Ceausescu's Bucharest

Abstract

PERHAPS no present-day city exhibits the imprint of an individual to the extent that Bucharest shows the effect of Nicolae Ceausescu, who ruled Romania in dictatorial fashion from 1965 to his overthrow and execution in December 1989. An account of his transformation of Bucharest and of the destruction wrought during the revolution and subsequent changes provides a valuable perspective for analyzing this important southeastern European capital. The account also allows a unique opportunity to reveal how Marxist planning concepts went astray in the hands of a megalomaniac. Long associated with Romanian history, Bucharest dates at least to the fifteenth century, when it was little more than a village on the banks of the Dimbovita River (Turnock 1990, 107-110). The city became the capital of Wallachia in 1659 and later emerged as a key link in overland trade with Turkey. During the eighteenth century, it acquired a manufactural base. Bucharest greatly increased its importance when in 1862 it was designated the capital of Romania. Its population then was slightly more than 120,000, or double the 1831 figure (Ianos and Guran 1991, 7). By the end of the nineteenth century, the city was capital of an independent kingdom and could boast two train stations, an electric tram line, electrical, telephone, and sewerage systems, and street lights that had been installed in 1857 and that represented the first such system in the world (Cucu and Sandru 1987, 82-83). By 1914, a program of city planning, house construction, and industry helped swell the population of Bucharest to almost 350,000 and the administrative area to almost 6,000 hectares. After World War I, Bucharest enjoyed a reputation as the Paris of the East (Lewis 1987, 466). The most fashionable district was the northern section, along Lake Floreasca, where a triumphal arch, palaces, fine villas, wide boulevards, parks, and lakes contrasted with the crowded, bustling, poorly serviced districts in and around the city center. INITIAL SOCIALIST DEVELOPMENT After World War II, the newly installed communist government set about the task of city development, in line with accepted Marxist-Leninist doctrine as promulgated from Moscow. Specific pieces of urban legislation were enacted in 1956 and 1962 (Church 1979, 497; Turnock 1990, 111). The most pressing needs of the period were to repair the damages of the war, during which almost 13 percent of the buildings in the city were destroyed, and to increase the number and size of heavy-industrial plants. The government also changed the designated use of certain buildings. For example, the former royal palace in central Bucharest in 1950 was assigned to house the new State Council as well as other public services, and to display art exhibits (Church 1979, 502-503). Many former villas in the northern section were converted to use as governmental offices and foreign embassies. In ideological terms, these actions were intended to transform structures and hence the built environment of the city from its former exclusionary use to involvement in the daily life of the proletariat. They represented one step in creating a socialist society. Furthermore, the names of many streets and administrative districts were changed to honor revolutionary heroes and events; parks and other publicly accessible recreational facilities were constructed (Church 1979, 504). The government also embarked on a program to construct new housing projects in the outer districts to accommodate the influx of workers, to replace substandard housing, and to reflect the emerging socialist egalitarian order (Sampson 1979, 512). The districts included Drumul Taberei, Berceni, and Titan Balta Alba, which were developed according to the neighborhood-unit concept. Initially, apartment blocks were limited to a height of four stories and separated by sufficient open space for vegetable gardens. Housing projects of this sort were a common feature in Eastern European cities. …