
Centrul Civic (; "the Civic Centre") is a district in central
Bucharest
Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...
,
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
, which was completely rebuilt in the 1980s as part of the scheme of
systematization under the dictator
Nicolae Ceaușescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu ( ; ; – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian politician who was the second and last Communism, communist leader of Socialist Romania, Romania, serving as the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 u ...
, 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
The Socialist Republic of Romania (, RSR) was a Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist One-party state, one-party socialist state that existed officially in Romania from 1947 to 1989 (see Revolutions of 1989). From 1947 to 1965, the state was ...
.
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 (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...
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
The Palace of the Parliament (), also known as the House of the Republic () or the People's House (), is the seat of the Parliament of Romania, located atop Dealul Spirii in Bucharest, the national capital. The Palace reaches a height of , has ...
.
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
systematization 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
In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together. of ''Ceaușescu'' and ''
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has b ...
''). 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 Vodă 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 Curtea Veche, old Princely Court ...
street in particular is a famous old-fashioned street). Many churches, such as the
Mihai Vodă Monastery, were moved rather than demolished, and the nearby
Antim Monastery remains largely intact, although lacking its original eastern wing. Immediately next to
Piața Unirii (the Union Square) is
Dealul Mitropoliei (the Metropolitan Hill), with the Patriarchal Cathedral and Palace, the seat of the Patriarch of the
Romanian Orthodox Church
The Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC; , ), or Romanian Patriarchate, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox Christian denomination, Christian churches, and one of the nine patriarchates in the East ...
.
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 () was a period of violent Civil disorder, civil unrest in Socialist Republic of Romania, Romania during December 1989 as a part of the revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several countries around the world, primarily ...
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 (landscape), 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 ...
, 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, which is channelled at this point underground the Square.
With its architectural uniformity, Centrul Civic stands out as a
Socialist Realism 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 perimet ...
.
See also
*
Dealul Spirii
References
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Districts of Bucharest