I would like to recommend a very fitting description of Bucharest at about 1905 in the Catholic Encyclopaedia, written by someone obviously skilled in snapping the essence of a place in just a few sentences, who probably was a first time visitor to the city and thus had the advantage of a fresh eye observer:
The city is situated in a swampy plain on both sides of the Dimbobitza which is here crossed by about a dozen bridges. It is noted for many stately edifices, and the semi-Oriental appearance of its older quarters is heightened by the numerous gardens and the bright domes of its Greek churches.
The elaborate and exquisite glass and wrought iron clamshell shape awning for doorways is a hallmark element of the Little Paris architecture of Romania that flourished in this country in the last quarter of the c19th. That type of awning is inspired from models used in c19th French historicist and Art Nouveau architecture, one of the most famous examples being the awning of the entrance into the Porte Dauphine metro station in Paris. The delicious clamshell awning with well preserved wrought iron garlands, presented in the photograph above, is from Targoviste, a city in southern Romania that still preserves many beautiful buildings from the Fin de Siècle period.
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I endeavor through this 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.
Peasant woman gathering the corn crop in 1900s, Moldavia region. (early c20th postcard, Valentin Mandache collection)
In the period spanning between the last quarter of c19th, until the start of the Great War, Romania became one the main grain exporters of Europe. That was possible because of the extensive land farming in the vast Lower Danube plains of Wallachia and the fields of Moldavia, and the opening for international commercial traffic of the Danube and the Black Sea waterways. An important proportion of the revenues from those exports was used in financing the construction of a large number of private houses and public edifices. The customary architectural style employed in this nationwide building programme was what I call the “Little Paris” style, very popular with the general public, a part of that period’s Westernisation drive after centuries of Ottoman domination. The style is a picturesque amalgamation of provincially interpreted French c19th historicist architectural orders with a multitude of local Ottoman Balkan decorative elements. Bucharest experienced its first building boom in that period and even acquired the nickname of the “Little Paris of the Balkans”. There were also taking place interesting Art Nouveau and national romantic (Neo-Romanian) architecture experiments on that more prosperous economic background. The peasants of Romania, at that time representing over 80% of the country’s population, and their hard work in the fields were the force at the origins of that extraordinary transformative process. The old postcard above, dating from sometime toward the end of the 1900s, shows a peasant woman from Moldavia gathering the corn crop using a traditional sickle, an ancestral tool not much changed in the region since millennia ago. The photograph presents her confident and happy, an indication that she was farming her family’s plot, received most probably as part of the state’s far sighted land redistribution measures implemented after the terrible peasant revolt against absentee landlords and their agents that took place in 1907, the last medieval type Jacquerie of Europe.
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I endeavor 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 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.
Some of the most picturesque historic houses of Bucharest are those built in what I call the “Little Paris” style, which was very popular in the last two decades of the c19th until 1910s in Romania in general and especially in in its capital. It represents a charming hotchpotch of provincially interpreted French c19th historicist architectural styles mixed with a multitude of local Ottoman Balkan decorative elements. The image above shows such an example of “Little Paris” style dwelling, where one can notice the somehow rustic looking finishes of the classical/ rococo decorative motifs adorning the window openings or the house frieze. I very much like the c19th doorway with its little wrought iron framed glass awning. Some of the coloured glass panes are broken, but the structure could easily be restored. The Ottoman Balkan inspired decoration is represented by the exquisite woodwork adorning the roof eave. Such “Little Paris” houses are relatively numerous in the central areas of Bucharest and would constitute in my opinion some of the most rewarding and cheapest potential restoration/ renovation projects available in this city.
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I endeavor through this daily series of images and small 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 