Dismantling the Ottoman Heritage? The Evolution of Bucharest in the Nineteenth Century

During the 19th century Bucharest changed its look. At the beginning of the century it had many of the features of the Ottoman cities. Bucharest was divided into mahalas, there was no solution of continuity with the countryside, the houses were made of wood and the roads were in clay easily turning into torrents when raining. At the end of the century the town had completely changed. It had been divided into districts, the centre had become the core of the political life, new buildings symbolized the birth of the national state, most of the houses were made of stone, roads were paved and their path was regularized. Most of the historians judge this process as an attempt to get free of the Ottoman heritage. This is probably true in many respects. At the end of the century Bucharest looked like a Western capital and it was considered the “little Paris” of the Balkans. The three turning points of the process from the Ottoman Bucharest to “little Paris” were 1830, 1862 and 1878. These were relevant political moments towards the birth of the Romanian national state. In 1830, after the Greek war, a Russian protectorate was imposed on Moldova and Wallachia. The two principalities received some more autonomy than in the previous period and a city council was established in Bucharest. It operated in the infrastructural field, paving roads, building a sewer system, organizing a lighting system and providing other essential services to the population. The town was divided in districts and the roads path was regularized. The objective was to create a modern town, but the appearance of Bucharest did not change a lot. The city council had not enough power to order the destruction of the dangerous wood houses easily burning or collapsing during the flowing or the earthquakes or closing the roads. In 1862 the United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldova were recognized by the main powers. They became a widely autonomous state. It was in 1862 that Bucharest became a capital city and in 1866 a municipality was created. The municipality had to deal with infrastructures and public services as before, but it had more power and best possibilities in acting efficiently since a budget was established for the capital. Anyway, the most important change was a political one: the new autonomous state was looking for legitimation and the acknowledgement of its identity. For this reason it was of primary importance to create seats for the new political, cultural and economic institutions. The new buildings were to become the symbols of the new state and of the Romanian identity. This is why their architectural style was so important. All of the seats of the political power ( like the royal palace), as long as those hosting the cultural institution (for instance the university) and the economic centres (for example the National Bank) were built in neoclassical style. Most of them were designed by French architects. It was evident that the will of the Romanian political leaders was to create a bridge between Romania and the Western countries. The third step toward the transformation of Bucharest was in 1878, when Romania became an independent state. This passage strengthened the process already on. But the major change after independence was in the architectural field: a new class of Romanian architects was born. Most of them studied in France and at the beginning they continued using Neoclassical. But things were changing in Romania. A new cultural and political elite was rising, asking for the recognition of tradition and criticizing the old liberal leaders only borrowing artificial patterns from abroad. In this period the Conservative Party was created and the Romanian novelists and intellectuals started rediscovering countryside, its sense of community and its values. In this period a new architectural style was elaborated: it was the so-called Neoromanian or National style. Its beginner was Ion Mincu, an architect educated in France. The Neoromanian was an attempt to create a style deeply rooted in the Romanian history and tradition. It was an attempt to demonstrate and confirm the existence of a specific Romanian identity, this time distinguished not only by the Ottoman heritage, but also by the Western influence. Paradoxically, the features of the new style were not taken by the local tradition of the wood countryside houses, but from the religious architecture and from the old boyar houses. Paradoxically again, this meant that many elements of the Ottoman and Byzantine architecture were rediscovered (arches, pinnacles, etc.). My reports aims to point out how, like in a circular path, the change occurred in Bucharest in the 19th century started from a departure from the Ottoman heritage and lead to the coming back to some Ottoman elements.