In Memoriam Ivor Porter

Reblogged from Diana Mandache's Weblog:

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The extraordinary Ivor Forsyth Porter, CMG OBE (Mily), Cross of the Royal House of Romania, Commander of the Order of Cultural Merit (Romania), died on 29th May 2012, at the age of ninety nine years. He was a hero of the WWII and a close friend of King Michael of Romania, instrumental in the successful execution of the 23 August 1944 royal coup through which the Romanian sovereign arrested the military fascist leader Ion Antonescu and his country joined the Allied cause against Germany, shortening the war by at least six months.

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Ivor Porter, whom I had the great honour to meet at seminars organised by the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London in the 1990s, has died on 29 May 2012. He has been a top notch expert on Romania, a British hero of the Second World War and a close friend of HM King Michael of Romania, essential in the successful execution of the 23 August 1944 royal coup that insured the freeing of Romania from the grip of Nazi Germany.

Art Deco era ceramic tile supplier tablet

Art Deco era ceramic tile supplier tablet (©Valentin Mandache)

During a recent Art Deco and Modernist walking tour in the central area of the Bucharest I photographed the above rare instance of  a well preserved 1930s tablet containing the name and address of a local ceramic tile (“Rako” make) supplier (someone called “B. Ungureanu”). It is part of the tile pavement flooring at the entrance of the famous Modernist building ARO (“The Romanian Insurance”) Building by arch. Horia Creanga (1938) on Calea Victoriei boulevard. I like the lettering style of the tablet, in the Art Deco vein, seen especially in the shape of the letters “S” or “A” and also its modernity- it can well be a nowadays name tablet, with only the web address missing. The tilling and the tablet make up a good quality Art Deco style flooring design, which seems to be a characteristic of the period seen in other examples that I documented on this blog, such as the case of a kitchen ground and that of a hallway floor.