Sofia before World War II: urban design as a cultural implicationnew classicistic street pattern in Sofia is overrunning the exchange of the
building stock and is causing a “fractured” urban image, best documented by
the cadastral map of Bartel from 1995. The technocratic decision making of the
planners and politicians can be described as a kind of “intellectual dictatorship”
for a speedy break-up of the inherited urban shape, supporting on this way the
decline of the pre-modern life traditions and confronting them with the shapes
of modernity. The speed of the urban transformation provokes social problems
and establishes the urbanism as a pure technocratic phenomenon. Even if in
the end of the 1930s the initial signs of a more public integrated urbanism are
arising, the character of the planning discipline cannot change in the short time
until the WW II. The urbanism is hardly getting over the destructions of WW II
and becomes very soon addicted to the dictatorship embrace of the post-war
communist era.Fig. 15
The Mussmann-plan, 1838,
foresees green wedges to
reach the city center from
the mountain Vitosha.
(Reproduction, Avramov)
1 Ташев, П.: София – архитектурно–градоустройствено развитие, Техника София
1972 (Tashev, P.: Sofia - architectural and urban development, Tehnika Sofia 1972); Авра-
мов, И.: Съвременно градоустройство в България, Техника София 1987 (Avramov, I.:
Contemporary urbanism in Bulgaria, Tehnika Sofia 1987).
2 Suggestion for Declaration of the Objects of Architectural Heritage from the Period 1878-
1944, National Institute of Cultural Heritage Preservation, Sofia 1977.
3 The researches on the “Demarcation of the Historic Parts of Sofia” (1984) and the “Con-
cept for the Preservation and Adaptation of the Historic Parts of Sofia” (1987) are both
ordered by the Department of Architecture and Urbanism of the Municipality of Sofia.
4 Дойчинов, Г./Х. Ганчев: Старите градски части на София и подходът към тях,
НИПК София 1989 (Doytchinov, G./H. Ganchev: The old parts of Sofia and the approach
to them, NIPK Sofia 1989).
5 Popov, A. a.o. (Ed.): Sofia. 120 years as capital of Bulgaria, Academic Publishing House
Sofia 2001.
6 Ганчев, Х./Г. Дойчинов: Градоустройството в България 1878–1918, in: Архитекту-
ра 2/2001, 19–23 (Ganchev, H./G. Doytchinov: The urbanism in Bulgaria 1878-1918, in:
Arhitektura 2/2001, 19-13).
7 Генчев, Х.: София мислена в пространството, АрхЛИБРИ София 2009 (Genchev, H.:
Sofia imagined in the space, ArhLIBRI Sofia 2009).
8 Ficker, F: Entwicklung und Stand der Kunstgeschichte in Bulgarien. Versuch eines Über-
blicks, in: Kunstchronik, Juni 1995, 218.
9 confer: Аврамов (Avramov), 1987, 8.
10 The liberation is the result of the Treaty of San Stefano, March 3rd 1878. The war is known
as the “Liberation War”. The post-liberation Bulgaria is defined as the „Third State of
Bulgaria”, following the first (681-1018) and the second (1185-1422) ones.
11 Written by the monk Paissij in the Hilandar-Monastery of Athos.
12 confer: Ficker, 1995, 218.
13 Modernization of the ottoman government initiated by sultan Abdulmecid with the decla-
rations of the Gjulhab Hatt-i Sherif 1839 and the Hatt-i Hümayunu 1856.
14 The state frontiers of Bulgaria defined with the Treaty of San Stefano include the regions
of the Bulgarian Orthodox Autocephaly Church. The frontiers are corrected at the Con-
gress of Berlin, 1878 and Bulgaria is divided into three units: the autonomous Principality
of Bulgaria in the northern part of the country (Moesia, Southern Dobrudgea and Serdica
regions), the Province of Eastern Rumelia (the Thracian region) as an Ottoman satellite
state and Macedonia, which falls completely back into the Ottoman Empire.
15 The Declaration of the Independence and the transition from a Principality to a Kingdom,
September 6th 1908.
16 confer: Генчев, Н: Българското Възраждане, София 1988, 14 (Genchev, N.: The Bulgar-
ian Revival, Sofia 1988, 14).