Planning Capital Cities

The main proposals of PGS|21 were:

• the long term (50 to 60 years) development concept based on a
  population of a million inhabitants (more than double of the
  actual population and density) and the city’s connection with the
  surrounding territory;


• the ring road and the 300m wide green belt to stop the territorial
  expansion;


• the concentric urban structure consisting of a city centre with
  intensive land occupation surrounded by more relaxed areas and
  satellite towns outside the city, seven new public squares and a
  dense network of public parks;


• the building principles were: cheaper houses in the central area,
  support for industrial development, “work and home” production,
  compact buildings without visible blind walls, continuous facades in
  the central area and along the main roads;


• the principles for the major road system were those established
  by the Bucharest Technical Committee in 1914, three concentric
  roads developed on existing streets, telescopic 12-30m wide axis
  to penetrate the city centre and a system of 30m wide boulevards.

Subtle observations

The PGS|21 is the first urban plan of Bucharest and the first product of the
modern urbanism in Romania. It gathered accurately all previous aspirations
and efforts agreed by decision makers and specialists. Its major trait was the
ability to disconnect the planning discipline from the aesthetics of a good
drawing and a beautification scheme, and relate the city’s activity with its
physical layout and population.

The plan was actually a compendium of possibilities on each topic, presenting
series of alternatives, some existing and others new, without deciding upon a
certain vision for Bucharest. In fact, the plan is a thorough analyse of Bucharest
and the possibilities for development without being an actual development
plan. It appears as a dense and overwhelming material meant to convince
about the necessity of urban planning.

The PGS|21 was a guiding program for further decisions and strict commitment
to the continuous urban development. The only usable component was its
supplement - the detailed street regulation plan that came to outshine the
PGS|21 in its entirety and somehow stigmatized it as “Bucharest street plan”
thus condemning to obliteration its main proposals - the green belt, the
network of parks and public spaces, the railway system, etc.

The plan mirrored perfectly Sfințescu’s ideology. Being conceptual and
methodological it brought up amazing technical novelties in the urbanism.
The first novelty was the adaptation of the garden cities theory and the step

Andreea Udrea