A pair of mid-1930s Neo-Romanian windows rendered in the perpendicular variety of that architectural style. Dorobanti area, Bucharest. (©Valentin Mandache)
The Neo-Romanian style has evolved into a series of different directions and varieties over a period spanning nearly six decades from its initiation in 1880s by the architect Ion Mincu until its twilight in late 1940s once the communist regime imposed a socialist modernist vision on the architectural scene of the country. What I call the perpendicular variety of this order is the angular rendering and an obvious propensity to array vertically the decorative and structural details of the customarily rounded/ arched, horizontally spanning, outlines of the Neo-Romanian decorative panoply inspired mainly from Byzantine, Ottoman and Romanian peasant motifs. Examples of buildings and architectural details rendered in perpendicular Neo-Romanian style are relatively rare. I managed to find an interesting such building in the Dorobanti area of Bucharest, from which I pictured above the wonderful pair of windows as a telling example. The perpendicular Neo-Romanian variety started to emerge in late 1920s, being the result of at least two important influences: on the one hand from the peculiar old Gothic elements present in the medieval Orthodox church architecture of Bucovina province, used by some architects in their Neo-Romanian designs and on the other hand because of the impact made by the angular and reduced to essence scheme of the Art Deco and International Modernist styles very popular in 1930s Bucharest.
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I endeavor through this daily series of images and small articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.
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