Miruna Stroe
favorite subject. All professional opinions faded in front of the will of the leader.
The last decade of the communist regime in Romania is probably the most
traumatic period of the development of Bucharest. Reduced to executing
minions, the architects were a compliant mass; only a few individuals took a
step back from being part of the authoritarian vision for Bucharest, while most
were involved because of their position in the state owned design institutes.
Beside the megalomaniac project of the “House of the People”, one other
stands out as a metaphorical image of the times: the channeling of the river
Dâmbovița: an ostentatious effort meant to show the power of ruling over
nature. The massive interventions of the 1980’s can be interpreted in the
lineage of founding gestures of pre-modern political rulers. Ceauşescu’s
involvement is so pervasive, that it is difficult to speak about the urban
development of Bucharest as the result of a professional gesture. It is very
difficult for researchers to position their historical accounts beyond the trauma
of the city and Ceauşescu’s figure.
These are the main frames of this historical summary that we shall discuss
further.
A terminological explanation is necessary when using the term “systematization”,
which is rather characteristic for the communist period and has acquired a
negative connotation. The word is used to describe previous (before WWII)
urban developments, but the bureaucratic, schematic and authoritarian use
of the word in later decades cast a dark shadow on “systematization”. Thus we
would carefully translate the names of public documents in connection to their
historic periods.
The pre-existing experience in urban developmentThe change of the regime meant, in many aspects, a deletion of the previous
experience, as one issued out of a “wrongful” social and economic order. After
a period of publicly denouncing and criticizing all that was accomplished during
the bourgeois regime, the inter-bellum urban planning principles (as well
as architectural ones) seemed to have been forgotten. In fact, we can point
out several continuity lines: some are very reasonable principles, other are
recurring themes and some are downright obsessions.
It is difficult to resume a century of urban regulations in a few words but we
must notice that the early regulations were part of a consistent strategy for
the city. Starting with the 1834/1835 Organic Statute, on to the 1878 and 1890
building regulations and the provisions regarding boulevards and river banks,
all these follow principles that were enforced until 1928 (the time of a new
building regulation). This period is regarded as one that forged much of the
urban character of Bucharest^4.