The chapter deals with the urban part of Sofia, which encloses the territory of
the antique and the medieval Byzantine, Bulgarian and Ottoman settlements.
The chosen term “urban core” is in so far arguable as it defines an area of urban
activities which shows stability over a period of two millenniums.^1 The urbanism
of Sofia’s urban core has experienced various and occasionally very contradictive
phases, but three of them are of great relevance for its contemporary urban
pattern: the antique roman period, the after-liberation period, 1878-1918, and
the phase immediately after WW II. In these periods the territory receives the
forms, defining the image sustainable up to now. The colonisation policy of the
Roman Empire and the Christianising in the 4th century achieve an important
and sustainable push for establishing the centrality of the city.^2 The cross point
of the Cardo and Decumanus defines over centuries the mono-centric urban
structure. The steps of transformation of the Roman orthogonal grid of streets
into the organic medieval pattern are for now not reconstructed in a clear
chronological order, but it starts in the byzantine period and continues during
the first and second Bulgarian estates and the Ottoman rule period. The middle
point set by the Romans is not replaced over the centuries and holds one’s
own as the focal point of the later radial directions. The basic characteristics
of the nowadays urban shape of Sofia’s core are finalised in the end of the
nineteenth century. The than created composition takes up continuously the
antique Cardo and Decumanus cross point and pre-defines the structure of the
later on attached urban territories. Sofia’s urban core is even today of great
influence on the urbanism of the capital due to its strongly inherited mono-
centrism. It retains this character up to now, despite the rapid demographic
and territorial growth.
The urban core presents on the eve of WW II as an ensemble of eclectic
architectures from the turn of the century. Even if scaled for a smaller
capital city, the core is functioning as Sofia’s trade and business heart. The