The architect Nicolae Ghika-Budesti

The architect Nicolae Ghika Budesti was born 150 years ago, on December 22nd  1869. Ghika Budesti will mainly be remembered for the extension works he supervised, for the Palace of the University of Bucharest. Ghika-Budesti was also a competent restorer of historical monuments. He was of illustrious descent, since two old boyar families, Ghica and Cantacuzino, were part of his lineage. Ghica and Cantacuzino were also families where quite a few of the ruling princes came from, throughout the centuries, in the two Romanian principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia. As for the architect himself, he was brought up in a milieu which was artistic as much as it was aristocratic. Oana Marinache is an art historian specializing in 19th century architecture. 

"The architect Nicolae Ghika-Budeşti was born into one of the most famous families of boyars in Moldavia. As a rule, several branches of old families, families with a lot of members, were differentiated among themselves adding another name to their family name, actually the name of the estate the respective branch hailed from. For example, there were the Ghika-Comanesti as well as the Ghika-Deleni families. The future architect was lucky enough to have a very talented father. Eugen Ghika-Budeşti was a less well-known painter, yet he gained international fame, to a certain extent. His mother came from the Cantacuzino family. On his mother's side, he was a close relative to painter Pallady and architect G.M. Cantacuzino. So he hailed from a family with remarkable personalities in the world of Romanian arts and architecture. The fact that he descended from a boyar family having its roots in Moldavia will also have a bearing on his architecture, while it was often said that in his Bucharest-based works, one could detect a Neo-Romanian style with a Moldavian tinge."

That specific and original characteristic of the style of quite a few of the works designed by Nicolae Ghika-Budeşti drew from the architecture of Moldavian churches and monasteries built during the reign of Stephen the Great and Petru Pares, in the 15th and 16th centuries. 

Oana Marinache:

"It is an obvious revisiting of the decorative patterns, especially of the coloured glazed ceramics, of the neo-Gothic framing of the windows or the access gates to religious edifices. Of course he was not a hundred per cent tributary to that. Sometimes he also He sometimes revisited certain influences of the Wallachian style. For their most part, his public or private works have an impressive vertical element. What I have in mind is the watchtower giving a vertical characteristic to villas or public institutions. Also, he used the horseshoe arch in his works, the horseshoe arch that became the main characteristic of the Moldavian version he applied to the Neo-Romanian style. "

Nicolae Ghika-Budesti will mainly be remembered for the extension works for the building of the University of Bucharest, one of the icons of Romania's capital city. The central part of the palace was designed by the architect Nicola Orascu, while its construction began in October 10, 1857 and could not be completed before December 14, 1869. Meanwhile the number of students increased and more academic specialties emerged, so the planning was needed for the extension of the building. It is exactly what happened in the early 20th century. 

Oana Marinache:

"We have a stage preceding World War One, but the war put a stop to the project for a while. What I have in mind is the wing overlooking the Academy Street, a wing designed between 1912 and 1913 jointly with his younger colleague, the future great architect Duiliu Marcu, who at that time had just returned from his studies in Paris. Works were resumed around 1924 when the wing overlooking the Edgar Quinet street was built, housing the Faculty of Letters, for which works were completed in 1928."

Concurrently, Nicolae Ghika-Budeşti was also an academic with the Faculty of Architecture, but also a columnist and an editor, authoring a great many specialized studies and research works. An example of that is his far-reaching work, one of the seminal works in the field, entitled "The Evolution of Architecture in Wallachia and Oltenia." In 1930 he was elected an honorary member of the Romanian Academy. As a restorer, between 1906 and 1943 he held the position of head architect of the Technical Service, then he was a consultant with the Historical Monuments Commission. 

Oana Marinache:

"In effect, through the Historical Monuments Commission, he was involved in estimation operations and the assessment of restoration sites. He roamed the country far and wide, coordinating or assessing restoration works for various religious assets, being one of the country's most important personalities as an academic, but also as regards the restoration of historical monuments. He offered consultancy for most of the intervention works for historical monuments. From what we could infer examining archive documents, I would rather include him among architectural designers for a great many of the Bucharest-based projects, since it is all clear there was not much time left for him to supervise self-supportive construction sites. Most of the construction licenses he issued were implemented by Italian builders."

Architect and restorer Nicolae Ghika-Budeşti died on December 16, 1943. Among other things, his works include the designing of several interior decorations and Byzantine furniture pieces.