There is a multitude of architectural letter renderings as one goes visiting the historic quarters of Bucharest. The Neo-Romanian style lettering is one of the most interesting in terms of symbolism and the social, cultural and political history hidden behind it. In this video I present some of those fascinating details using three examples of Neo-Romanian style lettering found on houses in Cotroceni quarter of Bucharest.
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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 advise 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 an original name board of a small shoe repair shop in Bucharest, which dates probably from the years of the Second World War. The lettering style is very evocative of that historical watershed period for the city and Romania in general. For me it suggests the streets of the city during the hot August 1944 days, when King Michael broke the disastrous alliance with Nazi Germany, arrested the pro-German dictator and joined the allied cause, saving the country from a looming catastrophic punishment invasion by the Red Army.
(I am grateful to Romulus Andrei Bena for pointing out this shop board, during a Historic Houses of Romania architectural walking tour in Dacia area, last year)
The Art Nouveau style architecture is a bit of a rara avis in Bucharest. My periodical walking tour “Art Nouveau Bucharest” endeavours to survey an ample proportion of those elements embellishing the city. I thus feel rewarded when from time to time I find the odd Art Nouveau gem here and there, as is the case with the two letter rendering examples presented in the photographs bellow. The first one, with the name of the old Agricultural Bank, Banca Agricola or “Agricola”, as it was habitually known one century agao, was quite hard to spot, on top of a backstreet building façade in the CEC area of central Bucharest. The second Art Nouveau lettering example is on the floor of the western entrance of Amzei Church, a peculiar Art Nouveau – Byzantine design by architect Alexandru Savulescu in 1901. It welcomes the churchgoers with the saying “Sa fim credinciosi” (“Let’s be faithful/ believers”). Both examples are delicate signals to the indifferent contemporary passer-bys from a long gone and beautiful epoch.
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.
I have been nicely surprised to discover a few days ago that a long awaited book containing two of my architectural photographs has been published! The work, entitled “Lettering. A reference manual of techniques” (Laurence King Publishing, London, 2011 ), is authored by Andrew Haslam, an authority in lettering and typographical techniques, who lectured at the prestigious London College of Printing (now called College of Communication) and Central St. Martin’s School of Arts and Design in the British capital. My photographs depict the lettering displayed on the entrance pediment of “Liga Culturala” building (arch. Ion Trajanescu, 1929) and a fragment from the great frieze embellishing the courtyard of Central School (arch. Ion Mincu, 1890), which together open the section entitled “Rendered Lettering” of the book. I am of course very happy that a sample from the vast architecture of Bucharest, as seen through my eyes, has thus found an international outlet in such an elegant medium afforded by this volume. It is my second photo-mention in a book, after last year another of my architectural photographs was selected for illustrating a book publihed by a law specialist publisher from Oxford, UK, details of which can be seen at this link. I wish all the possible success to Andrew’s book and hope that Bucharest’s edifices and their decoration would start drawing attention to an as wide as possible public!
"Lettering: a reference manual of techniques" by Andrew Haslam (Laurence King Publishing, London 2011)"Lettering: a reference manual of techniques" by Andrew Haslam (Laurence King Publishing, London 2011)The author of this blog holding a copy of "Lettering: a reference manual of techniques" by Andrew Haslam (Laurence King Publishing, London 2011)The two Bucharest letter rendering photographs in "Lettering: a reference manual of techniques" by Andrew Haslam (Laurence King Publishing, London 2011)The two Bucharest letter rendering photographs in "Lettering: a reference manual of techniques" by Andrew Haslam (Laurence King Publishing, London 2011)Acknowledgements section of ”Lettering: a reference manual of techniques” by Andrew Haslam (Laurence King Publishing, London 2011)Acknowledgements section mentioning the Historic Houses of Romania blog and its author in "Lettering: a reference manual of techniques" by Andrew Haslam (Laurence King Publishing, London 2011)
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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 Neo-Romanian style architectural lettering is a Latin type rendering using peculiar letter shapes inspired from the Cyrillic script of the Old Church Slavonic texts. This distinctive rendering conveys a powerful identity message reflected in the use by the Romanian language speakers of both scripts throughout their history. The Romanian language is a Romance/ Latin origin idiom, sharing many similar traits with Portuguese and Sardinian, but with a strong Slavic influence over its vocabulary and grammar. That is the result of the historical cultural development of the Romanian communities in close contact with speakers of Slavic languages in South East Europe and as followers of a Christian Orthodox creed based for centuries on Old Church Slavonic liturgy. As a consequence, the influence extended to the use of the Cyrillic alphabet in rendering the Romanian language, until well into the c19th. The alphabet reform of mid c19th, a part of the then nation building process, saw the adoption of the Latin alphabet, perceived as more prestigious and proper for a Latin people, proud of its roots in the ancient Empire of Rome. However, the Romanians kept hankering back to the symbolism and messages of the Cyrillic script associated with the heroic medieval times of battles and resistance against the Catholic power of the Hungarian Kingdom or the Islam of the Ottoman Empire. That coincides with the identity messages of the Neo-Romanian order, that has its ideological roots in the c19th national romantic movement and glorification of the medieval past. As a consequence, the architectural lettering is a very important component of the Neo-Romanian decorative panoply. I collected in the photomontage above examples of this type of letter rendering from a multitude of sources: architect’s name tablets, proprietor’s name, school plaques, house name inscriptions, etc. dating from 1890s (see the Art Nouveau like shapes) to 1940s (see the discernible Art Deco patterns on the panel at the centre of the photomontage). There is also, for comparison, an old votive inscription in the Cyrillic script dating from 1715, that adornins the ‘Saint Apostles’ church in Bucharest, visible on the upper left hand corner of the photomontage. The panels are also displayed individually in the slide show bellow.
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I endeavor through this daily series of articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural 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 Contact page of this weblog.
Valentin Mandache, architectural historian 