Bucharest’s between the wars architecture

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Sep 282009
 

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Petre Antonescu, the architect who designed the Faculty of Law Building, the subject of yesterday’s photo, also designed these two elegant buildings located at the south end of Victory Road in United Nations Square. They were built between 1928-1930 and served as headquarters for two insurance companies, Adriatica and Agricola Fonciera. Even though the buildings are in need of renovation I think that you can clearly tell that they are real beauties. What sets these apart from other similar structures of that time is the ingenious tops of the buildings.

I don’t even want to get started on the ad because I hope to write a post about these massive pieces of advertising that are plaguing Bucharest. I mean, really, don’t we have enough buildings in Bucharest to display these on, do we have to put them on historical buildings?

The School of Law

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Sep 272009
 

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This serious looking building is Bucharest’s Law Faculty which is part of the University of Bucharest. It was designed by architect Petre Antonescu in neoclassical style and was finished in 1935. On the facade are the statues of five great lawmakers, lawyers and jurists of the ancient times: Lycurgus of Sparta, Solon, Cicero, Papinian and Justinian. The statues are the work of sculptors Ion Jalea and Costin Georgescu. Romania’s Civil Code is based on the Napoleonic Code (the French Civil Code) established under Napoléon I in 1804, which was adopted by Romania in 1864 (with some modifications) and is still in use.

The right values

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Sep 262009
 

English version

Sorry for the late posting. I was busy debating the values of capitalism with my friends (you know who you are). That’s because of the new Michael Moore movie, “Capitalism, a love story”, which none of us has seen yet, but about which we read in the press to be a critical look at the American capitalism as it’s practiced today. As people who lived in both communism and capitalist societies we have our own (strong) opinions regarding this subject, and the discussion went on and on … And since we’re talking about values, I found this simple graffiti in an entrance to the inner garden of bloc Dunărea, at University Square, across from the graffiti of the jester which I already posted. I am curious what is your opinion about the message of the graffiti. My interpretation of it is that we should be careful about the values we teach to our children. We live in a material world, to quote Madonna, but that is of our own creation. What do you think? Or maybe I’m just reading too much into it and the graffiti it’s just showing a guy giving a presentation on the financial crisis 🙂

Return of the Nothern Train Station

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Sep 252009
 

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One more picture from the Northern Train Station and I promise to move on 🙂 This colorful panels show a part of the train schedule for this year. To the left we have departures and to the right we have arrivals. “Sosiri” stands for “Arrivals”. The colors indicate the types of trains. We have 4 types of trains in Romania: “Personal” (blue coded) a sort of commuter train that stops in all stations, therefore it is very slow, “Accelerat” (red coded) a bit faster than “personal” trains and with fewer stops, “Rapid” (green coded) a fast train which stops only in major cities and “Intercity” (yellow coded) also a fast train with stops only in major cities.

The Northern Train Station strikes back :)

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Sep 242009
 

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Today’s picture is also showing the Northern Train Station and I thought I’ll write a few more words about it. To be honest it’s hard for me to appreciate this railway station at its true value. As train stations go, in my travels I’ve seen better and I’ve seen worse. I never felt unsafe here but then I’m Romanian and I speak the language, which helps through all the hassles. It’s not a pretty train station but I believe that it improved a lot in the last ten years. It’s cleaner and it has more facilities but there’s definitely room for improvement. For some reason it feels like an old fashioned railway station rather than a modern one. There are lots of stands and kiosks, selling newspapers, food and drinks as people like to stock up before they board. There are also some fast food places including a Mickey D which is “the place” to go to the bathroom 🙂 so much so that at some point you needed a code to open the door to the bathroom, code which was given to you when you bought something. I don’t know if it helped much because, of course, many people would hold the door open for you. Until some time ago they had this system where, unless you had a valid ticket, you had to pay to enter the train station. It wasn’t much, just a few cents, but it was a hassle if you didn’t have the right change. They did it so they can screen out the beggars and the homeless, which somehow found their way in anyway. I think they gave that system up because I didn’t have to pay the last few times I was at the train station.

The Northern Train Station

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Sep 232009
 

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If you come to Bucharest by train, then most likely this is where your railway journey ends and your exploration of the city starts. The Northern Train Station (Gara de Nord in Romanian) is the main train station in Bucharest. It receives both national and international traffic with daily trains to Budapest, Vienna, Sofia, Bratislava, Chişinău, Belgrad, Prague, Venice etc. It was originally called Gara Târgoviştei after an adjacent road formerly called “Târgovişte Road” (Calea Târgoviştei in Romanian), Calea Griviţei today. The Northern Train Station opened to public in 1872.

The Central University Library

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Sep 222009
 

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In order to prolong the anniversary a little longer I decided that today I’ll post another postcard picture. This is the Central University Library (“Biblioteca Centrală Universitară” in Romanian), a beautifully ornate building located opposite the Royal Palace in the Revolution Square. The building was designed by the French architect Paul Gottereau who also designed the Royal Palace and the CEC Building (I have yet to post of picture of it). Construction was started in 1890 and the building was inaugurated in 1895 as the “Palace of Carol I University Foundation” being build on land bought by Carol I of Romania for the foundation that carried his name. In 1948 The Library of the University Foundation becomes The Central University Library, a state owned institution. The building was heavily damaged during the December 1989 Revolution when over 500000 books were lost in a fire. It was later restored and it opened again in 2001.

M-City in Bucharest

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Sep 212009
 

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M-City is an very detailed stencil series created by the Polish artist Mariusz Waras. The main subject of his murals is the city landscape. His works can be seen in many cities including Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, Budapest, Rio de Janeiro, London, Prague and, as you probably already guessed, Bucharest. Waras was invited to Bucharest by the Polish Cultural Center for the “Night of the Cultural Centers”. On this occasion he made two murals, one at the Polish Center (which I didn’t see yet) and the one in today’s photo at the Writer’s Union on Calea Victoriei. His murals are formed from about 100 individual components, representing buildings, infrastructure elements, people etc. which are always placed in a different combination creating a unique mural. You can find more about m-city here. I can’t say exactly why but I didn’t take a picture of the whole ensemble. Instead I took three pictures that put together create the whole graffiti. I guess that’s how inspiration guided me at that moment 🙂 That’s why I decided to post all three pictures, to give you a clearer idea of the entire work.

Happy anniversary!

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Sep 202009
 

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Today Bucharest is turning 550 years old. More precisely 550 years have passed since September 20, 1459 when Bucharest was first mentioned in an official document signed by one of the most (in)famous Romanians, Vlad the Impaler. People have lived in and around the area that is now Bucharest for a long time before that, but this was the first time this place was officially called Bucharest.

I couldn’t decide what picture to post for today’s occasion so I got the idea of making a collage. These are pictures of Bucharest, new pictures and old ones, some that you have seen already and some that you didn’t. Bucharest is all these and much more. It’s my first collage ever so please excuse me if it’s a bit rough on the edges.

The flag wavers

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Sep 192009
 

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In quite a few countries in the world, particularly in Northern Europe and the USA, flying the national flag in front of your house is very popular. Romanians on the other hand are not flag enthusiasts. Last year the Romanian president asked Romanians to display the flag on balconies on the day of the national holiday but even with that occasion I didn’t see many of them. I believe that there are Romanians which own a flag because I see them surfacing every time our national football team wins some important game and people gather in the University Square to party. But we are probably very far from countries like Norway where, as I read on the web, according to a recent survey only 6 percent of the people sampled reported that they do not posses a national flag. For these reasons I was very surprised to see a few flags being flown in downtown Bucharest in what looked like private apartments. And they seem to be there permanently because I passed them quite a few times in the last month.

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