We may identify three distinct steps in the implementation of shifts during the
communist period: first, changing functions and use for former representative
buildings and their adjoining public places, in order to alter the public perception
and use of them; second, physically obstructing existing urban fabric with
shields of new buildings, and polarizing importance towards a new or formerly
insignificant building; and, as third and final step, to obliterate significance,
value and memory, demolishing (formerly) valued buildings and restructuring
their site reinterpreting it on a monumental scale. The carried transformations
held no actual theoretical basis, and their consequences were extended at
the general larger scale of the whole city. Shaping the new society requiered
shaping anew the capital.
There was a strong, even if reluctant, general coordination of administration
and urban regulations, but the theoretical basis had been supressed and
removed by political will and personal vison of the political rule.
During the first years, all central public squares lost the artistic monuments
and naming reminding of the royal regime: statues of political figures were
destroyed, bombed buildings removed, and, even where any physical
transformation was redundant, roundabouts were turned into crossroads. Re-
order started with a clean-up.
Maria Duda
Fig. 12
The new Palace Hall and the
blocks unitarily shielding off the
existing urban fabric, plan 1974.
(Duda)