Bulevardul
Regina Elisabeta în 1932
The Queen Elisabeta Avenue in 1932
Queen Elisabeth Avenue is part of the new urban
plan, included in the east-west axe between Carol I
Boulevard and Kogalniceanu Avenue.
A diachronical series is dedicated to the boulevard:
the tearing down of the old houses, the piles of
debris, the construction works.
There are different types of visibility in Ionescu’s
work. For the daylight photos, the favourite moment
is the noon. The photo comes with a night vision of
Bucharest. Nobody on the street (the absence of the
passers-by could be explained by the rainy weather).
Just a few cars. The silence of the boulevard is
strongly contrasting with the excitement of the
crowds that swarm around the day, which makes you
wonder whether the absence of the after dark life is
real or just left aside in Ionescu’s photos. Surely,
though, the photographer’s attention was never
turned towards illicit spaces, underworld or the
city’s underground. He does not suggest a Brassai
kind of view.
This Bucharest is quiet, but visible and
comprehensible. The light sources (lamp posts,
lighting signs) represent areas with maximum
lighting intensity (a maximum visible that produces
the invisible, in photos seeing only white dots)
that make possible the visibility spaces (facades,
building entrances). Ionescu is playing with the
clear – dark effects.
The lighting signs turn the city in text. We can
identify: shops, cafes, hotels, cinemas (The Queen
Elizabeth Avenue is a paradise of cinemas: Regal,
Femina, Capitol, Palace, Bizantin, Trianon, Forum…)
The rain (when talking about parks – snow) is the
element that increases and affects the visibility.
The objects receive certain visual qualities:
reflexes, shaped spaces.
