ART NOUVEAU house decorated with Romanian traditional ornaments

I am constantly amazed when doing my field research for historic houses through historic Bucharest by its endless chaos of cluttered houses of all shapes and sizes awkwardly positioned next to each other. These buildings show a contrasting diversity of European architectural styles rendered in a quaint provincial manner. It is an apparently senseless urban maze with its own mysterious interior order, hard to decipher by an outsider, and is what gives this city its unique personality. 

Art Nouveau is one of the eye-catching styles of old Bucharest architecture. It is present in a variety of types: from early French Art Nouveau to the elegant, almost surrealist Central European variety.

I was pleasantly surprised to encounter an Art Nouveau house in the Mantuleasa area that uses in its decoration traditional Romanian ethnographic and church architectural ornaments, perhaps one of the few if not singular such example of syncretism in the whole Romania. 

Art Nouveau House, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

The house was built on a plot of land that had an awkward contour. The sharp angle of one of street corners, as can be seen in the picture above, is the pivotal element around which the house is designed and ingeniously used as a truly Art Nouveau feature by the architect who created this house sometime in the second or early third decade of the 20^th century. The typical fluid, flowery shapes more typical to this style can be seen throughout the façade: from the window columns and door decoration to discrete embellishments of the eave drain trough.

Art Nouveau house, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

PICTORESQUE DECAY in 2009 Bucharest

It is hard to believe, but this photograph was taken in 2009 Bucharest. It looks more like a classical fin de siècle Parisian slum building. Yet, this charming Little Paris style house (what I call the locally interpreted French late 19^th century architecture) is situated in a relatively central area of Romania’s capital and conveys the plight of many such period buildings in this part of Europe.

Pictoresque decay or tragedy? Bucharest Little Paris house in Grivita area, 2009 (©Valentin Mandache)

This type of house would constitute, for anyone brave enough to buy a property in these days Romania (beware of wildly unrealistic prices), an excellent renovation project that would add again spark to the quaint historic Bucharest. There are not many takers of such a chance and until that eventuality would happen on a visible scale, the city’s old buildings will continue to display a sort of picturesque decay of which this little house is a worthy representative.

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If you are interested in acquiring a period 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 Bucharest building damaged through ignorance and avarice

Historic Bucharest is a motley collection of 19^th and early 20^thcentury European architectural styles rendered in a provincial manner, without the balance, concentration of meaning and imposing features of their namesake counterparts from the western part of the continent. That nevertheless imprints the city with a certain unique personality of a quirky oriental town, naively disguised under Rococo, Neoclassical, Art Nouveau and Art Deco facades. The only original order that emerged here is the remarkable Neo-Romanian style that wonderfully complements the diverse foreign inspired architectural mix.

These buildings, which already suffered heavy blows during the long years of the communist regime, are now fast disappearing because of a toxic convergence of adverse factors: the aftermath of the most rapacious property boom the country has ever seen, neglect from the city authorities and also the sheer ignorance of a large proportion of Bucharest’s citizens about their history and heritage encompassed by the historical buildings in which they live and work.

One such building was, until recently, a cheerful Art Deco little block of flats dating from the roaring twenties located in the Opera area, at no. 30, Calea Plevnei.

Bucharest Art Deco block of flats (©Valentin Mandache)

The Art Deco details have stood all vicissitudes of the last seven decades of neglect, mainly because the state and building tenants and proprietors did not have enough resources to renovate or modernise it.

Art Deco architectural detail, Bucharest block of flats (©Valentin Mandache)