Dear Readers,

This is an invitation to an architectural history tour in the splendid Cotoroceni quarter of Bucharest, open to all of you who would like to accompany me, the author of the Historic Houses of Romania blog, for three hours, between 10.30h – 13.30h, this Sunday, 16 September ’12!

I will be your expert guide through one of the best quality historic architecture areas of Romania’s capital, constituted mainly from Neo-Romanian and Art Deco designs. These edifices were developed for the professional classes, especially well known medics, who built their residences  in the environs of Bucharest’s Medical University, the most prestigious higher education institution in that field from these parts of Europe, located at he heart of Cotroceni quarter. The area also boasts Romania’s Presidential Palace, a former official residence of country’s royal family, which inspired a great deal the architectural styles of this city quarter. All of that highly enticing built heritage is waiting be discovered! Cotroceni is also populated by diverse species of  trees, which will give us the opportunity in this tour to sample something from Bucharest’s old serene environmental identity, a city renowned by its gardens and leafy streets before the urban agglomeration and decay of the communist and post-communist eras altered that character.

Book by emailing v.mandache@gmail.com or using the comments section of this post. You will be informed of meeting place on booking.

I look forward to seeing you at the tour,

Valentin Mandache, expert in Romania’s historic houses (tel: 0040 (0)728323272)

Historic Houses of Romania architectural tour in Cotroceni area of Bucharest

Historic Houses of Romania architectural tour 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.

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

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 Contact page of this weblog.

Princess’ Nest, Princess Marie of Romania’s tree house in Sinaia. Old post-card (1900s), Valentin and Diana Mandache collection.

Queen Marie of Romania is well known for her multiple artistic qualities, ranging from writing, furniture design to theatre. She also indulged in architectural pursuits, especially in matters of interior design (see her remarkable creations at Pelishor Castle in the Transylvanian Alps for example) or gardening, ideas which she condensed in an interesting essay published in the 1920s, entitled “My Dream-Houses“. Somehow less known is a peculiar tree house structure, illustrated in the old post-card above, built following Marie’s detailed specifications, which she used for recreation in the years when was a crown princess of the Romanian Kingdom. It was known as “Princess’ Nest”, located on the property of the grand Pelesh Royal Castle in Sinaia. Bellow is the finest description of this phantasy house, which I so far found  in my research, by Maude Parkinson, an expert gardener from England who worked for many years in the service of the Romanian Royal House:

In the neighbouring forest Princess Marie, as she then was, had a “Crusoe” constructed. I understand that she adopted the idea from a celebrated arboreal restaurant in the Forest Fontainebleau, which is named after the castaway of Juan Fernandez.

A strong wooden platform was constructed amongst the trees at a considerable height from the ground, and upon this was built a house consisting of two rooms, a kitchen, and a salon.

The kitchen is fitted up with everything necessary for cooking simple dishes or preparing tea. The salon is very prettily furnished, and books in plenty, drawing and painting materials, etc., are always to be found there.

The Queen only takes her special friends to visit her “Crusoe” and a very charming retreat it is. The windows and open door command a most beautiful view. Access to the “Crusoe” is gained by means of a ladder with wide steps, which is let down when required. When the visitors are safely up, they remain there shut in three sides by foliage and cut off from communication with the world bellow save by telegraph, for a wire connects it with the palace. Nothing disturbs the perfect calm and quiet at such a height, and many pleasant hours have been spent by her Royal Highness and a chosen few in that little nest. Nest is indeed the word, for that is the meaning of the Roumanian name “cuib” by which the retreat is generally known.

Maude Parkinson, “Twenty years in Roumania”, London 1921

Dear readers,

I am organising a thematic two hour walking tour (between 10.30h – 12.30h) this Saturday 15 September ’12, on the less conventional subject of after-life or funerary architecture found within the confines of Bellu Cemetery, the most famous and exquisitely embellished necropolis of Romania, the equivalent in these parts of Europe of Paris’ Père Lachaise or London’s Highgate cemeteries. It may be of interest to any of you visiting the city as a tourist or on business looking to find out more about its fascinating historic architecture and identity.

Bellu Cemetery is considered the National Pantheon of this country, containing the graves and remarkable funerary monuments of important personalities that built the modern Romanian nation, people such as Mihai Eminescu, the national poet, Ion Mincu, the initiator of the Neo-Romanian architectural style or general Christian Tell, one of the heroes of 1848 Revolution. It was opened in 1858 as a public burial ground, part of the city’s advanced urban planning developments of the Victorian era, occasioned by a fast increase in population, when traditional cemeteries around urban churches became overcrowded and a health hazard, as was the case with other European capitals of that era. Many of Bellu’s funerary monuments are outstanding architectural tributes that the great, the good and the wealthy dedicated to their dead ones. These structures trace closely the changing architectural ideas and fashions of their time, representing a veritable condensed encyclopaedia of design styles. Their decorative details are often superlative and contain a wealth of symbols ranging from sacred, ethnographic to profane. The cemetery is part of the Associantion of Significant Cemeteries in Europe as a recognition of its heritage value. This place so much laden with history and architectural show-pieces is now among the tours organised by the Historic Houses of Romania blog author!

Book by emailing v.mandache@gmail.com or using the comments section of this post. You will be informed of meeting place on booking.

I look forward to seeing you at the tour,

Valentin Mandache, expert in Romania’s historic houses (tel: 0040 (0)728323272)

Historic Houses of Romania: architectural tour in Bellu Cemetery

Historic Houses of Romania: architectural tour in Bellu Cemetery (map source: Bing Maps)

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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.

Reblogged from Diana Mandache's Weblog:

• 

Queen Marie and King Ferdinand of Romania taking part in a commemoration service at the former war prisoner cemetery from Val du Pâtre (Soultzmatt) in Alsace, where the Romanian war prisoners were interned and a great number of them died between 1917-1918. They were captured during the German offensive of 1916 in Transylvania and the Romanian Kingdom.

Read more… 17 more words

I will organise a thematic two hour, between 17.30h – 19.30h) architectural tour this Thursday 13 September ’12, on the subject of the exceedingly interesting, but often elusive Art Nouveau architecture of Bucharest. It may be of interest to any of you visiting the city as a tourist or on business looking to find out more about its fascinating historic architecture and identity.

The innovative and flamboyant Art Nouveau current that emerged at the end of c19th, as a reaction to the rigidity of the historicist styles and academic art, had also an important impact in Fin de Siècle Romania. One of its notable influences was the articulation within its coordinates of the local national style, known today as Neo-Romanian, in a similar manner with other emerging national styles in the rest of Eastern Europe. Today the once exquisite Art Nouveau remnants are hard to notice by the untrained eye, although they are quite numerous, but scattered throughout the area of old Bucharest and often obscured by inclusion within ampler architectural assemblies rendered in historicist c19th styles. This tour endeavours to locate and explain the meaning and message of  some of the significant Art Nouveau representations that embellish the city center and give you an overall image about this style and its impact on the architectural development of Romania’s capital.

Book by emailing v.mandache@gmail.com or using the comments section of this post. You will be informed of meeting place on booking.

I look forward to seeing you at the tour,

Valentin Mandache, expert in Romania’s historic houses (tel: 0040 (0)728323272)

Art Nouveau Bucharest – architectural tour (©Valentin Mandache)

Historic Houses of Romania tour: Art Nouveau Bucharest

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

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 at its apogee – Historic Houses of Romania architectural tour

The mature phase of the Neo-Romanian style unfurled over a period that started with the Great Royal Jubilee Exhibition of 1906 in Bucharest when this order was presented to the wider public, until the end of the third decade of the c20th, when it reached a certain impasse under the impact of international artistic and architectural currents and adaptation to new building technologies, which later gave way to fascinating hybridisations with the Art Deco and Modernist styles. The illustrates of this post present some of the representative edifices in this highly particular design from the centre of Bucharest.

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Historic Houses of Romania walking architectural tour in Piata Victoriei area, Bucharest

The character of Piata Victoriei historic area of central Bucharest has been in large part determined by the architecture embellishing two important boulevards that cross the quarter: Calea Victoriei, the oldest thoroughfare of Romania’s capital, and Lascar Catargiu, an artery opened in the late c19th as a show-piece of the then modern urban planning and architecture, roads that meet in the great square Piata Victoriei that hosts Romania’s government’s headquarters. This blog post shows a sample of the designs viewed at the recent Historic Houses of Romania in the area.

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Bucharest as the Little Paris of the Balkans – Historic Houses of Romania tour

The Little Paris style is an umbrella term which I use to define the architecture inspired especially from French c19th styles, rendered in a provincial manner that acquired a personality of its own in Fin de Siècle Romania and also to a lesser extent to the rest of the Balkans, reflecting the modernisation of the society and fusion in architecture of the western fashions together with local forms. Bucharest is the best place in the entire region to view and study that peculiar type of architecture that emerged in this part of Europe, which because of its high concentration and relatively good state of preservation, is still an important component of the local built landscape. The photographs presented here were shot during the Historic Houses of Romania tour of a few days ago, representing a small sample from the great multitude of such picturesque houses of Bucharest.

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Historic Houses of Romania – Case de Epoca tour, 25 August ’12: the late phase of the Neo-Romanian architectural style

I would like to share with you a small sample from the magnificent multitude of Neo-Romanian style houses that belong to the late phase of the development of this design peculiar to Romania, which were viewed and examined during the 25 August ’12 tour guided by the author of this blog. In basic terms it represents a synthesis between the Neo-Romanian and mainly Art Deco, or said differently- the national architecture of Romania expressed in the Art Deco coordinates of the period between the late 1920s and the mid-1940s. The modern construction technologies that emerged in the roaring twenties affording the development of light, airy structures expressed in the Art Deco and Modernist architecture, were quite antithetical to the traditionally heavy, built in brick and masonry, Neo-Romanian style edifices, as typical to its early and mature phases of the previous four decades. That led to a crisis within this indigenous architectural order, threatened by the high popularity among the public of the international modern styles, which were all the rage in Bucharest during the 1930s. The Neo-Romanian style managed to survive and even thrive, until the watershed of the Second World War, through fascinating syntheses especially with the Art Deco designs.

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Dear Readers,

This is an invitation to an architectural history in Mantuleasa quarter of Bucharest: open to all of you who would like to accompany me, the author of the Historic Houses of Romania blog, for three hours, between 10.30h – 13.30h, this Sunday 9 September  ’12.

I will be your expert guide in this fabled part of the old city, much talked about in the novels of Mircea Eliade, one of the brightest writers and historians ever produced by Romania, who spent there his childhood and early formative years. The quarter used to be one of the most ethnically mixed areas of Bucharest, endowed with a very diverse and exuberant period architecture ranging from beautiful Brancovan style churches dating from the late c17th, picturesque French c19th historicist and Art Nouveau architecture to flamboyant inter-war Neo-Romanian and slender Art Deco and International Modernist style dwellings, all within the space of less than one square kilometre. The architectural mix of Mantuleasa, although is apparently exhilaratingly chaotic, it nevertheless follows certain discernible trends, underlined by intense local social and economic history processes, which this tour aims to make them discernible to the participants. All of that architectural kaleidoscope crammed in a relatively small area of the city is waiting to be discovered and photographed by you! 

Book by emailing v.mandache@gmail.com or using the comments section of this post. You will be informed of meeting place on booking.

I look forward to seeing you at the tour,

Valentin Mandache, expert in Romania’s historic houses (tel: 0040 (0)728323272)

Mantuleasa historic quarter architecture (©Valentin Mandache)

Historic Houses of Romania tour in Mantuleasa quarter of Bucharest

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

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.

Dear readers,

I am organising a thematic three hour (between 10.30h – 13.30h) walking architectural tour on Saturday 8 September ’12, on the subject of Bucharest’s old church architecture and how the ecclesiastical designs influenced other types of local historic architecture, especially the Neo-Romanian style. The tour may be of interest to any of you visiting the city as a tourist or on business looking to find out more about its fascinating historic architecture and identity.

Bucharest throughout most of its documented history has been the chief ecclesiastical centre of the principality of Wallachia and, after its unification with Moldavia in the wake of the Crimean War, of Romania, the successor national state. The Patriarch, who is the leader of the independent Romanian Orthodox Church, overseeing in religious matters 20 million followers, has his seat on the Patriarchy Hill, the acropolis of  Romania’s capital. The city was famous for its hundred of churches, many of which were built in the exquisite local Brancovan style, an architecture peculiar to Wallachia combining Byzantine, Ottoman, Renaissance and baroque themes that developed between the mid-c17 and the mid-c18th. The design of those churches constituted a main source of inspiration for the architects of the late c19th national-romantic era when the Neo-Romanian order was created, which in the subsequent decades will become one of the main styles of this country. The ecclesiastical edifices through their magnitude and significance for the community were also a model for new designs and technologies, such as neo-Renaissance cupolas or neo-baroque roof towers, or reinforced concrete technology that deeply impacted the local domestic or public architecture. In the course of this tour I will endeavour to show you some of the representative churches of central Bucharest and explain their architectural intricacies, making references to how their design impacted the evolution and identity of the local built landscape in the last three cenuries. Among the churches visited will be the late-Brancovan style Stavropoleos, the neo-Renaissance Domnita Balasa, the ancient Patriarchal Cathedral or the church of the shepherd Bucur, the place where Bucharest is said to have started.

The complete list of churches scheduled for viewing as part of this tour: Stavropoleos, Postei, Gabroveni, Rusa, Coltei, Sf. Gheorghe Nou, Sf. Gheorghe Vechi, Baratia, Curtea Veche, Balasa, Patriarhiei, Sf. Spiridon Nou si Bucur.

Book by emailing v.mandache@gmail.com or using the comments section of this post. You will be informed of meeting place on booking. 

I look forward to seeing you at the tour,

Valentin Mandache, expert in Romania’s historic houses (tel: 0040 (0)728323272)

Historic Houses of Romania architectural walking tour: Ecclesiastical Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

Historic Houses of Romania architectural tour: Ecclesiastical Bucharest

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

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 Contact page of this weblog.

Dear readers,

I organise a thematic two hour (between 17.30h – 19.30h) thematic architectural tour this Thursday 6 September ’12, on the subject of the mature Neo-Romanian architectural style, when it reached the apogee in terms of expression and development. That represents an extraordinary architecturally creative period, in the first decades of the c20th, which produced the most iconic and accomplished edifices in this manner of design specific to Romania and neighbouring regions where the country had influence. The Neo-Romanian style has thus became the most visible identity marker of this nation and its chief contribution to the worlds’s heritage. Bucharest is the best endowed place with edifices built in that architecture. The tour may be of interest to any of you visiting the city as a tourist or on business looking to find out more about its fascinating historic houses and identity.

The mature phase of the Neo-Romanian style unfurled over a period that started with the Great Royal Jubilee Exhibition of 1906 in Bucharest when this order was presented to the wider public, until the end of the third decade of the c20th, when it reached a certain impasse under the impact of international artistic and architectural currents and adaptation to new building technologies, which later gave way to fascinating hybridisations with the Art Deco and Modernist styles. The tour endeavours to explain the characteristics of some of the significant Neo-Romanian buildings designed and built at the apogee of the development of this order located in central Bucharest (see the map bellow for the tour area), such as arch. Petre Antonescu’s Marmorosch Blank Bank edifice (1915 -23) or the Palace of the Post Office Customs designed by arch. Statie Ciortan (1914 – ’26), offering you a good overall image about the vivacity of this remarkable architectural phenomenon and its huge impact over the cultural identity of Romania’s capital and the rest of the country.

Book by emailing v.mandache@gmail.com or using the comments section of this post. You will be informed of meeting place on booking.

I look forward to seeing you at the tour,

Valentin Mandache, expert in Romania’s historic houses (tel: 0040 (0)728323272)

Historic Houses of Romania architectural walking tour in Bucharest: The mature phase Neo-Romanian Style

Historic Houses of Romania walking tour: the Neo-Romanian style at its apogee

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

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 Contact page of this weblog.

Travel trunk sticker of a 1930s Romanian Modernist – Art Deco  building. The sticker was produced in the 1960s in the fashion of the inter-war years. (©Valentin Mandache)

The house in which I used to live in is an utilitarian late 1930s apartment house, located in north-west Bucharest, built by the national railway company for its skilled workers, of a design that combines Modernist and Art Deco outlines, with some faint traces of Neo-Romanian. I wanted to convey the idea of that architecture and the home removal feeling through the picture above that shows part of  one of my “antique” trunks used in that process of transportation, embellished with an architectural theme sticker, in tone with the design of the building that used to be until a few days ago my residence.

Bucharest 1890s aristocratic house courtyard, Patriarchy Hill area (©Valentin Mandache)

The apartment that is now my headquarters is within the courtyard of a grand 1890s Little Paris style house from the Patriarchy Hill area  of Bucharest belonging to the scions of an aristocratic Romanian family, which produced, among others, a few important local and international architects. Parts of the building, with the exception of the section where my apartment is located, are quite run down, as the photographs bellow testify, reflecting the long period of neglect when the property was in the hands of the communist and post-communist state, being only recently recovered by its rightful owners. It still has many of its original Little Paris style features, from the great ironwork of its gate and main doorway to beautiful Corinthian pilasters or ornate window openings and roof-eaves, amply preserving the quaintness of the bygone La Belle Époque years. I have to say that when contemplating the new surroundings, I quite feel like living in that era, or even somewhere in a God-forsaken corner of France, on account of architecture and the huge chestnut trees in front of windows, although the place is not far from the bustling centre of this large metropolis of the European Union.

I hope that this space will prove inspiring in my activity in the field of Romania’s historic houses!

Bucharest 1890s aristocratic house courtyard, Patriarchy Hill area (©Valentin Mandache)

Marcel Janco and Modernist Bucharest: http://adrianyekkes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/marcel-janco-and-modernist-bucharest.html

Dear Readers,

This is an invitation to an architectural history tour in Piata Victoriei area of Bucharest: open to all of you who would like to accompany me, the author of the Historic Houses of Romania blog, for three hours, between 10.30h – 13.30h, on Monday bank holiday, 1 September ’12!

I will be your expert guide through a remarkably rich and architecturally varied area of central Bucharest, where famous public buildings often stand side by side with quaint Little Paris, Neo-Romanian or Art Deco style private houses. The character of the local built landscape has been in large part determined by the architecture embellishing two important boulevards that cross the area: Calea Victoriei, the oldest thoroughfare of Romania’s capital, and Lascar Catargiu, an artery opened in the late c19th as a show-piece of the then modern urban planning and architecture, roads that meet in the great square Piata Victoriei that hosts Romania’s government’s headquarters. The tour is thus an excellent opportunity to view and examine a most representative cross-sections of Bucharest’s architectural heritage, spanning examples from great public edifices to small dwellings of delicate elevated or vernacular styles. All of that architectural kaleidoscope in a nutshell is waiting to be discovered and photographed by you!

Book by emailing v.mandache@gmail.com or using the comments section of this post. You will be informed of meeting place on booking.

I look forward to seeing you at the tour,

Valentin Mandache, expert in Romania’s historic houses (tel: 0040 (0)728323272)

Historic Houses of Romania architectural tour: Piata Victoriei historic architecture samples, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

Historic Houses of Romania architectural tour in Piata Victoriei area, Bucharest

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

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 Contact page of this weblog.

Neo-Romanian style tree of life, mid-1930s house, Icoanei area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

Two close members of my family celebrate their birthday in the second part of August. I thought that a fitting card for this beautiful occasion would be one of my architectural photographs depicting a remarkable rendering in the Neo-Romanian style of the tree of life motif. The card which I sent to my relatives contains the image presented above, where the tree of life is embodied by the flamboyantly decorated staircase window on the right. It depicts the origins of life represented by the three grains (holy trinity) at the base of the flower pot in the lower register, and then the springing up of life in waves of vine branches and grapes. The continuity and diverse events of life are rendered on the vertical sides of the wall opening, everything culminating in paradise, seen in the pair of majestic peacocks feeding from a grape in a cup supported by a cross symbol, grouped in the upper register. The window opening is occupied by a circular reticulation panel, which can be interpreted as the trunk of a tree: a palm tree perhaps, that has biblical connotations, or a rendering of  a medieval church window glazed with circular panes of blown glass. The opening is bordered by a beautiful rope, a ubiquitous motif in Romanian church architecture and peasant art. The top of the window is of broken arch type, typical of the Brancovan churches of the c18th in Wallachia, which is a motif borrowed from the Islamic architecture of the Ottoman Balkans.

I found during my fieldwork in Bucharest four such exquisite Neo-Romanian style three of life windows embellishing buildings erected in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s. One of them, in many ways similar with the one shown in this article, can be seen and read about at this link: Magnificent Neo-Romanian style “Tree of Life” panel. Another such window decorates Prince Nicolae Villa in Cotroceni, which unfortunately is now badly damaged in botched renovation works perpetrated by uncultured contemporary Romanian proprietors.

Dear readers,

I would like to propose you a thematic after work two hour (between 17.30h – 19.30h) architectural tour this Thursday 30 August ’12, on the subject of the late c19th – early c20th French and western historicist style architecture of Bucharest, which made the city known to the rest of world as the “Little Paris of the Balkans”, a phenomenon that imprinted the character of Romania’s capital ever since. The tour may be of interest to any of you visiting the city as a tourist or on business looking to find out more about its fascinating historic architecture and identity.

The first building boom of modern era Bucharest happened during the period aptly named La Belle Époque, which corresponds with the late Victorian and early Edwardian epochs for the English speaking world (or Gilded Age in the US). It was characterised by a charming architecture inspired especially from the flamboyant neo-baroque, neo-rococo and also neo-gothic forms fashionable in France, a country seen by the then Romanians as a beacon of culture worthy to emulate, and from other west European states held in high regard by the then young Balkan nation. The local architecture thus acquired a personality of its own by combining the new forms with the indigenous and Ottoman traditional motifs and construction methods, resulting in what I collectively call the “Little Paris style”. This is a type of architecture peculiar to the Fin de Siècle Romania and also to a lesser extent to the rest of the Balkans, reflecting the modernisation of the society and fusion in architecture of the western fashions together with ancestral forms. Bucharest is the best place in the entire region to view and study that peculiar type of architecture that emerged in this part of Europe, which because of its high concentration and relatively good state of preservation, is still an important component of the local built landscape. In the course of this tour I endeavour to show you some of the representative Little Paris style buildings found in central Bucharest, explain their architectural intricacies and the economic and social history buried without and within their walls and thus convey to you how amazing the Little Paris style is.

Book by emailing v.mandache@gmail.com or using the comments section of this post. You will be informed of meeting place on booking.

I look forward to seeing you at the tour,

Valentin Mandache, expert in Romania’s historic houses (tel: 0040 (0)728323272)

Architectural walking tour – Bucharest as the Little Paris of the Balkans with Valentin Mandache

Architectural walking tour: Bucharest as the Little Paris of the Balkans

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

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.

Adam and Eve in an Art Deco era representation, 1929 house, Cismigiu area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

The Art Deco era panel is, in my opinion, a fairly good artistic product, on classical or even Rodin-inan lines, inviting to philosophate about the symbolism of this couple in the conditions of the inter-war period, at the beginning of the Great Depression. I like the altar, with a base in three steps, and a three groove shaft, all conforming to the Art Deco’s rule of three, on which the two personages lean, engulfed within the radiation generated by the sacred fire. Adam and Eve in this instance look quite androgynous, which conform to the Greek classical norms of uncertain gender portrayal.

Adam and Eve represented as a pair of communist youth in a 1960s sculpture, Domenii area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

The couple from the mid-1960s statuary composition is also a rendering of the Adam and Eve theme, but in the communist ideology coordinates that pervaded the life and society of Romania of that period. It represents a pair of Romeo-and-Juliet age adolescents, not of an aristocratic outlook, but in what were then considered healthy, study outlines of the working class individuals. The 1960s was a period of thaw within the communist world, after the harsh Stalinist post-war years, and in Romania in particular that was reflected in good quality artistic and also architectural productions (see for example the remarkable Modernist designs of the hotels embellishing the Black Sea resorts). This statue exudes something from that more propitious atmosphere and in my opinion is of a better artistic standard than the Art Deco bas-relief described above.

Adam and Eve in Art Deco and 1960s communist representations, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

Dear readers,

This is an invitation to an architectural walking tour in Mosilor area of Bucharest, open to all of you who would like to accompany me, the author of the Historic Houses of Romania blog, Sunday, 26 August ’12, for 3 hours, between 16.30h – 19.30.

I will be your expert guide through one of the most picturesque areas of historic Bucharest, that has known a spectacular development after the unification of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in the aftermath of the Crimean War. It is located on the road stemming from the old city toward Moldavia, known in the olden times as “The Highway” (“Drumul Mare”). Its name comes from that of the famous Mosilor fair, held outside Bucharest’s walls, where traders and peasants from Moldavia and north-eastern Wallachia came with their goods and products. Among of the most active and successful traders were the Armenians, who had strong communities in Moldavia and many settled in the Mosilor area, where they erected the largest Armenian church in south-east Europe. The architecture thus very much reflects an effervescent commercial past, with interesting examples of trader houses built in a multitude of vernacular and elevated styles ranging from Little Paris, Neo-Romanian to Art Deco. There is also a rare examples of Ottoman Balkan era dwelling, Casa Melik, dating from the c18th. Mosilor is thus a most representative sample of what Bucharest has been throughout most of its history, a trade centre for the Romanian lands. Its attractive and very evocative period architecture is waiting to be discovered by you!

Book by emailing v.mandache@gmail.com or using the comments section of this post. You will be informed of meeting place on booking.

I look forward to seeing you at the tour,

Valentin Mandache, expert in Romania’s historic houses (tel: 0040 (0)728323272)

Bucharest’s Mosilor area historic architecture (©Valentin Mandache)

Historic Houses of Romania architectural walking tour in Mosilor area, 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 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.

Dear readers,

I would like to invite you to a thematic two hour (between 17.30h – 19.30h) architectural tour tomorrow Saturday 25 August ’12, on the subject of the late phase of the Neo-Romanian architectural style, which unfurled mainly in the fourth and the fifth decade of the c20th, a period when this order peculiar to Romania reached a crisis in terms of expression, mitigated by fascinating syntheses with the Art Deco and the Modernist styles. The tour may be of interest to those of you visiting the city as a tourist or on business looking to find out more about its enchanting historic architecture and identity.

The modern construction technologies that emerged in the roaring twenties affording the development of light, airy structures expressed in the Art Deco and Modernist architecture, were quite antithetical to the traditionally ornate, heavy, built in brick and masonry, Neo-Romanian style edifices, as typical to its early and mature phases. That led to a crisis within this indigenous architectural order, threatened by the high popularity among the public of the international modern styles or frivolous fairy tale designs inspired from Mediterranean architecture, which were all the rage in Bucharest during the 1930s. The Neo-Romanian style managed to survive and even thrive, until the watershed of the Second World War, through fascinating syntheses especially with the Art Deco and to a lesser extent with the Modernist designs. The tour aims to present a number of telling examples from that phase of stylistic development, many examples of which are located in Kiseleff Park area of north-central Bucharest, and thus chart a captivating chapter of the Neo-Romanian style development and of Bucharest’s historic architecture.

Book by emailing v.mandache@gmail.com or using the comments section of this post. You will be informed of meeting place on booking.

I look forward to seeing you at the tour,

Valentin Mandache, expert in Romania’s historic houses (tel: 0040 (0)728323272)

Historic Houses of Romania thematic tour: The Late Neo-Romanian Style

Historic Houses of Romania tour: The late Neo-Romanian style

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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 Contact page of this weblog.

Dear readers,

I am organising tomorrow, Wednesday, 22 August ’12, a thematic two hour after-work walking tour (between 17.30h – 19.30h) on the subject of the high quality Art Deco and inter-war Modernist designs of Bucharest. It may be of interest to any of you visiting the city as a tourist or on business looking to find out more about its fascinating historic architecture and identity.

The Art Deco style, peculiar to the late “roaring ’20s” and the 1930s was the first truly global architectural style, embraced with gusto by the Bucharest people and the rest of Romania. The city became in those years a veritable Art Deco architectural regional “power“, embellished with high quality edifices in this style, many of which are still around, for us to admire and investigate, despite the terrible historical upheavals of the last eight decades in this part of Europe. A favorite Art Deco theme in Bucharest was that of the ocean liner, reflecting the longing of inter-war locals to travel to exotic places in the southern sea, far away from their Siberia-like winters. The inter-war Modernist style and syntheses between Art Deco and Modernism are also well represented in Bucharest, with creations signed by talented architects such as Horia Creanga or Duiliu Marcu. That great multitude of buildings were developed on a solid economic background when Romania was one of the main oil exporters of the world and also an important agricultural producer. The present tour endeavours to locate and explain some of the representative edifices in the Art Deco style  in central Bucharest and give you a well referenced overall image about how those designs impacted the identity of this city and Romania in general.

Book by emailing v.mandache@gmail.com or using the comments section of this post. You will be informed of meeting place on booking.

I look forward to seeing you at the tour,

Valentin Mandache, expert in Romania’s historic houses (tel: 0040 (0)728323272)

Art Deco Bucharest – architectural tour

Historic Houses of Romania architectural tour: Art Deco Bucharest

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

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.

Neo-Romanian style wall lamps designed by architect Ion Mincu, Monteoru House, 1889, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

The exquisite pair of lamps, presented in the images of this post, adorn the monumental doorway of Monteoru House in Bucharest, a grand boyar (the Romanian term for “aristocrat”) mansion, built in a French flavour Beaux Arts style. The edifice lines up Calea Victoriei Boulevard, a thoroughfare that is traditionally among the prime streets of Romania’s capital. The lamps belong to the early phase of the Neo-Romanian style, designed, in my opinion, by the architect Ion Mincu, under whose direction the building was radically remodelled, works finalised in 1889.

Neo-Romanian style wall lamp designed by architect Ion Mincu, Monteoru House, 1889, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

What makes me to attribute these lamps to Mincu, are two elements that betray his manner of design. The most conspicuous is constituted by the “spikes” embellishing the artefact like an out of the normal proportion crown. The other element is the shape of each of the lamp’s windows.

Neo-Romanian style wall lamp designed by architect Ion Mincu, Monteoru House, 1889, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

I noticed during my fieldwork at Ion Mincu’s houses in Bucharest, his tendency to design certain architectural elements, especially those placed on the edges of an edifice or of other major components, as out of the usual proportions, like looking at them through a magnifying glass. Such examples are the spikes adorning the rainwater troughs of Lahovay House (1886 – the first Neo-Romanian style building), or the ornamental “spikes” adorning the street fence in front of Central School for Girls (1890). That tendency is also mentioned in Mincu’s biography written by Mihail Caffe (Editura Stiintifica, 1960), as regards the appearance of his sketches. The out of normal optics lamp “spikes” shown here are in that vein, which in my opinion divulge their author.

The second Mincu element discussed here, the shape of the lamp window, is designed like a miniature church doorway, modelled after examples found at Curtea de Arges cathedral and Coltei Church in Bucharest. Mincu uses this type of window for his masterly work of interior design at Constanta Bishopric Cathedral (1895), on the Romanian Black Sea shore.

Neo-Romanian style wall lamps designed by architect Ion Mincu, Monteoru House, 1889, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

The lamps through those characteristics, which I attribute to Ion Mincu, have a striking aspect, certainly drawing the attention of visitors and passerby, and giving a plus of personality to Monteoru House, one of the landmark architectural edifices of Bucharest. This type of design was later used by other architects, many former students of Mincu, for some of the most prestigious Neo-Romanian style buildings that are still embellishing the city.