Despite its classical look, the theater building featured in today’s photo is actually not that old. Its former name should give away its approximate age. Until 20 years ago it was called “The Unity Among People Cultural House”. Does that ring a bell? 🙂 It was build in 1953, during the first years of the communism regime, by architect Nicolae Porumbescu. These were the first years of communism in Romania and the style condoned by the regime was called “socialist realism“, the official artistic movement of the Soviet Union. The socialist realism required an artificial return to the classical theme, away from the modernist tendencies of the day. After the 1989 revolution the theater housed “The Mask” theater company (Teatrul Masca in Romanian) which later moved to another venue while this one is awaiting renovation (for quite some time now, but than I guess it’s not easy to gather the money to renovate it).
May 242010
Snappy colour!
I wish we painted more buildings in cheerful colours like this.