by political order in the rural and urban territories, especially in the central
areas, by political order. Bucharest was definitely the most affected city in
Romania by ‘the breath’ of urban reconfiguration operations, supporting
massive demolitions and the destruction of the urban identity, of many heritage
buildings, the demolition or relocation of churches, etc. The world of architects -
because no urban planners were yet trained^9 - was itself tributary to a centralized
system, whose sudden decentralization first generated disorder. The transition
from the absolute monopoly of the National Projects Institutes to ‘crumbling’ of
the profession in thousands of companies and individual offices of architecture
was unprepared and chaotic. The first generation of freelancing architects, not
distributed in ”the field of work”, as it was before 1989, didn’t know anything
about how to practice under the new conditions. Nor have they been performed,
with the exception of some isolated cases of teachers returning from abroad,
but used to perform in well-settled systems. In the very specific of the Romanian
transition, no architect was properly prepared to re-act professionally.
The difficulties have been related mainly to the lack of experience in the
relationships between architects and clients, architects and developers,
architects and constructers, and architects and representatives of the public
administration. These difficult contacts evolved in an environment that still
doesn’t have established legal procedures or moral. The uncontrolled urban
expansion occurred through improper ways of practicing the profession,
marked by greediness in the land use on one hand and by the lack of global
vision for the entire city development on the other.
Another equally important factor in affecting the quality of urban practice in
Romania was linked to the legislative framework for the land legal status. In
1991 the Law 18 for the Land is published in ”Monitorul Oficial”, to be then
modified many times in the years ahead.^10 The delays in resolving the properties
restitution cases, the gaps and deficiencies in the application of the law itself
and the constant political interventions made in many cases the urban solutions
available on paper, to become inoperable due to the uncertain legal status of
the land.
Second Decay: 2001–2007. The PressureNormally, the greed of developers was not an unbridgeable and fatal thing.
It could be also a sign of the system’s health how the urban land resource is
measured or assessed through/by the economic interest. The desire to build
as much as the piece of owned land supports is amended normally by clear
urban regulations and administrative procedures that temper and adjust it to
a tolerable level, or, in some happy cases, to an optimal level in terms of the
urban land capitalization and achievement of a comfortable density.
The real estate pressure in Bucharest was one that lacked any consistent
positive tones. In some cases it was even criminal, as involved in the demolition
Angelica Stan