Tag: Urban Evolution

“Mahala” type house

Valentin Mandache
"Mahala" type house, end c19th, Targoviste, southeren Romania (©Valentin Mandache)

The Romanian word “mahala” comes from the Turkish “mahalle”, which means “city district”. The connotations are however quite different, in Romanian the word designating the city slums, the poorest and worst areas of an urban settlement. Many mahala houses display interesting transition features between peasant/ rural and urban architecture. The image above shows a late c19th mahala house from the city of Targoviste in southern Romania. It is quite well preserved and gives an idea how the city slums would have looked like in this region of Europe more than a century ago. This type of building is quite rare now, their number diminishing year by year. In my opinion they have an architectural and social history value and some of them deserve to be preserved as interesting witnesses of this region’s urban evolution.

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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 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 Contact page of this weblog.

Art Deco Lamppost in Bucharest

Valentin Mandache
An Art Deco style lamppost, dating the first part of 1930s; a rare occurence in Bucharest's urban landscape. Piata Spaniei area. (©Valentin Mandache)

This lamppost is quite well preserved for its age and materials used, apart from some chips, unprofessionally restored, on the concrete made shaft. The artefact is the ‘spice’ at the centre of this very architecturally mixed square of Bucharest, where one encounters exquisite classical Neo-Romanian buildings, side by side with international style Art Deco ones and a post-war utilitarian block of flats- a kaleidoscope of Bucharest’s apparent chaotic, but picturesque architectural mix.

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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 Contact page of this weblog.

Daily Picture 23-Feb-10: Compact Design Apartment Building from Art Deco Era

Valentin Mandache
An early 1930s Art Deco style block of flats of a very compact design imposed by the small available building space and street corner location. Unirii area, Bucharest. (©Valentin Mandache)

Bucharest is a large city in terms  of population (about 3 million inhabitants, including the numerous unregistered internal migrants), but extremely compact in terms of available space for its people. The lack of building plots is a perennial problem especially in the central areas that overlap with the old chaotic and high density urban spread dating from the Ottoman times. The inter-war architects were extraordinary talented and resourceful when faced with those limitations, making ingenious use of the minuscule and arcane shape space available. A telling example is the Art Deco style apartment building in the image above, which I found in Unirii area hidden behind a huge row of communist era brutalist block of flats. The 1930s architect has managed to provide an aesthetically pleasing façade that incorporates many Art Deco hallmark elements like the ocean cruise liner motifs of round window and flag post, together with the glazed stairs tower. The famous Art Deco ‘rule of three’ inspired from the then fashionable Egyptian antiquity legends is also conspicuous in the number of floors or bedroom window sections, etc. What I like very much are the fine touches that sooth and tame the building compactness like the delicately rounded street corner or the ingenious geometry of the 1st and 2nd floor bay-windows (on the left hand side façade). The building is in a poor state today as most of Bucharest’s architectural heritage, waiting for elusive better times and prospective more careful and history aware custodians to bring them back to their former glory.

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I endeavor through this daily image series 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 locating 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.