Planning Capital Cities

Urban expansion in Bucharest, after 1990: errors and benefits

of several heritage buildings. It showed all the administrative and legal

weaknesses and operated in a very ”Balkan manner”. However, the period

2000–2007 has been one of the worst in terms of urbanism in Bucharest. It

was the first stage of the implementation of the Bucharest PUG^11 , approved in

2000 and founded by a number of key–studies and master plans, as the one

for the Dambovita River^12 , for the historical center, for the northern area along

the Colentina lakes, and for the protected urban zones. For the first time since

the”Schita de sistematizare”^13 in 1935, the architects’ guild freely subscribed

an urban development vision, trying to melt into a coherent whole a lot of the

contrasts and contradictions. The PUG 2000 attempted a reconciliation of all:

the followers of the ”horizontal city” (therefore adapts of the eternal little Paris

confined to its territorial limits historically), and the more energetic advocates

of the rapid vertical lifting (even beyond local seismic conditions), or the more

fanatics for keeping intact the city’s ecological resources. But, “when the

government ordered new spatial plans to frame the emerging developments”^14 ,

these plans proved mostly disconnected from the reality of land ownership, the

financial capacity and priorities of the public sector. There integration between

the different sections of the plans was limited, denoting a strong silo-mentality

and a lack of cross sector cooperation.^15 Many real estate projects launched in

this period led to the extension of the city boundaries on abandoned industrial

areas and agricultural land in the very proximity of the Colentina lakes, or near

the forests around the city.

The most common morphological pattern in this period was the dense and

compact development of the plots, often on parcels with very elongated

proportions in relation to the access from the public road. Especially in the

sphere of residential development, small blocks of flats assembly between

P + 4 and P + 6 floors that target the most efficient use of land resources

have been multiplied. The largest stake for the sale of these units was not

the architectural concept, often imported directly from the investor, but

the relationship with the landscape, speculating as much as possible with its

qualities.^16

Fig. 4
Evolution of the northern area
of Bucharest adjacent to the
ring-road, the land between
Baneasa forest and Tunari
forest, year 2004 (left) and 2008
(right) - after the construction of
a part of Greenfiled Residence.
(Google Earth)