Mihai Alexandru
Fig. 3
The Zonal Urban Plan, 1999: proposal.
(Archive Enache)Among the associated studies two must be noted:
The Study for the delimitation of Protected Built
Areas in the municipality of Bucharest^14 phases I –
II (1997-1999). The document is still in effect today
and refers mainly to the central area of the city but
despite its regulating measures could not prevent a
whole series of deregulatory interventions^15 in the
central area. The second one is the Zonal Urban Plan
for the Central Area of Bucharest 1999.
The ZUP refers to the city-center itself, understood as
a state of polycentrality and also as a central element
in the urban structure. The Zonal Urban Plan for the
Central Area of Bucharest clearly underlines the need
of coherence, understood as a visual and esthetic
clarity, reconciled under the idea of unity. It is notable
as well the necessity to reinforce relations^16 to other
nuclei of centrality^17 in the city.^ A second element is
related to the fact that the development of the central
area is pushed towards the south, in order to rebalance
the central area at the level of the urban structure
for which a number of actions are needed: infusion
with centrality of the prolongation of the north-
south axis (Dimitrie Cantemir Blvd. - Șerban Vodă
strret) between Unirii Square and Șincai Square and
the development of centrality poles in new locations
in the south (Timpuri Noi square, Rahova square). A
clear intention of giving certain coherence to a series
of heterogeneous areas that form the central area is
obvious: an idea that will be reiterated several other
times throughout the history of Bucharest.
2000-2012: the growing incoherenceDrafted between 2011-2012, the Bucharest Strategic Concept 2035^18 , following
a multi-layered analysis as well as a complex approach involving technical
consultations, focus groups interviews and online surveys, summarizes
the urban development of Bucharest of the last decades, drawing the main
conclusion in a rather somber tone: in 2011, Bucharest is ”the result of an
incoherent and unequal process of development, lacking a clear long-term
vision, unsupported by territorial cooperation, unsustainable and generating
multiple social imbalances, development that took inadequate advantage of
its resources by ignoring its local distinctive competences”^19. Apart from the
lack and the delay in the administrative and managerial organization of the
municipality, a series of causes have to be pointed out as main drivers that lead
to this situation.