16 Apr 98

The architecture of Bucharest is fascinating. The core of the city was constructed from 1875 to 1925 and French architects were the principle designers. The results are very satisfying. The city is designed around broad boulevards that run at odd and interesting angles and intersect in large, usually round piatzas. Roads are frequently lined by trees that seem to create a greenway that connects the large parks that are combed by pedestrian paths, large ponds, and gentle bridges.

One of the results of using a large number of architects trained in the same school of design is a large number of buildings that are from the same period: French Neo-Classical. Every American city that was at all large in 1900 has some of these buildings.

Above, on of the University buildings in the center of Universitate Piatza. How many of the design features from the text can you identify?

To find one, look around for something that has a lot of the following design features. On the exterior there are frequent semi-circular arches, many shallow balconies, frequent carved decorations (coats of arms, floral doodads, oval medallions with floral arrangements hanging on them, etc.), mansard roofs, jutting window sills, windows topped with curved or angular projections. There can be round towers at the corners and various forms of steep tiled roofs and hemispherical domes. Buildings frequently had atrium-like inner courtyard that might contain a carriage house but always provided refuge from the street noise.

In the interior, look for high ceilings (to let the heat rise in the summer), double doored room entrances, no closets (they used armoires to store things), painted plaster walls, and big windows that opened inwards.

Because of the extensive use of exterior decoration, buildings all appear to be different and yet, when grouped together, they create a harmonious impression.

Then came the communists, the expropriation of private property, and central planning whose notion of "efficiency" affected everything. To be efficient with land, very few single family homes were constructed (and you can guess who got to live in those!), rather over the years there was extensive construction of large apartment buildings.

Socialist "efficiency" also dictated (forgive the pun) many elevators designed to carry only 2, 3, or 4 people. Try taking a ride on such an elevator with a fat person with a bag or a skinny one who stinks and you will have personal proof that "efficiency" is not the only value that needs to be incorporated in housing.

Apartment blocks like these are every where in the outer portions of Bucharest and all over the cities that were developed after the war. Block after block, the same basic design (saving on architectural design costs, perhaps) rises ten or more stories with the balconies partially glassed in (so that every home had an all weather clothes drying area).

Above, a row of buildings along Calea Victoriei, on of the main streets of Bucharest. Note the "flat" face design, even when there are patios. This is utterly uninspired design. Contrast with above.

At best the effect is drab, depressing and dehumanizing. We call it "Socialist Realism," you might call it "Blight."

In Bucharest you need to add the visual impact of the dirt on the buildings. In the smaller cities, the exterior of these apartment blocks are only now beginning to soil but in the capital they are distinctly dirty -- all the buildings. It takes away from the beauty of the older, better designed building and makes the visual crap constructed by the communists look hideous.

Fortunately it doesn't take much imagination to see what Bucharest would look like if it were steam cleaned and a few particularly offensive structures were torn down. It would be the Paris of the East -- which it is often called.

Joe

16 Apr 98

Recently I spent the weekend in Brashov, a city that has a long history and an old quarter that nestles in the foothills of the Transylvanian Alps and at the same time is at the edge of a fertile plain. It is less than a day's march from important mountain passes and that is why it was established -- to guard the frontier of Hungary. Click here for pictures of Brashov.

About 24 kilometers from Brashov is Bran, a fascinating castle that sits atop a high rock. It has surging towers, a dominant presence, and a dark aspect. Some PR junky decided should be Vlad the Impaler's castle. Vlad was a "nationalist" of the 15th century with the admittedly bad habit of impaling his victims on pointed stakes and dining on tables made from icons torn from church walls, all the while listen to the agonized screams of his victims. Some other PR flack decided that Vlad should be the "historical" Dracula.

Why would a PR flack want to commit this atrocity? Because the novel that created all this brouhaha was written by Bram Stoker, a Dublin-born Irishman who never got closer to Transylvania than London's British Museum. He chose Transylvania for his tale of blood and gore because it was the least known part of Europe and could thus be easily manipulated to provide the creepy kind of effect he sought. Perhaps he felt that the setting just wouldn't have worked if he had chosen the Cottswold -- although, to be sure, Emily Bronte did pretty well with the Yorkshire moors in Wuthering Heights but she didn't need a big castle and bigger mountains.

Did you know that the Dracula story is heavily indebted to Catholic theology? Stoker tells his readers that they can trap a vampire by sprinkling a crumbled up consecrated host round it in a circle. Now a priest might object to this particular use of a host but a priest is also a person who will tell you not to have sex and NOT to use a condom when you do. Who would want to listen to someone so out of touch with reality?

Well, speaking of Vlad/Dracula, he never really lived at Bran Castle at all. It is recorded that he did stop by for lunch once and besieged the place. I don't know if he got inside but at least he was in the neighborhood.

Actually it is not possible to designate a specific location for Dracula's castle since the place names Stoker used were in contradiction to actual locations. But why would a PR flack -- or a novelist -- care about that?

I did visit Brashov recently, but I stuck with the old city (built between the 14th and 17th centuries) and the immediate area. I didn't visit Bran Castle -- after all, it is much easier to describe things you've never seen at all.

Joe


19 Apr 98

The religious life of Romanians is interesting in several ways. About 80 percent of the country is Romanian Orthodox. There are several million "Uniate" Catholics who never split with Rome when the great schism occurred in the 9th century and a smattering of other faiths.

About 1949 the government forced a merger of the Uniate Catholics with Romanian Orthodox Church. This had several advantages for the communists for it allowed the replacement of less trustworthy Uniate priest with more reliable one. A national church is easier to control for a government than an international church that has resources outside the country. A second advantage was that the it threw the Orthodox church a bone to help keep them contented. The Romanian experience is thus in sharp contrast to the Polish experience where there was one (international) church to which virtually all Poles belonged.

The Orthodox church here is different from the Catholic in another respect: it concentrates on building new churches to the exclusion of other activities. Think of it as an Eastern European replay of "faith versus good works.


Easter
My apartment door bell rang but I was not expecting anyone. There was a sound coming from the hallway; a strange sound, like a small group of people singing a cappella. I looked through the peep hole but saw no one. I asked at the office and I was told that it is traditional for carolers to sing for traditional food -- or money. The singing had a wonderful, ethereal quality, a lovely angelic feel to it. The singing is hard to describe but it had great beauty.

On the Orthodox Holy Saturday (a week after the Western Holy Saturday because the Orthodox Church rejects the Gregorian and keeps to the Julian calendar), I went to the local Orthodox church -- it is about 50 meters from my apartment. I suspect that hardly anyone in Bucharest is more than a five minute walk from some Orthodox church or chapel: they are everywhere.

I arrived just before midnight when the crowd is at its largest and most of it standing outside the small church. I went inside the structure to see whatever could be seen; and in truth, not much. Romanian Orthodox churches have a narthex at the entrance, a sort of covered portico and then a pro-nave, and then a nave. Only in the nave can any part of the service be actually seen since there is an eight foot high, icon decorated wall that separates the priests from the faithful. The priest do mysterious things behind the wall and every so often a man in a black cassock will go inside the hidden area or will come out. At those moments you can see bearded priests in vestments moving things around but not much more.

The people inside the church were holding candles and chatting quietly while I was staring at the paintings and icons. All the walls are painted with scenes from the Bible. A metallic gold color is a frequent background for saints driving lances into the devil serpent or whatever. The smoke of beeswax candles rises into the "steeple" from which light gently filters into the nave during daytime.

At midnight a line of priests come out carrying lit candles. Everyone surges forward to take a light on the candle they are carrying and the crowd heads for the door where the really large crowd is waiting. The chief cleric carries a large book with an icon on it and proceeds outside where he conducts a brief service and then everyone goes home taking their lit candles with them. The service goes on for hours more but the candle lighting is what the people come for.

I am told it is traditional to have a big family feast after the midnight service but I went to bed.

Tomorrow a friend is taking several of us to see a Monastery Church. Click here to see what it looked like.

Joe