View_from_the_Palace_of_Parliament_in_Bucharest

Centrul Civic (, ''the Civic Centre'') is a district in central

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

, which was completely rebuilt in the 1980s as part of the scheme of

systematization Systematization ( ro, Sistematizarea) in Romania was a program of urban planning carried out by the Romanian Communist Party under the leadership of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Ceaușescu was impressed by the ideological mobilization and mass adulation ...

under the dictator

Nicolae Ceaușescu Nicolae Ceaușescu ( , ; – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian communist politician and dictator. He was the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and the second and last Communist leader of Romania. He ...

, which included the construction of new civic centres in the Romanian cities. Bucharest Civic Centre was planned to become the new political-administrative center of Communist Romania.

History

Bucharest suffered significant damage due to Allied bombing during World War II and the devastating earthquake of March 4, 1977. However, neither of these events changed the face of the city more than the Ceaușescan "redevelopment schemes" of the 1980s, under which an overall area of of the historic center of Bucharest was affected, including monasteries, churches, synagogues, a hospital, and a noted

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

sports stadium ( Stadionul Republicii). This also involved evicting 40,000 people after a single day's notice and relocating them to new homes, in order to make way for the grandiose Centrul Civic and the House of the Republic, now officially renamed as the Palace of the Parliament. Prior to starting to demolish the old historical town of Bucharest in order to build Centrul Civic, Bucharest (and other cities and towns throughout the country) had already undergone Communist reconstruction, particularly in the 1970s, under the

programme which consisted of the demolition and reconstruction of existing villages, towns, and cities, in whole or in part, in order to make place to standardized blocks of flats (''blocuri''), as a result of increasing urbanization following an accelerated industrialization process. The construction of Centrul Civic and the demolitions necessary for it, however, were quite extreme even compared to other reconstruction communist programmes. The vast empty fields which emerged in the historic town during the demolitions of the 1980s were sarcastically called " Ceaușima" (a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsHiroshima''). Concrete hulks of half-completed buildings (such as the new National Library of Romania) long stood where historic buildings (including most of the city's historic Jewish quarter) once stood. A remainder of the former "Ceaușima" is the never-completed eastern large area between the Mircea Vodǎ Boulevard and Nerva Traian Street (), where in 1989 had begun the construction of the National Centre for Creation and Culture, named after Cântarea României, an ensemble that would include seven performance halls, the first six with capacities between 550 and 2,100 seats, and the seventh, dedicated to the National Opera, of 3,100 seats. Centrul Civic is surrounded all-around by old historical buildings and neighborhoods (

Lipscani Lipscani is a street and a district of Bucharest, Romania, which from the Middle Ages to the early 19th century was the most important commercial area of the city and Wallachia. It is located near the ruins of the old Princely Court built by Vla ...

street in particular is a famous old-fashioned street). Many churches, such as the

Mihai Vodă Monastery The Mihai Vodă Monastery, founded by Mihai Viteazul, is one of the oldest buildings in Bucharest. It was built in 1591, surrounded by stone walls, similar to a fortress. The monastery buildings served multiple purposes over time such as residence ...

, were moved rather than demolished, and the nearby

Antim Monastery The Antim Monastery is located in Bucharest, Romania on Mitropolit Antim Ivireanu Street, no. 29. It was built between 1713 and 1715 by Saint Antim Ivireanu, at that time a Metropolitan Bishop of Wallachia. The buildings were restored by Patriarch ...

remains largely intact, although lacking its original eastern wing. Immediately next to

Piața Unirii Piața Unirii (; ''Unification Square'' or ''Union Square'' in English) is one of the largest squares in central Bucharest, Romania, located in the center of the city where Sectors 1, 2, 3, and 4 meet. Part of the Civic Centre, it is bisected by U ...

(the Union Square) is

Dealul Mitropoliei Dealul Mitropoliei (, ''Metropolitanate Hill''), also called Dealul Patriarhiei (, ''Patriarchate Hill''), is a small hill in Bucharest, Romania and an important historic, cultural, architectural, religious and touristic point in the national capit ...

(the Metropolitan Hill), with the Patriarchal Cathedral and Palace, the seat of the Patriarch of the

Romanian Orthodox Church The Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC; ro, Biserica Ortodoxă Română, ), or Patriarchate of Romania, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox Christian churches, and one of the nine patriarchates ...

Description

Centrul Civic is a complex of modern concrete buildings with marble façades, centered on a main boulevard originally meant to be Bulevardul Victoria Socialismului (the Victory of Socialism Boulevard). Being renamed, after the

Romanian Revolution The Romanian Revolution ( ro, Revoluția Română), also known as the Christmas Revolution ( ro, Revoluția de Crăciun), was a period of violent civil unrest in Romania during December 1989 as a part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred ...

of 1989, in Bulevardul Unirii (the Union Boulevard), it has been modeled after Paris's

Champs-Élysées The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (, ; ) is an avenue in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, long and wide, running between the Place de la Concorde in the east and the Place Charles de Gaulle in the west, where the Arc de Triomphe is l ...

, though a little wider; it runs roughly east–west, making a grand approach to the Palace of the Parliament at its western terminus. A large balcony in the Palace surveys the entire length of the boulevard. Other streets included in the perimeter of Centrul Civic are, among others, Libertății (Liberty) Boulevard, Decebal Boulevard, Burebista Boulevard (unfinished), United Nations (Națiunile Unite) Boulevard, Octavian Goga Boulevard, Mircea Vodă Boulevard (partially), Nerva Traian Street (partially), Izvor Street, or Calea 13 Septembrie (partially). Centrul Civic includes numerous public offices and apartments, the latter roughly equalling the housing units destroyed for its construction. The apartments were originally intended to house Romania's communist elite. In the Union Square, the boulevard bisects the

Dâmbovița river Dâmbovița can refer to these places in Romania: * Dâmbovița County * Dâmbovița (river) * Dâmbovița Center The Dâmbovița Center (also named Casa Radio) is an unfinished building in Bucharest, Romania, near Cotroceni, on the shore of ...

, which is channelled at this point underground the Square. With its architectural uniformity, Centrul Civic stands out as a

Socialist Realism Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is c ...

style monument. Due to the lack of attractiveness for the commercial spaces located on the ground floor of the respective buildings, as a result of the relatively low pedestrian traffic in the area, most of the small shops and restaurants that form the heart of Bucharest are to be found in the areas immediately to the north of Centrul Civic, in

Bucharest Old Town The Old Town is located in the center of Bucharest, Romania and is known for its nightlife. * Ion C. Brătianu Boulevard crosses the historic center from north to south, dividing this area into two approximately equal parts. Also in this perimete ...

References

{{coord, 44, 25, 37.65, N, 26, 5, 41.90, E, display=title Districts of Bucharest

History

Description

See also

References