Planning Capital Cities

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

royales”^21 , forming a clearly delimitated space with the King’s statue at its

centre. The two statues were commissioned and realized simultaneously, but

the urbanistic projects were conceived independently. The Palace’s Square was

dominated by the statue of Carol I, having beside it the Royal Foundations and

the Atheneum, both representative buildings dating from his reign.

The Victory’s Square was supposed to be associated with King Ferdinand

I. It was located on what used to be the main access to the city; also, it was

an important place and the subject of many different projects. The chosen

project to be realized dated from 1937 and envisaged a clear delimitation of

the square through monumental buildings, which used an architectural style

based on the classical principles. From this project only one building was built,

the one designed by the architect Duiliu Marcu, which used to be the Ministry

of Foreign Affairs and currently hosts the government. Its architecture is an

expression of the dictatorial ruling of King Carol II, who adopted a new “official”

architectural style. This language combines modern elements with the syntax

of the classical architecture that uses the principles of symmetry: axes and

rhythm. These principles are common to the architectural languages used by

most of the totalitarian regimes in Europe, such as fascism^22 in Italy.

Fig. 12
Project for the 8th of June square, architect Zamfiropol. (Arhitectura 1936, nr.7, p. 341)