Planning Capital Cities

city and conducted their approaches as interpretations of classical composition

elements. It is also true that the guidelines were not very detailed in that

matter, probably aiming to stir creativity and debate. The only strict condition

was the idea of a system to enable the future flexibility and the only criteria

for the composition was the causal relationship between thoroughfares, focal

points, public spaces and zones, thus guiding the contestants to consider the

physical structure somehow detached by the dynamism, flows and sources.

The city was seen as a uniform mass crossed by thoroughfares linking streets

and places. The execution of such visions involved the concentrated efforts in

a few great infrastructure and beautification projects for the upgrading of the

entire urban system, its territorial availability and attractiveness for economic

development.

This approach was even more enforced by the Program, 1910, that brought

a significant innovation in the way the city was perceived by stretching the

thoroughfare system in the city’s surrounding region, thus allowing the external

territory to contribute to the developing city. Another great novelty was the

proposed general zoning for Bucharest, an important step further then the

submitted projects in 1906.^7

The first urban plans of Bucharest in the rise of the 20th century

Fig. 1: