Din Romanian <http://www.qultures.com/Articles/2007/April/Week15/Peles1004075.aspx> architecture, un articol aparut recent in "Qultures": High-rise concrete, peasant dwellings, and magnificent castles. Romanian architects have much to be proud of, but also much to be embarrassed about.
Grey high-rise Romania is a new EU-member with its 22 million people. Bucharest, its capital was once called the "Paris of the East". Today visitors can see buildings reminiscent of its former glory, although the communists replaced many of the old buildings with concrete apartment complexes and ugly skyscrapers. In Bucharest and other Romanian cities, most people live in run-down concrete high-rise apartment buildings built during the communist era from 1945-1989. Architects responsible for these third-rate housing in a so-called functional style should be forced to live in them themselves. They are a disgrace to the profession of urban architecture. Maybe these dour and cramped housing quarters often with inadequate heating are one of the reasons why 10% of the population have left for other European countries in search of better work, wages - and housing. [...] Si pentru ca-mi amintesc ca cineva aici pe grup (parca dl. Ghiocel) vorbea cu admiratie despre Casa Popo(r)ului: Perhaps the most absurd of all buildings in Romania is the Palace of Parliament built by Ceausescu. It is the second-largest building in the world only surpassed by the Pentagon. Romanians built his palace out of Romanian marble, wood and crystal. The estimated cost of this 3,100-room building is 3.3 billion Euros. Workers are at the moment completing the last 10% of this monstrous building that stands where 70,000 people used to live in one of Bucharest's oldest neighbourhoods where churches, synagogues, historical sites, and homes were bulldozed to satisfy the whims of the communist dictator Ceausescu. Today the parliament works in "the House of the People". When asked what the opinion of the ordinary Romanian is regarding this palace, the guides' answer that 50% refuse to set their feet in this building built while people starved, hospitals suffered shortages of medicine, and industry came to a halt. The remaining 50% say they are proud that their people could produce a building of this calibre. Eu ma numar cu siguranta intre primii 50%. ---------------------------- Vali "Noble blood is an accident of fortune; noble actions are the chief mark of greatness." (Carlo Goldoni) "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." (Jimi Hendrix)
