements that embellish the palace’s ground floor gallery. The column capitals are in their turn crowned by ample pediments, in the manner of those featured by the old Wallachian country mansions from the Ottoman period, decorated with the PC (Commune Palace) monogram, surrounded by vine leaves and grapes. The capital itself is also formed from an interesting composition of vine leaves.
I endeavour through this series of periodic 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 Contactpage of this weblog.
This is a pleading to those undertaking restoration and renovation works of Romania’s historic buildings to start using again the wonderful Istrtita stone, a local building material that was quarried for centuries by peasants from the villages dotting the the Istrita Hill in Buzau county, eastern Wallachia. It is a greyish brown limestone, resulted over the geological ages from cemented together fossil shells. The stone is found in the structure and decorative elements of many peasant and period town houses or historic public edifices from the region of Buzau, as are the picturesque stairs presented in the photographs bellow that embellish a late 1890s Little Paris style house in Buzau city centre. The Istrita stone was also extensively used in farther away places from Bucharest, Braila or Ploiesti. Its most interesting use is, in my opinion, as material for making traditional peasant crosses, which embellish old village cemeteries in south-eastern Romania. The Istrita stone is now practically forgotten, despite its high significance for the local architectural identity and excellent potential as building material. It has fallen out of grace once the industrially produced concrete became widely available in the 1960s and also because in the last two decades the market has been flooded with cheap imported construction materials, a large proportion of which comes from as far away as China or India.
Istrita Hill, Buzau county, Romania (Google Earth)
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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.
***********************************************
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 Contactpage of this weblog.
The building presented bellow is a good example of a Fin de Siècle (1899 according to the inscription on the pediment) merchant house from the town of Buzau in south east Romania. Today the edifice hosts a state kindergarten. Its façade is quite well preserved and denotes a picturesque provincially interpreted French c19th historicist style, in this case inspired from rococo and classical motifs crammed together on a relatively limited space. This is what I term as “the Little Paris style” architecture that was very popular in Romania of that time. I like especially the well preserved cast zinc acroterion that crowns the top of the arched pediment. The edifice as a whole looks like a wedding cake, reflecting the quite frivolous tastes of many well-to-do Romanians of that era who made their fortune in large part from grain exports and associated activities. That was in a way the equivalent of the Gilded Age for this country, a sort of peculiar aspirational interpretation of the then western manners and tastes in a region at the margins of Europe of deep Ottoman-Balkan traditions and mentalities. The edifice has unfortunately lost in the recent years its original resplendent wood frame doorway and windows, replaced now by modern plastic frame double glazing. The irony is that the finances that paid for that kind of destructive renovation often originate from EU structural and integration funds intended for modernising the country to European standards, which in the case of Romania’s built heritage cause more damage than save.
I endeavour through this daily series of daily 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 a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing 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.
The modest house pictured above is located in one of the quarters of Buzau, a county town in south east Romania, being one of the many interesting examples of vernacular Art Deco style dwellings built by craftsmen and “DIY” private individuals throughout Romania between the late 1930s until the mid-1970s when the communist regime severely restricted the building of houses by private individuals. I like the porthole windows that decorate the loft area and the stairs like profile of the front yard wall top – gable end, which are the Art Deco “hallmarks” of this house. Usually the vernacular versions of the consecrated architectural styles follow models of local prestigious buildings, which then get disseminated within the local area. I documented such a vernacular dissemination instance for Buzau area in the case of an Art Nouveau roof eave ornament, seen at this link that follows a model displayed by the local Buzau Commune Palace, the most important and also magnificent building in the county. For the Art Deco case illustrated in the above photograph, the model must have also been a great edifice with high prestige among the locals such as a 1930s state of the art hospital or a cinema where the latest Hollywood productions would have been the delight of the natives then.
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I endeavour through this daily series of daily articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.
***********************************************
If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing 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 