Planning Capital Cities

Fig. 10
The extent of the 1980’s
interventions. The darker grey
represents the demolished
surface. Published in Dana
Harhoiu: Bucureşti, un oraş între
orient şi occident/Bucharest,
a city between orient and
occident. Simetria, Bucharest,
2005.

The ensemble is rather simplistic and its only outstanding feature is its size.

There is no connection to the rest of the urban fabric or to the functional

dynamic of the city. The stylistic language is a cacophonic assemblage of

classical influences, this time employed without the knowledge architects had

in the 1950’s, during the socialist realism episode.

Predictably, 25 years after the 1989 revolution, Bucharest still did not recover

from the trauma. There was a chance of professional redemption, represented

by the Bucharest 2000 urban planning contest organized in 1995/1996. But

various reasons including political and economic instability prevented the

winning master plan (by the team led by Meinhard von Gerkan and Joachim

Bucharest’s urban planning instruments during the communist regime:

systematization sketches, plans, projects and interventions