Orga

Government Palace in Victoriei Sq. a fragment from the novel Derapaj (Skid), Iaşi, Polirom 2006 Maria’s life glowed with a murky sort of splendor, her past, though committed to oblivion, constantly closing in on her and obscuring her thoughts like the spots of a solar

I once saw some Romanian thieves on a bus in Rome and I thought they're just bad publicity for us, but every cloud has its silver lining: maybe this way we'll get rid of them, maybe they'll go and steal from richer people. A cop confirmed that over the past

The house painter. He has a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and his appetite for work is equal to nothing. His torn t-shirt doesn't give you any clue on the fee he will demand at the end of the day after slothfully varnishing a wall which can neither resist nor

Red bricks are the distinctive feature of this construction, next to the white rosette, a huge round window above the main portal: thereby, the reader has most certainly recognized the Archbishopric of Saint Joseph's Cathedral. It is one of the landmark buildings in

New police station on L. Catargiu St. and Architects' Order on A. Verona St. An interview by Eugen Istodor with Şerban Sturdza, Chairman of the Order of Architects Lesson: how we can bend the lawReporter: I would like to start from a very concrete thing: we are at

Just another day in Bucharest, in the year 2006, in summer. My friend, an architect, who accompanies me on my visit to a “bedroom suburb”, feels shivers down his spine. Maybe it is because he doesn’t like “the poetry of concrete”. Or maybe he has a problem with

Revolution Square Last time when Bucharest was flooded, when in some districts the water rose as high as half of the Dacia car parked on the sidewalk, none of the Romanian reporters or newscasters failed to draw a comparison between our capital and a “European” one.

Athenaeum and CEC Palace on Calea Victoriei We like to refer to the “exterior” whenever we analyze local problems and the present day situation in our country can only prove us right. Starting with the ambition of political Europeanization and ending with the famous

clockwise from top left (see also What's old in Gallery): The Athenaeum, The National Bank, The Palace of Justice, CEC Bank, Romanian Peasant Museum, Domnita Balasa Church, Gheorghe Lazar School, University (detail). (Lucrări publice din vremea lui Carol I. Acte

Cismigiu gardens, Icoanei park, Kiseleff park (see also The green within in Gallery). Many of Bucharest’s gardens and parks, which no longer exist because of extensive urban reorganising, were shaped as the aristocracy tastefully redesigned the open space around their

1st row: National History Museum, Old Court Museum, Archeology Museum (detail), National Museum of Art2nd row: Collections Museum, Zambaccian Museum, Theodor Aman Museum, Gh. Tattarescu Museum 3rd row: Storck Museum, Romanian Peasant Museum, Astronomical Observatory (detail),

Bucharest is a city in search of identity. Its precise moment of birth is unknown, for the Cetatea Dîmboviţei of the 14th and 15th centuries only played host to its rulers when they occasionally came to ward off threats from south of the Danube or Hungarian attacks form