From September until
\nthe middle of November, the Bucharest City Museum is playing host at its
\nheadquarters in the Su\u021bu Palace, in central Bucharest, to an exhibition that
\ntakes visitors back, in the city’s past, entitled Bucharest’s outskirts in the
\ninter-war years. The inter-war period is defined historically as the 21-year
\nperiod between the two world wars, 1918 to 1939. The Romanian capital Bucharest
\nis the country’s most important industrial and commercial centre as well as its
\nartistic, cultural and media centre. In 2011, its population was around 2
\nmillion inhabitants, not counting the people transiting the city or those
\nliving in the surroundings. Bucharest was first mentioned in historical records
\nin 1459 and it became the capital of the United Principalities of Wallachia and
\nMoldavia in 1862. The curator of the exhibition, Cezar Petre Buiumaci, tells us
\nmore about the history of the Romanian capital and other details about the city
\nin the inter-war period:<\/p>\n
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Cezar Buiumaci: The exhibition seeks
\nto showcase the development of the capital city throughout time, the
\ntransformation of the city during its biggest horizontal expansion, which
\noccurred in the inter-war period. Bucharest at that time was an open, welcoming
\ncity, despite frequent attempts to limit its geographical and demographic
\nexpansion. Bucharest’s becoming the capital of Wallachia, and then of the
\nUnited Principalities and of Greater Romania worked as a magnet for people from
\nother parts, who brought along their own cultural heritage, transforming the
\ncity into an exciting metropolis. Most of the people who arrived here were not
\nwealthy and would settle in the cheaper areas of the city, on its outskirts, thus
\ncontributing to its geographical expansion.<\/p>\n
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The collection of the
\nBucharest City Museum contains photographic records of the city’s outskirts,
\nthe areas that were about to be expanded, and which disappeared in the second
\npart of the 20th century. Curator Cezar
\nBuiumaci tells us what the
\nexhibition seeks to achieve:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cezar Buiumaci: I have tried, and hopefully
\nachieved to showcase the urban outskirts of a developing city. Bucharest’s
\ndynamic is unique in Romania, its growth has been constant, which is why we are
\nconstantly witnessing changes. Whereas in the 17th Century it was
\nlimited to the University area, in the early 19th Century it reached
\ntoday’s Athenaeum building, and by the end of that century it had reached
\ntoday’s Victory Square, or rather it followed a circular road on a route
\nconnecting the city’s main railway stations. In order to understand the city’s
\ngeographical growth, we must take a look at statistics, and also at the
\nfollowing demographics: in 1831 Bucharest had around 60,000 inhabitants, but in
\n1859 the figure was double. At the end of the 19th Century its
\npopulation reached some 230,000, and in 1930, in the middle of the inter-war
\nperiod, 640,000 people were living in
\nBucharest; in the mid-20th Century its population reached 1 million, and the figure
\ndoubled in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
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\n
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What can
\nvisitors see at the exhibition in Su\u021bu Palace? Here is Cezar Buiumaci:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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Cezar Buiumaci: The exhibition presents the outskirts of the
\ncity, following the road mentioned before, but it features what could be seen
\nat that time beyond this peripheral road, the areas scheduled to be demolished,
\nwhich were photographed by the best photographers of the times at the request
\nof the local administration. There are 60 photographs, depicting various
\naspects of life at the outskirts. The public may see what neighbourhood pubs
\nused to look like, what some of the streets looked like before being paved, or
\nareas like the so-called Valley of Tears, which are unrecognisable today. They
\ncan see people going bathing and in the same image animals or cars being washed,
\nice being taken out of the river during the winter to be used for cooling the
\nfood in the summer, sheep grazing on what is today Plevnei Road, or horses
\nbeing shod. These are photographs shown for the first time, commissioned by the
\nCity Hall, and depicting the outskirts. (CM, AMP)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Bucharest City Museum is playing host to an exhibition about the city’s inter-war period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":622365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44685],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-622364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-of-culture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n