Daily Picture 23-Nov-09: Peasant Style Wooden Gateway

A rare example of peasant style saw work wooden gateway (in the fashion of the southern Romanian peasant wooden churches) to the courtyard of a 1920s Neo-Romanian house in Catargiu area of Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

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If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Art Deco Building Interior Elements

Art Deco is first and foremost a decorative style and only subordinately an architectural one. Its crisp, reduced to essential lines and motifs are inspired from the era of efficient mechanical production line industries that emerged after the Great War. The recognisable angular, repetitive motifs and abstractions characteristic of this style were also adapted for the building interior decorative elements such as tiles, window frames, stair balustrades or lift shafts.

Bucharest was the setting of one of the most interesting Art Deco developments in visual arts and architecture. That was possible within a prosperous economic environment as the capital of one of the victorious countries after the WWI, massively benefiting from the revenues generated by the country’s large oil exports (Romania in the inter-war period was one of the main oil producers). The city, even today, after five decades of communism and twenty years of chaotic post-communist transition, is still adorned by many Art Deco buildings and ornaments.

I gathered here a few interior Art Deco elements that speak volume about that phase in the urban evolution of Bucharest. The first picture shows a remarkable multicoloured mosaic made from rounded square cut rocks embellishing a kitchen floor located in a late 1920s block of flats in Calea Victoriei area.

Art Deco kitchen floor mosaic from a late 1920s apartment in Calea Victoriei area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

I very much enjoy the simple, but exquisite mosaic pattern that models a garish rag rug, which was normally used in

The NEO-ROMANIAN ARCHITECTURAL STYLE: a brief guide on its origins and features

The neo-Romanian architectural style is one of the most original and strikingly beautiful orders that emerged in Europe during the intensely creative years of late Victorian-era. The Romanians of that period wanted to create a style that would reflect the glories of their medieval past in the transforming architectural landscape of their country, just as the British created decades earlier at a larger scale the better-known Victorian neo-Gothic architectural style.

It represents an interesting blend between eastern Byzantine elements together with local peasant architectural and ethnographic motifs, also particular patterns of Ottoman art and even late Italian Renaissance themes. The style began to be in vogue among the well-to-do Romanians with the first years of the 20^th century in pre-WWI Romania, area known as the Old Kingdom, and spread also within Transylvania after the World War One once the province became part of Romania.

A typical neo-Romanian style property looks on lines similar with the following example,

Calea Calarasi, Bucharest

Here one can clearly detect the Byzantine architectural elements (i.e. short arches, thick and short columns, etc.) and the heavy, citadel-like aspect of the building, that all together represents a Romantic architectural metaphor intended by its creators to express the heroic resistance put by Romanians during medieval times as a Christian people against the relentless advance of the Ottoman Empire.

A neo-Romanian style house today is a valuable piece of property and a restoration project would be an extremely interesting and challenging, but rewarding endeavour.

The style reached its zenith during the inter-war period, with an abrupt end after the communist takeover in Romania in 1948. It has somehow been revived during the construction boom of the last decade, but in a minimalist modernist fashion, without the eclectic motifs and grandeur characteristic of the inter-war period.

I assembled here a few images from my postcard and photography collection, which together with short explanations would hopefully help you better appreciate the origins, characteristics, importance and value in artistic and period property market terms of this sophisticated architectural style peculiar to Romania.

Romanians are at their origins a nation of peasant farmers and shepherds. Their dwellings had basic decorations that were mainly ethnographic symbols characteristic to ancient aboriginal European communities that survived in less accessible areas of the continent (for example the Romanian ethnography has many motifs strikingly similar to the Celtic Irish, Pyrenees or Caucasian mountains communities). The house usually served immediate and very practical concerns for a people having to scrap a living in a harsh environment. A typical poor peasant dwelling form the region of the southern plains looked like in the illustration bellow, taken sometime at the end of 19^th century.

Ancestral type peasant dwelling

Daily Picture 22-Nov-09: Traditional Bulgarian Style Veranda

Veranda of a late 1920s house in Aviatorilor area of Bucharest inspired from traditional Bulgarian architecture. (©Valentin Mandache)

The traditional Bulgarian architectural style (a term by which I mean a traditional Bulgarian architectural framework on which are also grafted Greek, Turkish, and other Balkan motifs), was popular in the whole region of the northern Balkans during the times when these lands were part of the Ottoman empire until the 2nd half of c19th. Wallachia, the southern province of Romania, where Bucharest is located, was influenced by this type of architecture, especially in its market towns, where traders from all over the Ottoman Balkans met to exchange goods. Many of them got established in the Wallachian towns and built mansions in this style familiar throughout the region. With the onset of modernisation on European lines in late c19th Romania, this style was identified as belonging to the Ottoman past and consciously replaced by West European looking ‘Little Paris’ style buildings (what I call the Romanian provincial imitations of French architectural styles of that period) and by the emergent patriotic Neo-Romanian style (which itself borrows heavily from old Balkan architecture). Just a handful of traditional Bulgarian and Ottoman style buildings survive in modern Bucharest. The one presented in the photograph above is a rare inter-war rendering of that  style and gives a glimpse of how Bucharest used to look more than one and a half centuries ago, during the times of the Ottoman dominion.

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

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If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Daily Picture 21-Nov-09: Art Deco Street Corner Residential Building

An interesting street corner Art Deco style residential building dating from late 1930s, with a peculiar balcony on top of its decorative staircase tower and a well preserved street fence; Cotroceni area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

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If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Daily Picture 20-Nov-09: ‘Little Paris’ Style House Renovation

A rare recent example of a better Bucharest period property renovation project (there are still on display the ugly air conditioning units, the clumsy addition of an uncomfortable low ceiling 1st floor or the replacement of the old and expensive to restore wrought iron street fence with a cheaper characterless mock period one). The house is a turn of the c20th 'Little Paris' style building (Romania provincially interpreted French c19th architectural styles), ASE area, Bucharest. (©Valentin Mandache)

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

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If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Daily Picture 19-Nov-09: Peacock Motif Neo-Romanian Style Window

Peacock motif Neo-Romanian style window, late 1920s house in Eroilor area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

The early medieval peacock decorative motif, inspired from biblical stories, was used with predilection in both early medieval Byzantine and western Romanesque ecclesiastical architecture. The Eastern Christian lands of the Balkans that come under the rule of the Ottoman empire continued to use this type of decoration until modern times. That was more evident in the architecture of church and monastery assemblies from the area of the former principalities of Wallachia and Moldova, the core of modern Romania, which benefited from a higher degree of freedom and religious expression derived from their status as Ottoman protectorates at the frontier of the Sultan’s Caliphate with the enemy empires of Austria and Russia. The modern Neo-Romanian architectural style has borrowed the peacock motif in its decoration register, embodied in exquisitely beautiful houses built especially in the time interval between the end of the Great War and early 1930s. The window in the photograph above is just one such example, where the pair of peacocks on the pediment are presented feeding from a grape among grape leaves and vines, signifying the biblical Garden of Eden, and its modern correspondent in the abundance of that plant and wine industry in modern Romania. That message of plenty and luxuriant vegetation is also wonderfully emphasized in this photograph by the tree branches from the rich garden surrounding this Neo-Romanian style house.

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

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If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Daily Picture 18-Nov-09: Art Deco Block of Flats

Mid- 1930s Art Deco style with modernist overtones block of flats in an un-renovated state (actually it has hardly been touched or mended since the end of WWII) as is the situation with most of the period buildings of Bucharest; Mantuleasa area. (©Valentin Mandache)

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

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If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Daily Picture 17-Nov-09: Neo-Romanian Style Glazed Balcony

A rare and exquisite example of glazed balcony from an early 1930s Neo-Romanian style house in Cotroceni area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

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If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Daily Picture 16-Nov-09: Unusual Mascaron

Unusual type mascaron (guard dogs theme) at the base of a first floor balcony belonging to a house of composite allegorical styles, mid 1930s, Icoanei area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

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If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Daily Picture 15-Nov-09: Bucharest Italianate Villa

An interesting example of inter-war built Italianate type villa in Aviatorilor Boulevard area of Bucharest; designed by architect Toma T Socolescu (info provided by Radu from http://www.bucurestiinoisivechi.blogspot.com/). There can also be detected some French medieval and Renaissance motifs and structures like the gargoyles flanking the top of the central tower or the left hand side corner tourette. (©Valentin Mandache)

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

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If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Daily Picture 14-Nov-09: Romantic Era Coat of Arms

Aristocratic coat of arms that belonged to Costache-Boldur family (info provided by Mr. Gabriel Badea Paun) placed within a Renaissance inspired panoply on the roof above the doorway of the family house, dated sometime in the first half of c19th, Regina Maria area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

The modern nation building process in the Romanian lands started in the first half the c19th, a time of intense search for roots in the romantic ancient and medieval past. The Danubian Principalities (Wallachia and Moldavia), the core of future Romania, were for more than five centuries part of the Ottoman realm  and the recovery of a nearly forgotten European identity made that national soul searching even more poignant. Many among the upper classes, the aristocrats and merchants (the principalities did not have any industry at that time), began to proudly display through symbols or in crude western style architecture, in a city which in that period boasted mostly provincial Balkan Ottoman architectural styles, their supposed connections with the old grand families of Europe. Most of these were pure fiction, like the much touted supposed connection of the Romanian aristocracy with the medieval Venetian and Genovese nobility that in c13th and c14th set up trading towns in the area along the Danube and the Black Sea shore. Others were keen to emphasize equally dubious connections with the French or German aristocracy. That interesting period left traces in some of the city’s architectural decorations, especially in the coat of arms proudly displayed on roof panoply moldings placed above the doorways of the aristocratic and merchant houses. The image above shows such an interesting coat of arms from a now ruined house in the Regina Maria area, at that time located on the outskirts of old Bucharest. The finish is very crude and models a Renaissance style panoply, but nevertheless is very picturesque and conveys the atmosphere of a bygone era of incipient national consciousness among the grand families of this region of the Balkans.

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

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If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Daily Picture 13-Nov-09: Art Nouveau Echoes in Late Neo-Romanian Architecture

Neo-Romanian style house with a powerful Art Nouveau decorative register, built in mid 1930s, Cotroceni area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

The Neo-Romanian style with its ornate and heavy, Byzantine inspired structure, has reached a dead end in terms of expression by the early 1930s when new building materials and technology were widely available in Romania that make possible the design of slender and tall buildings. That was the technological and innovative background on which the Art Deco and Modernist styles developed in that period. The Neo-Romanian style reached thus a sort of hubris in the 1930s, expressed in often clumsy attempts to recycle motifs from both old Art Nouveau decorative register originating in its late c19th beginnings and experimentation with Art Deco and even Modernist shapes and decorations. The image above represents one of the best examples of that period of searches and anguish in which the Art Nouveau motifs and shapes, like for example the central tower window decorations or the semicircular eye-like shape of its attic windows, are well balanced and powerfully put forward. However, one can not escape the sensation of anachronistic fairy tale atmosphere generated by this style in the 1930s, an age or roaring technological innovation and futuristic experimentations.

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

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If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Daily Picture 12-Nov-09: Mock Half-Timbered House

An interesting rare example for Romania of mock half-timbered house of southern German filiation, with green oak leaf ceramic tile decoration at the base of the half-timber structure and provided with a slate roof. The building dates from mid-late 1930s and is located in Aviatorilor Boulevard area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Daily Picture 11-Nov-09: Empty Shell of A Historic Building

The interior shell of a historic building, Lipscani area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

The photograph above was taken last February and, as I write, the building is more advanced in its construction. The developer intends to preserve the outer shell of the historic building, putting up an entire new structure in its interior. The image is, in my opinion, a text book representation of the initial stage of that process. The project represents one of the better facets of the recently passed property development boom in Romania’s capital, one that seeks to preserve certain features of the historic buildings. This example is unfortunately an extremely rare occurrence in a sea of bad taste among developers and a frenzy of destructive development projects and illegal demolition of heritage sites.

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Daily Picture 10-Nov-09: Unusual Art Nouveau Window

Art Nouveau style window painting; house in Foisor area, Bucharest. (©Valentin Mandache)

I am uncertain about the date of this unusual painting: it can be a restoration of an original 1900s decoration or the Art Nouveau style creation of a contemporary artist.  The house is a Little Paris building (Romania provincially interpreted French c19th architecture), from a period which corresponds with the flourishing of Art Nouveau in Romania, but the painting looks more in the vein of the Central European variety of this style. It is a quaint colorful spot in a city characterised by a chaotic collection of esoteric architectural and decorative styles.

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.