Hristo Ganchev, Grigor Doytchinov
until the period of 1945-1947.^48 The population rises between the world wars
from 100.000 up to 400.000.^49 The speedy urban growth sets an end of the
applied European master plan practice of the nineteenth century, no more able
to serve as a regulation instrument. The war consequences bear new problems
and provoke the search for new solutions. The 1930s are characterised in the
same time by the optimism of economic upturn. But economic growth entails a
building boom and another, as yet unknown reorganisation of the city, primarily
characterised by housing construction. This development the city doesn’t
get under control until 1934,^50 when a technocratic and competent major is
appointed and a very fertile and active planning period starts.^51
The effort to control the city growth leads to a regulation plan that takes the
form of a development strategy and exhibits the main features of modernistic
urbanism. The elaboration of a General Town Planning Scheme of Greater Sofia
is decided with the Decree of Sofia in 1934. A number of European architects
declare their interest to do the work.^52 The Bulgarian authorities entrust
Adolf Mussman^53 in 1935 with the elaboration of the plan without holding
a competition.^54 The Mussmann-plan is an up-to-day attempt to solve the
problems of the capital and it is the first theoretic planning approach.^55 The
urban development is based according to the concept, on the enforcement of
the infrastructure and the public transportation system, including tangential
railways and bypassing highways. The ideas about the green system are of special
interest and a new step in Bulgaria’s urbanism: Green wedges are foreseen to
reach the city center from the outskirts. Mussman’s view on urbanism is a
modernistic one. Formulations like “harmony of the whole” and principles like
“the urban planner must be a creator who forecast the development of the city
of the future and open possibilities” are evident for his modernistic approach.^56