Tag: Weathervane

Targoviste Town Hall: Beaux Arts Architecture

Valentin Mandache

 

Targoviste town hall photomontage (©Valentin Mandache)

 

The city of Targoviste in southern Romania, the former medieval capital of the Principality of Walachia, is endowed with a pair of impressive Beaux Arts style public buildings dating from the La Belle Époque, namely the Town Hall (“Primaria” in Romanian) and the former local prefecture headquarters, now hosting the Dambovita County Arts Museum. The style, promoted beginning with the last decades of the c19th through the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, was hugely influential in Europe, North America and beyond, being suitable especially for grand public edifices and mansions. Both Targoviste constructions were the work of the architect (some sources designate him as a builder) Giovanni Baldassare Vignossa (I found in different sources about a half dozen spelling versions for his name and settled for this one) and the decorator Giovanni Battista del Basso. They were part of the “second wave” of Italian builders, architects and artists active in the country, who have contributed in an important measure to the fabric of the built environment of what is now Romania. The “first wave” of Italians (Venetians especially) was active at the end of c17th – start of c18th, during the reign of Prince Constantin Brancoveanu, contributing to the emergence of the Brancovenesc style, a main source of inspiration for the modern Neo-Romanian architectural style. A “third wave” unfurled during the inter-war period when Italian building companies and architectural bureaus greatly contributed to the construction of the Art Deco architectural landscape in Bucharest and the rest of Romania. The “fourth wave” has started in the last decade, once the property and construction boom got underway in Romania, with the Italian construction entrepreneurs being some of most active in that area of activity. The photomontage above and the slide show bellow the text present details from different angles of the Targoviste town hall (1897). I like the balanced proportions of the building and its air of conviviality, very suitable for its role in the community. A most intriguing element among de rich decorative panoply of the building is the theme of the weathervane (a rarely used architectural element in Romania) on top of the tower, a whale with a crown on its head, which makes a sharp captivating contrast with the environment of this city located at the feet of the Transylvanian Alps, far away from the sea.

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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 Contact page of this weblog.

The Weathervanes of Bucharest

Valentin Mandache
Weathervanes- a very uncommon architectural detail for the Bucharest cityscape, almost always peculiar to fin de siècle buildings. (©Valentin Mandache)

The Romanian population descends probably from the ancient indigenous stock of inhabitants of the Carpathian region, settled there since the first westward Indo-European migrations about five millennia ago. A consequence of that spatial immovability, coupled with the lack of seafaring activities, throughout most of their history, has made the natives of what is now Romania, quite oblivious to conventional geographical directions such as the cardinal points, which by contrast are part of the usual vocabulary for the populations inhabiting the European coastal areas or those dwelling in the forested regions of north-eastern Europe. Traditionally the Romanians point the geographical directions according to the Sunrise (“Rasarit”) for East, Sunset (“Apus”) for West, Middle of the Day (“Miazazi”- position of the Sun in the afternoon) for the South and Middle of the Night (“Miazanoapte” reffering to the North Star on the sky at night)  for the North. Another common way of indicating geographical bearings is according to the prevailing regional wind directions: Crivat (the winter seasonal wind that blows from the NE, from Siberia; a word of Slavic origin meaning “bender”/ “one who bends trees or houses”) and Austrul (the spring season wind that blows from the SW, from the Mediterranean; a word of Latin origin meaning the “south” or the “southerner”). Those peculiar circumstances of geographical awareness development made the Romanians to largely ignore the weathervanes, the architectural details that point the geographical directions, in their historic architecture. These are rare artefacts that I was so far able to encounter in Bucharest only on Fin de Siècle buildings. They seem to be just standard additions to the architectural design package typical to the French historicist styles fashionable at that period in Romania and do not have the practical role of indicating from where the wind blows. I gathered in the above photomontage and slide show immediately after text, what I believe is a large proportion of the Bucharest weathervanes. The most spectacular one is in the middle of the upper row of the collage and adorns the embassy of Finland in Bucharest, a building in a Scandinavian baroque style, which speaks volumes about the paucity of this architectural ornament in this city and Romania in general.

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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.

***********************************************

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.