Planning Capital Cities

Fig. 1

Fragment from the Borroczyn

Plan, 1852. (Collection

Ion Mincu” University of

Architecture and Urbanism)

of urban regulations, Bucharest was the result of a vernacular development
adapted to the topography and the inhabitants’ needs, the historical and
natural disasters (such as invasions, earthquakes, floods, fires, etc.) having
played an important role in this as well. The dominant spaces were not clearly
delineated, the characteristic organizing principles being represented by the
local typologies of the mahala and the maidan.^5

Another characteristic of the 19th century Bucharest was the low built density,
combined with the low rise buildings. The city was located on a plane without
any geographical restrictions and, being under Ottoman rule for a long period,
it was not allowed to have any fortifications. Thus, the spread out of the city
was the result of the absence of any imposed limits – neither geographical, nor
administrative – which also hindered the modernization process.

The first urban interventions, as well as the first urban regulations, which
constituted the premises for the future development, appeared in this context.
At the beginning, there were only punctual interventions, lacking a vision or a
plan for the city as a whole; that would be developed in time.

The idea of the nation was expressed at different levels throughout the city:
from the creation of representative urban spaces such as boulevards to the
new national Romanian architectural style and the public monuments that
were erected.

The first boulevards

After the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia, Bucharest became the capital
of a territory almost doubled in size, and from that moment onwards the city
witnessed a rapid growth of its population. As a consequence, the city started
to have another scale and therefore a different image of the city was wished
for, one that was more grandiose and more representative.

Starting with the Organic Regulations from 1831, which contained the first
provisions regarding the city^6 , and especially in the second half of the 19th century,
the controlled urbanistic development was driven by the laws governing the
city. If in the beginning there was a complete lack of any regulation, gradually a
set of laws were introduced^7 , similar and synchronous with the European ones.
One of the administration’s main targets was to “beautify” the city. This was
seen as a will of modernizing the city at both a functional and an aesthetical
level, in order to correspond to the status of a European capital. The
modernization process consisted of increasing the urban comfort level through
the public services (water supply, sewage system, electricity, etc.) and of other
interventions that became visible and changed the appearance of the public
space: the creation of boulevards and squares, their delimitation by the means
of important buildings and the presence of other elements like vegetation,
urban furniture and public monuments.

Monica Sebestyen