Batistei area – a fragment of the old Little Paris Dear readers, I would like to invite you to an architectural tour focused on Batistei area, one of the most charming old corners of central Bucharest, with many of its buildings dating from from the La Belle Époque period, in a wonderful Little Paris architecture, which is still imprinting … Read more Tour in Batistei area
Dear readers, I would like to invite you to an architectural history tour to take place in central Bucharest, in the area around the former Royal Palace, which contains the Romanian Athenaeum, the symbol of this town and many other landmark buildings that imprint its personality. The tour is scheduled on Saturday 11 August 2018, for two hours, … Read more Tour: the architecture of the Athenaeum area
I am very much enjoying your site on the buildings of Romania – one of the very few countries, which Nikolaus Pevsner never really explored! I am sure he would have been fascinated by the evidence you present on the Romanian spirit as it influences Art Nouveau and the other movements that interested him so much. … Read more Testimonials
Articles in newspapers and online-based media, books, radio and TV programmes where I was invited to contribute or my blog is specifically mentioned (click the links for access): Article in the Bucharest cultural events monthly magazine Be Where the CityIs about the Historic Houses of Romania thematic tour “Ecclesiastical Bucharest“, on 30 Nov. 2011. [magazine, in Romanian] … Read more In the media
Historic Houses of Romania – Case de Epoca is the liveliest and most professional online resource dedicated to the architectural heritage of this region, written by me, Valentin Mandache. I am an architectural historian, based in Bucharest, trained in the history and civilisation of Southeast Europe at the London School of Economics and Political Science, with a wide international experience in the field of cultural studies and consulting.Read more About
As part of the one-to-one interaction with the interested public, I organise architectural scheduled and private walking tours in Bucharest and other towns and parts of Romania or abroad, together with a series of courses, envisioned to spreading the knowledge and appreciation of the local heritage, architectural styles and history, which together represent a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European patrimony.Read more Tours
A historic house is an aesthetic product embodying the fashions of the time when it was built, together with the social and artistic aspirations of its proprietors, often an object of art resulting from the meeting of minds between the architect who designed it and the initial owner. It is also an expression of identity, such as national, regional, cosmopolitan, religious, professional, or ethnic, , reflected in its architectural style and decoration.Read more Consulting
I would like to propose you an architectural history tour, in the western part of the picturesque Cotroceni quarter, which contains the grandiose edifices of the Medical Sciences University and the Palace of the President of Romania. The tour completes my series of distinct walks (east, central and west) covering this architecturally valuable area of Bucharest.
The event is scheduled to take place this Sunday 5 August 2018, between 11.30h – 13.30h. This cultural excursion could be of interest to any of you visiting Romania’s capital as a tourist or on business, looking to understand the character of this metropolis through discovering its peculiar and fascinating old architecture.
The most beautiful baroque revival style palace of Bucharest is the Medical Sciences University, the best such school in southeast Europe, designed by the Swiss architect Louis Blanc, and built in 1902, which is Read more →
I would like to invite you to a walking tour on the subject of the unique to Romania, Wallachian architecture, also known as Brancovan, an enthralling artistic current of fusion between local Byzantine traditions, Islamic ones of the Ottoman Empire, together with European Renaissance and Baroque elements, an expression of this land being at the juncture of the European and the Oriental civilizations. It emerged in the Principality of Wallachia, chiefly in the 18th century, in an age of stability and prosperity for this frontier province of the Sublime Porte. Bucharest became firmly established as its capital in that period, and, as a result, is endowed with a great assembly of architectural monuments displaying this singular style.
The tour is scheduled to take place on Saturday 4 August 2018, between 11.30h – 13.30h. This cultural excursion could be of interest to any of you visiting Romania’s capital as a tourist or on business, looking to understand the character of this metropolis, through discovering its peculiar and fascinating old architecture, and the social and economic processes underlying it.
Although Bucharest is now a national capital within the European Union, linked primarily with Central and Western Europe, for most of its history, until the last quarter of the 19th century, the town was part of the Ottoman world, of the same mighty empire as Mecca, Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo or Tunis. That will give you a perspective of the enormous influence of the Turkish sultanate in this corner of Europe. Add to those geopolitical and cultural coordinates, the remarkable situation of Wallachia, together with neighbouring Moldavia, as the only Christian protectorates of the Islamic empire of the Porte, with their own Christian princes and aristocracy, not colonised with Muslim populations. The mix constituted a civilizational Petri dish inside which the Wallachian (Brancovan) art and architecture got Read more →
I would like to invite you to a Historic Houses of Romania walking tour, in the area centered on Mathias Berthelot Street, just north of Cismigiu Park, which is a repository of some of the most representative period architecture imprinting the personality of Romania’s capital, akin to an open air museum of its built heritage.
The tour is scheduled to take place this Sunday 29 July 2018, between the hours 11.30h – 13.30h. This cultural excursion could be of interest to any of you visiting Romania’s capital as a tourist or on business, looking to understand the character of this metropolis through discovering its peculiar and fascinating old architecture.
Mathias Berthelot, whose name is given to the main street in the area, was a French general of the Great War era, who in 1916 became the commander of the Allied mission tasked with reorganising and equipping Romania’s Royal Army, thus enabling it to effectively oppose the Central Powers and hinder their plans to occupy the country. For his achievements he was made a honorary citizen of Romania and is considered a hero of both countries. The French influence is also Read more →
I will organise an architectural tour this Saturday 28 July 2018, between the hours 11.30h – 13.30h, on the subject of the mature phase of the Neo-Romanian architectural style, when it reached a peak in terms of expression and development. That represents an extraordinary creative period, unfurled throughout the first three decades of the c20th, which produced the most iconic and accomplished edifices in this manner of architectural design specific to Romania and neighbouring regions where the country had influence. The Neo-Romanian style had thus became the most visible identity marker of this nation and is now considered its chief contribution to the world’s built heritage. Bucharest is the best endowed place with edifices in that architecture, with a great selection of Read more →
This is an invitation to an architectural history tour in Dorobanti area of Bucharest: open to all of you who would like to accompany me, the author of the Historic Houses of Romania blog, this Sunday 22 July 2018,for two hours, between 11.30h – 14.00h.
I will be your guide through one of the architecturally most distinguished areas of Bucharest, in the same league with neighbouring Kiseleff in its quality of historic buildings. Dorobanti is brimful with architectural wonders, ranging from the finest Neo-Romanian to Art Deco style houses or hybrids between the two, to many other architectural designs. There are also some beautiful public monuments from the inter-war period dotting the Read more →
I would like to invite you to an after working hours walking tour, this Saturday 21 July 2018, between 11.30h – 13.30h, on the subject of the Art Deco and inter-war Modernist buildings of Bucharest. The tour may be of interest to any of you visiting the city as a tourist or on business, looking to find out more about its fascinating historic architecture and identity.
The Art Deco style, which emerged during the “roaring ’20s” and became a global phenomenon in the 1930s was the first truly international architecture, embraced with gusto by the Bucharest people and the rest of urban Romania. The city became in those years a veritable Art Deco architectural regional “power“, embellished with high quality edifices in this style, many of which are still around, for us to admire and examine, despite the terrible historical upheavals of the last eight decades in this part of Europe. A favorite Art Deco theme in Bucharest was that of the ocean liner, reflecting the longing of the inter-war locals to travel to Read more →
I would like to invite you, in my quality as the author of Historic Houses or Romania – Case de Epoca blog, to an architectural history tour in Cismigiu area of Bucharest. This cultural excursion, open to all interested in Romania’s capital history and identity, is scheduled to take place this Sunday 8 July 2018, for two hours, between 11.30h – 13.30h.
I will be your guide throughout this beautiful expanse of Bucharest, which borders and includes the Cismigiu Gardens, the “Central Park” of this town, which is also its oldest surviving landscaped garden. The quarter boasts a balanced mix of architectures ranging from Little Paris, Art Nouveau, Neoromanian to Art Deco and interwar Modernism, and also representative church buildings, various species of neo-Gothic and Mediterranean styles. Cismigiu is packed with the remarkable creations of some of the most famous native and foreign born architects, active on the Read more →
I would like to invite you to a thematic walking tour, to take place on Saturday 7 July 2018, between the hours 11.30h – 13.30h, on the subject of the late c19th – early c20th French and western historicist inspired architecture of Bucharest, which made the city known to the rest of world as the “Little Paris of the Balkans”, a phenomenon that imprinted the personality of Romania’s capital ever since. The tour may be of interest to any of you visiting the city as a tourist or on business, looking to find out more about its fascinating historic architecture and character.
The first building boom of modern era Bucharest happened during the period aptly named La Belle Époque, which corresponds with the late Victorian and early Edwardian epochs for the English speaking world (or Gilded Age in the US). It was characterised by a charming architecture inspired especially from the flamboyant neo-baroque, neo-rococo and also neo-gothic forms fashionable in France, a country seen by the Romanians of that time as a beacon of culture worthy to emulate, and from other west European states held in high regard by the then young Balkan nation. The local architecture thus acquired a personality of its own, combining the new forms with the indigenous and Ottoman traditional motifs and Read more →
I am closing down my over 7 years old Facebook page called Historic Houses of Romania – Case de Epoca, which contains the richest and best structured collection of images and opinions available on any social media network, anywhere, about the historic architecture of Romania, with considerations on that phenomenon in southeast Europe. I had to take that step because of vicious online (so far) attacks from Romanian nationalists and populists, who insists lecturing me their crooked version of history, and hating my international and multicultural approach in dealing with the architectural history of Romania and southeast Europe. The page represents over seven years of arduous work, thousands of kilometres walking and doing fieldwork and research, which attracted about 14,000 followers from all over the world (over 1/3 were non-Romanian speakers), and surely I am quite sad to close it, but there is no alternative under this deluge of nationalist attacks, which seem to become the fashion in Europe and the US. I identified the problem in becoming such a target in the name of the page, “Historic Houses of Romania”, the title containing the particle “Romania”, which for many in this country, educated in the crude tradition of national-communism see it as a sort of exclusive property of theirs, its role being assumed as nothing more than a nationalist propaganda mouthpiece, its multicultural approach and methodology perceived as a threat, not conforming to their perverse worldview. That is why I have set up a new page, called “Valentin Mandache, architectural historian”, hoping to avoid such unwanted attention, and where you are kindly invited to follow me: https://www.facebook.com/vmarchitecturalhistorian/
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My aim, through this series of blog articles, is to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania and Southeast Europe, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of world’s architectural history and heritage.
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If you have a historic house project in Romania or other country in Southeast Europe, I would be delighted to advise you in aspects pertaining to its architectural history and ways to preserve as much as possible from its period fabric and aesthetics in the course of restoration or renovation works, or to counsel you with specialist consultancy work related to that project. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contactpage of this website.
The Wallachian style, is a highly original architecture and decorative arts design, which developed within the confines of the Principality of Wallachia, a Christian protectorate of the Ottoman Empire, during the period of stability and prosperity of this great state between the late 17th c and throughout the 18th c. It is a synthesis between local Byzantine traditions, together with Islamic ones, at which is added European Baroque and Renaissance elements. The style is usually named Brancovan or Brancovenesc, which in my opinion is incorrect, not properly and precisely reflecting its geographical and civilisational locus in Wallachia. This video details for you this important chapter of the arts and architecture of the early modern southeast Europe, which has been crucial for the development of the the later Neo-Romanian style, the national style of Romania.
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My aim, through this series of blog articles, is to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania and Southeast Europe, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of world’s architectural history and heritage.
***********************************************
If you have a historic house project in Romania or other country in Southeast Europe, I would be delighted to advise you in aspects pertaining to its architectural history and ways to preserve as much as possible from its period fabric and aesthetics in the course of restoration or renovation works, or to counsel you with specialist consultancy work related to that project. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contactpage of this website.
Dear readers,
Dear readers,
Dear readers,
Dear readers,
Dear Readers,
Dear readers,