Paul Smarandescu was one of the most prolific
\nRomanian architects. 75 years since his death were commemorated on January 11,
\n2020. In his work, Smarandescu greatly favored the neo-Romanian style, whose
\ninitiator was architect Ion Mincu in the late 19th century. As for Paul
\nSmarandescu, he provided innovative elements of his own for that iconic style
\nwhich blends elements of Brancoveanu architectural style into Romanian
\ntraditional art. Paul Smarandescu designed architectural projects, yet apart
\nfrom that, he was also commissioned to do expertise work and evaluate buildings,
\nto design furniture and exterior decoration. Paul Smarandescu was born on June
\n26, 1881. The three houses, property of the Smarandescu family, are still standing on Mantuleasa Street, which can be found in a neighborhood of middle-class
\nBucharest. Mantuleasa Street has become part of the mythology of the city as it is a relevant element of the fictional world in the fantastic prose written
\nby Mircea Eliade, who also spent his childhood on that street. Art historian
\nOana Marinache did some research on Paul Smarandescu’s biography. <\/p>\n
Oana Marinache:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In the Smarandescu family,
\napart from the architect, two more children were born, there were two sisters,
\nConstanta and Elena. Constanta’s descendants would take up an architectural and
\nconstruction engineering profession since she espoused engineer Teodor
\nSavulescu and their son would become an architect as well. The family’s three
\nhomes stand proof of the fact that the father wanted all his three children to
\nlive close by. The houses in the Mantuleasa neighborhood were relatively
\nmodest, yet they lay quite close to the old segment of the Mosi Road, Calea
\nMosilor, since on the maternal side, the Smarandescus were related to the
\nfamous Solacolu family of merchants. So what we have here is a middle-class family
\nwho could afford sending the boy, Paul, first to the boys School on Mantuleasa
\nstreet, a school Eliade also went to, and then to high-school. After
\ngraduation, Paul would gain his admission to the Higher School of Architecture
\nin Bucharest in 1889, with the highest grade. He may not have been that happy
\nwith what he got in Bucharest, in terms f education, so he dropped himself out
\nand registered straight into the 2nd curricular class in Paris.
\nThere, he was a brilliant student and his track record between 1899 and 1902 includes
\nsuccess with his exams but also the winning of medals in student competitions.
\nHe traveled for a while afterwards, and during his journeys he made sketches
\nand drawings of several ancient buildings, also having a closer look at all
\nsorts of architectural landmarks from the French, German or Italian world. All
\nthat definitely played a significant part in the training of the young
\narchitect.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Upon his return to Bucharest, Paul Smarandscu
\nbecame the disciple of Dimitrie Maimarolu, the architect who designed today’s
\nPalace of Patriarchy, which in the past was the headquarters of Romania’s Parliament. Then for
\nthree years, he had a stint as an architect of the Ministry of Culture and
\nReligious Denominations. From 1912 and until the end of his career, in 1939,
\nPaul Smarandescu was the chief architect of the Ministry of the Interior.
\nSmarandescu had a rich public activity, but he also had a private studio, where
\nhe designed more than a hundred projects that would subsequently be completed,
\ngiven that 200 of his projects did not go beyond the schematic design phase. <\/p>\n
Art historian Oana Marinache: <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
He was lucky enough not
The Universul Palace is another
Oana Marinache:<\/p>\n
Before World War One, he adapted
It was not only Romania’s capital city
(Translation by Eugen Nasta)<\/p>\n
Architect Paul Smarandescu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":83019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45210],"tags":[45565,45235,45470],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-169507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rri-encyclopaedia","tag-horia-creanga","tag-ion-mincu","tag-paul-smarandescu"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nnecessarily to design school buildings, but to revise and check the financial
\nestimates and supervise some of the construction sites countrywide. However,
\nwhat came as a surprise for those who have done recent archive research is the
\ndiscovery of the fact that it was him who designed one of the buildings
\nhousing the Central School for Girls in Bucharest. We know this school building
\nis an important work in Ion Mincu’s career, the architect who was the first one
\nto design the neo-Romanian style. However, early into the 20th
\ncentury, Smarandescu designed a new building, purpose-built, initially, as ‘a
\ngym hall and a boarding school’. It was an outhouse. It can still be seen today,
\nbut it has undergone a significant makeover. It would be reshaped by his much
\nyounger colleague, Horia Creanga in the late 1930s. And today, it is home to a
\nperformance hall belonging to the famous Bulandra Theater. <\/span><\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nheritage-listed building. Its initial purpose was to serve as headquarters for
\nthe famous Universul daily. In time, several newspaper offices could be found
\nthere, and the building has been recently refurbished. For the Interior
\nMinistry, Paul Smarandescu designed several standard buildings, which served as
\nlodgings for the civil servants of the Ministry. They were placed in the
\neastern part of Bucharest, an area which actually made the outskirts of the city,
\nin the past. At the initiative of King Carol II, it was also Paul Smarandescu
\nwho began the design for a new headquarters of the Interior Ministry. However,
\nhe did not get round to working on that project very much, because he retired
\nand he was getting old. However, other architects continued the works, so much
\nso that the projects materialized in the monumental building lying next to the
\nformer Royal Palace, today housing the National Museum of Art, the former
\nheadquarters of the Romanian Communist Party’s Central Committee, and the
\nformer Senate building. Paul Smarandescu is mainly known as an advocate of the
\nneo-Romanian style, yet his career had been going through several style phases
\nthroughout the years. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nto the private works he was commissioned to deliver. He also designed buildings in the French eclectic
\nstyle, since he had been fresh from the art schools in France, where all the
\nfamous magnificent private residences could be found. However, he would not be
\nin the grip of that influence for long, and would focus on the neo-Romanian
\nstyle. Actually, the buildings he designed are included in the so-called
\nSmarandescu trend of the neo-Romanian style. Part of that are massive
\nbuildings, magnificent one or two-storey residences, richly decorated, stone
\nreliefs with vegetal ornaments, with wood being lavishly used for the interior.
\nIn the inter-war period, a change could be noticed, not necessarily a change in
\nstyle but given the city’s need to transform itself and the demarcation of
\nlarger plots of land, taller buildings were favored, those tenement buildings
\nwith a twofold function, commercial or residential, and he succeeded to design
\nbuildings of this kind for insurance companies located at the heart of
\nBucharest. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nBucharest that benefitted from Paul Smarandescu’s talent, but there were also
\nother cities, countrywide. For instance, ten villas designed by Paul
\nSmarandescu are still standing in the mountain resort of Sinaia, where the architect had a holiday home.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"