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 Traditional house in Village
Museum - Bucharest by codrutz
The exhibition has a total of 322 constructions (47 dwellings, household dependencies, 3 wooden churches, 3 windmills, technical installations that use the force of the water etc.)
The museum is visited by circa 300,000 people every year both from Romania and from abroad. There are 16 functioning open-air museums in Romania at the moment. Most of them exhibit specific characteristics of the area where they are situated (Cluj, Timisoara, Sighetu Marmatiei, Baia-Mare, Bran, Suceava, Focsani, etc.). Other two museums are conceived to represent the national area: at Golesti, near Pitesti, The Fruit Growing and Wine Growing Museum - laying the stress on constructions from the areas that are characteristic to this type of activity. The museum from Sibiu exhibits monuments of the traditional technical civilisation mainly - The Traditional Civilisation Museum - Astra.
Visiting hours: 10AM - 6PM Leave a Comment
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 Museum of Romanian Peasant,
Bucharest by Andraf
The museum building has an interesting story as well. The museum was founded in 1905 under the name of Ethnographical and National Art Museum. In 1906 Carol I laid the foundation for the present building; the construction was stopped in 1916 and restarted in 1932. It was completed only in 1935, 29 years after it was started. The red-brick building is an illustration of the neo-Romanian style inspired from the traditional architecture. In 1953, the communists "liberated" the building and sent the collection away to another location. The building was turned into a museum dedicated to the history of the Communist Party. In 1990 the museum returned to its old location. Leave a Comment
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Lipscani Street is the one that was meant to be – just like in most other 'regular' big cities – a pedestrian street. However it has turned into a wide bazaar with cars bugging pedestrians at times, decaying beautiful houses and plenty of small lovely shops. The name of the street comes from the merchants that used to come here with merchandise brought from Lipsca (Leipzig). Façades illustrate all 19th century architectural styles, from the Classical one (see building at number 21) to the Art Nouveau style (number 72-74). The street is nowadays (just like it originally was) a noisy bazaar, with merchants selling everything from blue jeans, to wedding dresses, Indian incense sticks or pretzels. It is neither clean, nor it has a proper pavement, but this is the way a real, functioning bazaar should be (I am not referring here to the Egyptian bazaar in Istanbul, that has lost its original purpose). This is not a museum and it is not meant for tourists either.
Note: After years of grand promises, the local authorities made an attempt to close the Old Town for cars. They partially succeeded to do so for the first part, but, when they started digging ditches along the main streets of the old quarter, also removing all pavement, they succeeded indeed to keep cars out. Now they go on working, to replace the sewing system, to put in internet and electricity cables, to replace all pavement. Pedestrians have to cling on rather unstable wooden bridges along the former sidewalk, which, especially at night, in the rather dim light provided by scarce lights, give one that Kathmandu-during-curfew feeling. No rickshaws in sight unfortunately, but no "7.40 lei / km." taxis either. Thank God. And Buddha. Leave a Comment Address: Lipscani Street, between Balcescu and Victoria Ave
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Location of the building using Google Earth : Atheneul Roman
Fine example of eclectic architecture & outstanding acoustics
A magnificent concert hall, the Romanian Athenaeum (Ateneul Roman) is the true symbol of Bucharest. Had such a postcard been printed, it would certainly represent this building.
The neo-Classical facade, a wonderful Baroque cupola and the 8 Ionic columns portico were the main arguments of the French architect Albert Galleron in order to erect in 1888 the finest building of the city; the money was raised by public contribution ("Dati un leu pentru Ateneu / Give one leu for the Athenaeum").
More than that, the interior is also impressive : a refined hall (12 Doric columns and 4 marble staircases) and the auditorium with a giant fresco depicting scenes from the Romanian history.
The Romanian Atheneum is the seat of the "George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra"; most performances include classical music.
In front of the building stands the statue of the greatest Romanian poet, Mihai Eminescu.
The next main event : International Festival and Competition "George Enescu" 2009 Edition (August 30 - September 26) Leave a Comment Address: 1 Franklin St., BucharestPhone: +40 21 315 0024Website: http://fge.org.ro Other Contact: info@fge.org.ro
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The concrete buildings alongside Unirii Avenue and around Unirii Square hide away from public sight a few remnants of what normal Bucharest once meant. Going on twisted streets and through narrow passages between tall concrete buildings, one can still visit some of them and read their sad stories. A beautiful settlement is Antim Monastery, raised in 1713-1715 by Antim Ivireanu, Mitropolite of Wallachia. The monastery was raised on a site where an older, 17th century wooden church had existed. Ivireanu also endowed the monastery with a Greek and Romanian printer. Acting against the Ottoman rule, he was killed in 1716 at Voyevode Constantin Mavrocordat's order. He left all his fortune to the monastery, meant for the poor and helpless. Tradition has it that the exquisite wooden door of the church was carved by Antim Ivireanu himself. Several features, including the Neogothic rosetta, were added during the 1860 restoration led by Arch. Schlater.
The monastery also hosts to the left the Synodical Library (translated with 14 meters at President Ceausescu’s order, in 1985), a great piece of Brancoveanu style architecture with floral decoration under the roof. Use the monastery as a starting point a walk along old streets towards Regina Maria Avenue (George Georgescu, Justitiei, Poiana Florilor streets are recommendable), even though some of the buildings there lie in a bad state. Leave a Comment Directions: On Antim Ivireanu Street, as you walk from the Palace of the Parliament to Unirea Square, the first street to the right, through the first break in the concrete blocks.
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The Old Court (“Curtea Veche”, open Wednesday – Sunday 10.00-18.00), located in the centre of the old town; it used to lie on the left bank of the river. In this area archaeological diggings have released proof of the existence of some 6th – 7th century cottages, as well as remains of a 14th century fortress. The building was about 160 sq. m. wide and also had a tower. In the times of Vlad the Impaler a new fortress was built, in rectangular shape and of over 600 sq. m. in shape, with many cellars. In the end of the 15th century the fortress was almost 1000 sq. m. wide, with the followers of Vlad the Impaler continuing his work (Basarab the Young, Mircea the Shepherd); the whole structure was much developed during the rule of Matei Basarab (1632-1654) and Constantin Brâncoveanu (1688-1714). In 1972, on the site of the former Princely Court there was inaugurated an open air museum with fragments from different stages of the fortress development. The museum can be also seen from outside, as there isn’t much to the back, but it can also be visited by entering.
Next to the museum there is the Curtea Veche Church, built in 1559 by Mircea the Shepherd and being Bucharest’s oldest church. The church was much deteriorated during the Turkish campaigns of 1595 and 1658-1659, it was subsequently restored in the beginning of the 18th century just to partially burn down during the 1804 and 1847 fires that desolated a wide part of Bucharest. The church got its actual looks after the 1928 and 1935 restoration works that brought it back close to the former looks. In the niches of the lateral walls belonging to the entrance one can still see a few original frescoes from the time of Stephen Cantacuzino (1714-1715). Leave a Comment Address: 23-31 Franceza StreetDirections: It lies just off Unirea Square
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A short while afterwards, on the same left side of the street we meet George Enescu Museum, hosted by a great and monumental building, Cantacuzino Palace (see my special tip for this building). Across the street from it there is the former Italian Legation, nowadays hosting the Art History Institute; the building was designed by architects Grigore Cerchez and Alexandre Clavel, a fine sample of the Eclectic style that was prevailing during the end of the 19th century, with Neoclassical decoration. Soon afterwards we enter Victoria Square in which there are also a few places to mention. To the left, between Ion Mihalache Avenue and Kiseleff Road there is Grigore Antipa Natural History Museum (as we enter from Victoria Avenue, we turn left, cross the tram lines, turn right and cross Titulescu Avenue on top of the passage, then cross once again the tram lines to the right and reach the Antipa). Farther up the Kiseleff there is the Romanian Peasant Museum and across the street from it there is the Geology Museum. See my special posts for them. After crossing Kiseleff Road and Aviatorilor Avenue, we can cast a look at the Romanian Government building (1937-1952, originally meant for the Foreign Affairs Ministry). Leave a Comment
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 University Library on Calea
Victoriei by Romanian_Bat, 4 more photosLeave a Comment
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Just across the street from Cretulescu Church there is the former headquarters of the Communist Party in Romania (“the Central Committee”), from the roof of which former President Ceausescu left Bucharest by helicopter in December 1989, just to be caught hours later. Across the street from the Royal Palace there is another building that suffered severely from the shooting in the 1989: the Central University Library (built in 1891-1893 by King Charles the 1st and which lost all its books, as well as all decorations and statues inside during the 1989 events). Then, to the right, we can notice possibly the most beautiful building in the whole city: the domed Ateneul Roman (The Romanian Athenaeum).
Continuing alongside Victory Avenue, we meet, just after the Athenaeum, the Athenee Palace Hilton Hotel (1912), formerly built in the French style and transformed in the 30s in the actual modernism outlook, it was the first building in Romania to be conceived on a reinforced concrete structure. Walking on the same side of the street, we soon meet a small church to the right: the White Church (18th century, bearing a great iconostasis, brought here from the Episcopie Church that used to lie in the place of the Romanian Athenaeum). After a short while, just before crossing Dacia Avenue, we meet a sample of the inter bellum architecture in Bucharest: the 1934-1941 former State Monopolies Building, nowadays hosting the Ministry of Industry and Trade. We cross the Dacia and meet to the right Plaza Casino, hosted in a very nice building, then, across the street, through the dense trees one can notice the Romanian Academy (1890) and soon another gambling paradise: Palace Casino, hosted by the elegant Vernescu House (built in the beginning of the 19th century). Leave a Comment
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Returning on Victory Avenue, we immediately cross Regina Elisabeta Avenue. To the left there is the “Cercul Militar National” (The National Army Club), a French neoclassical building with an imposing 21 m. tall facade and corrinthean columns (1912). To the right there soon appears Capsa Restaurant (established in 1881), one of the classical places in the inter bellum city (nowadays quite expensive) and then, behind Attaturk statue, there is one of the smallest and still loveliest theaters in Bucharest, Odeon Theatre. On the opposite side of the street there is the Phone Palace (the first high building in the city, built in 1933 by two American architects, Louis Weeks and Walter Froy) and on the right, one of the oldest hotels in the city, namely Continental Hotel (1886), currently closed for restoration (rumour has it that they will turn it into a Kempinski). Across the street from the Continental there is a strange building. Otherwise an ugly and misplaced glass covered box (I find even communist apartment buildings more appealing than these characterless glass covered boxes), they have recreated in front of it the old facade of the National Theatre, bombed in WW2 (and rebuilt in University Square).
Soon afterwards we enter the wide Revolution Square (Piata Revolutiei), which concentrates a few interesting buildings, also playing host to the 1989 revolution with most of the buildings here suffering from the shootings. The first to be noticed is Cretulescu Church (1720-1722) to our left, a typical monument built in the Brancoveanu style (the only sort of a Romanian architectural style, blending elements from the traditional households with a trace of baroque and the Orthodox church structure). On the same side of the street there is Romania’s finest museum and possibly the sole good legacy of the shooting, because it was damaged in such a way that they had to entirely refurbish it and therefore make it a modern museum: The Royal Palace (see my separate tip regarding to the Royal Palace / National Art Museum). Leave a Comment
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