Planning Capital Cities

(Barré) #1

and absorbed all power. As Bucharest should have become the capital to suit
his political force, extensive demolitions are carried out in Palace Square and
Market Halls, in order to make way towards projected monumentality.


The Palace Plaza lost its norther and southern margins to the demolitions.
The Park of the Romanian Athanaeum and the Palace Plaza become one large
urban corridor along the Victoriei Road.^3 The status was not to last too long
though, a competition was set to re-organize the space in order to emphasize
the Palace and at the same time offer enough room for celebrations and
official manifestations. Unfortunatelly, the second world war and the political
changes that ensues afterwards, never allowed for any plan to be fully carried
out, and the intermediary status of the resulted urban corridor persists even
today.


The planned intervention upon the Market Hall was also left unfinished, but in
this case, the intermediary result seemed rather pleasing and was immediately
appropriated by the public. Demolishing the Large Hall, 1935, made way for a
large promenade linking the old city centre with the Metropolitan church and
hill. The river was covered and all initial physical connection between it and


Maria Duda


Fig. 10
The Market Halls in 1911.
The southern bank is re-
organized as closed grounds,
within commercial walls with
archways.
(Duda)
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