Planning Capital Cities

Urban image and national representation: Bucharest in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century

Fig. 7
Project for the Comunal Palace,
arhitect Ion Mincu. (Tzigara
Samurcaș archive, “Ion Mincu”
University of Architecture and
Urbanism)

and, respectively, the ruler’s siege, as well as Sfântul Gheorghe-Lipscani, which

used to be characterized by an intense commercial activity. As such, the centre

was sprawled and not clearly defined, lacking a central representative square.

The idea of creating a civic centre to correspond to the size and importance of

Bucharest appeared in the interwar period.^19 This idea was also correlated with

the necessity of creating the headquarters for the new state institutions.

A few different places were proposed for becoming the city centre, such as the

Royal Palace, the Arsenal Hill or the Brătianu Square (the current Universității

Square). The last one was also included in the general plan from 1935. As

mentioned above, this place was envisaged as a city centre since the creation

of the main north-south and east-west axes.

Part of this civic centre was the city hall, for which a contest was organized. The

theme of the contest promoted the idea that the building should represent not

only the city of Bucharest, but the whole nation. This was expressed by a rather

unusual demand, namely it was imposed that the building should have each

facade designed in a different traditional style of the Romanian provinces.^20

This request was not taken into account, attracting various criticisms. However,

all these projects remained unfulfilled.

Public squares and the monarchy

Besides the projects mentioned above as potential places to represent the

city and to mark its centre, different squares had, or were supposed to have,

a representative character and, in time, different projects were proposed for

them. Particularly relevant examples are the projects from the end of the 1930s

for the Victory’s Square, the Palace’s Square, and the 8th of June Square, all of

them reflecting the will of shaping these symbolic squares so as to represent

the monarchy, as part of the expression of the national identity. These projects