List of Names and Places Explained
Alfred Jules Paul Gottereau,
architect of the Royal Palace during 1880-1894 and the
Charles I Foundation. His style is marked by the taste
for eclecticism, which was specific to that time.
The Royal Palace
The official residence of the kings
of Romania, the Palace has been built during the reign
of Carol I (1884) by the French architect Paul Gottereau.
This is where balls and official and intimate
solemnities were taking place. Situated on the Victoria
Boulevard, the palace maintains its structure until 1926
when the main body of the building is destroyed by a
fire.
The restoration works were started in
that same year by King Ferdinand and were continued by
Carol II. To make sure that the building had a beautiful
view, older buildings like the Imperial hotel and coffee
house (placed at the cross point of Victory Avenue and
the Imperial Street, the building was the property of
the Austrian engineer Kubler) and also other edifices
belonging to companies, institutions or influential
families, were bought and demolished.
The works were finished in 1940 and
the result was a palace of monumental proportions,
remarkable also for its interior decoration done by
famous artists: Iosif Iser, Nicolae Tonitza, Theodor
Pallady, Dumitru Ghiata, Gheorghe Petrascu, etc.
After the abdication of King Michael
in 1947, the palace enters the patrimony of the Romanian
state and becomes the residence of The National Museum
of Art of Romania. The National Museum of Art was
established in 1948 after gathering together in its
patrimony the collections of some famous museums of the
inter-war period: The Picture Gallery of the State, The
Toma Stelian Museum, The Kalinderu Museum. It is
structured on three sections: The National Gallery, The
Universal Gallery, The Drawings and Engravings Cabinet.
The National Gallery was reorganized in 2001 and 2002
under the name of The Romanian Modern Art Gallery (the
XIX – XX centuries) and The Romanian Medieval Art
Gallery (the XIV – XVII centuries). The universal art
gallery was made up of the collection of paintings of
King Carol I. In the rooms of the museum there are
masterpieces of the world painting belonging to
Antonello da Messina, Paolo Veronese, Tintoretto,
Caravaggio, El Greco, Velasquez, Rubens, Rembrandt, etc.
The Central
Universitary Library
The university foundation Charles I
was opened on the 9th of May 1914. Nowadays,
the building is the residence of the University Central
Library. The edifice was built in the French Neoclassic
style as residence of the “Carol I” University
Foundation during the 1891-1895 period following the
plans of the French architect Paul Gottereau.
The Otetelesanu Mansion
was the most famous salon in Bucharest in the second
half of the XIX century. After the owners’ death, around
1900s, the house and the garden will be turned into an
outdoor pub, a coffee house and a beer saloon, competing
with Capsa as a meeting place for writers and artists.
In 1932, Telephone Palace will be build where the
outdoor pub used to be.
The Athenee Palace Hotel
was built between 1912-1914 by the French architect
Theophile Bradeau and it was the first building in
Bucharest to be raised on a resistance structure made of
reinforced concrete. During the 1935-1937 period, the
building was modernized by Duiliu Marcu. Damaged during
the German air raids, the hotel is rebuilt in 1945 by
the same architect. Another partial destruction will
take place during the 1989 events, the hotel being
afterwards reconstructed to answer western standards.
Nowadays, Athenee Palace Hilton is one of the most
luxurious hotels in Bucharest.
The Splendid Hotel was built at the end of the 19th
century in front of the Romanian Athenaeum, in the place
of an old inn. During the two world wars it had been at
the disposal of the German commandment. It was destroyed
in the bombing that took place on the 24th of
August 1944.
Ion Mincu
(1851 - 1912) – the leader of the
Romanian School of Architecture, Mincu will leave behind
the archaeological historicism and the formalist dogmas
and he will build edifices inspired by the shapes and
forms of the early Romanian architecture. This new
direction in architecture will be used both for sacred
spaces (Mincu restores the Stavropoleos) and for secular
spaces (The Lahovary Mansion, The Central School for
Girls).
The Mosilor Fair
According to the tradition, the
initiative of making the Mosilor Fair belonged to
Matei Basarab (or, earlier to Mircea the Old) as a
remembrance of the soldiers who died on the battlefield.
The fair is also linked to the tradition of the old
roman cult of the great gods. It was made on the eastern
barrier of the town, being pushed on that way by the
development of the urban area. By trying to fix its
place, the ruler Grigore Ghica marks the limits of a
stable space for the fair. This was also known as the
"Outside Fair" in order to be differentiated from the
fair that was made in the main commercial area of the
city, close to the Old Court – the "Inside Fair".
Initially, the fair took place
annually, at the end of spring. Then, it became a weekly
event, and finally, a permanent one. In 1903 a part of
the fair was turned into an exposition of Bucharest’s
industry, and there were given diplomas, medals,
rewards. In 1935, the Bibescu Voda market moved inside
the Mosilor Fair, turning the fair into a market.
All through its history, the fair was
also a place for executing death convicts ( in order to
make a strong impression on the crowd). Traditionally,
the ruler arrived with his escort and took part in the
opening of the fair. The custom was brought back by
Charles the first (who used to go on horse to
the Mosilor Fair, followed by queen* Elizabeth’s
carriage, to look at the national dances that took place
here) and by his heir, Ferdinand. The king’s pavilion
was eventually erected in the centre of the Fair and
adorned with flags and products of the local industry.
* Elisabeth de Wied becomes the wife
of Carol I on the 3rd of November 1869.
Herdan
was the most famous bakery in the inter-war period,
built in 1920 on the Basarab Boulevard at the corner
with Splaiul Independentei. The mill Herdan was situated
in the Chiajna commune.
The Telephone Palace
The great economic crisis brought
about by the 1929 crash of the New York Stock Exchange
had repercussions over the Romanian economy. The need
for capital determined the Romanian government to make a
loan at an American trust, Morgan, which obtained from
this transaction the granting of the Romanian telephony
to the “International Telephone and Telegraph
Corporation” company in New York, over a 20 years
period. This will lead to the modernization of the
Romanian telephony and to the construction in 1932 of a
Telephone Palace (architects: the Americans Louis Wecks
and Walter Troy), on the Victoria Boulevard were the
former Otetelesanu outdoors pub used to be. The 53-metre
tall building broke a record at the time; the Palace
will actually be the tallest building in Bucharest until
1970. The building was inaugurated in 1934 in the
presence of King Carol II.
The Central Halls
In 1872, the Frenchman Alexis
Godillot, assisted by the engineer Alfred Berthon, was
finishing the construction of the Central Covered
Hall in the Big Market, as well as the Covered Hall
of Amza Market. The construction type – brickwork, iron
structure, glass –of these buildings make us believe the
French covered markets inspired them. In 1883 the fruit
and vegetable market was added. In 1887-1888 followed
the fish market and, in 1899, the poultry market.
In order to decongest the commercial
traffic in the Great Market, in 1945 the building
of the Obor Market will start, following the plans of
the architect Horia Creanga. The works will be finished
in 1945 but the new market will only take over the
fruits and vegetables sector, that is, the products
commercialized in the former Bibescu Voda Market. The
great Central Market which was successively called The 8
of June Market, The Nation Market, The 28 of March
Market, The Union Market, was not taken over.
The “Ion Mincu” Architecture
Institute
The construction of the edifice is
part of a natural evolution started in 1891 once with
the creation of the Romanian Architects Society
(president – Nicolae Orascu). The Superior School of
Architecture founded by the architect Grigore Cerchez
supported by Statie Ciortan, will choose a building in
the Romanian style (brancovenesque façade with cable
moulding type of columns and a belvedere on the left
extremity of the building). The building was extended in
1963 and 1968.
The Law Faculty
The palace was built between
1934-1935 following the plans of the architect Petre
Antonescu. The main façade is marked by the presence of
four massive pilasters in which five statues are placed,
representing the great jurists of the Antiquity:
Lycurgus, Solon, Cicerone, Papinian and Justinian.
The Academy
Palace of High Commercial and Industrial Studies
Although founded in 1919, the
Commercial Academy will not have its own residence
before 1926. The construction draft belongs to the two
architects, Grigore Cerchez* and Edmond Algi Van Saanen.
The two architects chose a classic façade marked by the
presence of the Doric columns. The great hall situated
under the dome, is decorated with a large fresco made by
the painter Cecilia Cutescu-Storck, depicting the
history of the Romanian commerce.
*Grigore P. Cerchez
(1851-1927) – engineering studies at
the Central School in Paris, professor of technology and
constructions at the Bridges and Highways School and the
Architecture School in Bucharest. After making his debut
with the Gothic style, Cerchez will later turn to the
resources of the Romanian architecture from the
brancovanesque period. He built: The “Ion Mincu”
Institute of Architecture, The Academy of Economic
Studies, The Lyrical Theatre, The Comedia Theatre.
Villa Malaxa
The architect Petre Antonescu for
Nicolae Malaxa, the owner of the Malaxa factories, built
the building in the 30s. The construction of the
building was designed in such a way as to include as
many technical innovations as possible: interior
elevator, air conditioning system, a drawing room with a
mobile roof, etc. Nowadays, the building is the
residence of the Romanian Cultural Foundation.
Alexandru Orascu
(1817 -1894), a Romanian architect who studied
architecture in Berlin and Munchen. His works show
renaissance influences, but mostly classical (the
University, the Boulevard Hotel). He was the president
of the Romanian Architects’ Society.
Alexandru Clavel
(1877-1916), a self taught man, a great admirer of Ion
Mincu, was educated in the workshop of the Frenchman
Albert Galleron and of the Italian Magny (being
influenced by the romantic style that the latter has
developed). The rustic art was its second source of
inspiration.
The Stock Exchange
The architect Stefan Burcus
(1871-1928) erected the building in the years 1907-1911
as a palace of the Chamber of Commerce (and of the Stock
Exchange) in a French neoclassic style. The entrance is
flanked, in the superior levels, by four columns
belonging to the façade, supporting an arch in the
centre, above which a dome had been built. Nowadays, the
building is the residence of the State Central Library.
Light sources
In 1857, Bucharest was the first city
in the world using the lightening with lamp oil. In
1871, the gas works were opened in Filaret, made by A.
Gottereau: air gas lightening replaced oil lightning.
Petre Antonescu
(1873 – 1965) – Romanian architect. He designed the
Faculty of Law, the “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of
History, the Malaxa Villa, the Triumphal Arch, the
Ministry of Constructions and the drafts for the
Bucharest Municipality building.
