This assertion might look obvious; however, most people (and even part of the elites) do not value and do not connect affectively to the city where they live. The poor status of old buildings, the ubiquous mixture of historical parts and valueless wide areas generates a mostly negative image: to many people, Bucharest appears like a city with little history, lacking a special character out of which just a few streets, districts and buildings could be valued. This lack of valorization on behalf of society is just what becomes one of the main factors that have accounted for the past destruction and allows rude interventions nowadays.
In most circumstances, works about Bucharest defy this state of things by recalling an idealized past, a patriarchal “genuine Bucharest” opposing modernity, which may represent the spirit of the city.
However, arguments may be brought that the identity of a city does not express a frozen past, but a process that pertains to both architectural and urban shapes and social ones, while differences as compared to other cities do not necessarily mean a lack of genuine urban values, but maybe the fact that we are facing another type of urbanity.
On the side of scientific works about Bucharest, they usually harmonize with the boundaries of a field of study – architectural and urban, historical, sociological, anthropological research and focus therefore, on some accurate matters being less accessible. So far, there have been no signs on the issue of some large-size multidisciplinary works that offer a global image and bring out essential qualities (atlases, or urban histories elaborated by large groups). In their absence, I think there is a need of works attempting to describe some phenomena in a cross-disciplinary prospect and be accessible to a larger audience beyond the borders of the own field of interest.
It is actually the purpose of this survey which is not aiming at writing another history of Bucharest, yet offering a rigorous reading of some elements of identity of the city. Attempt is made on going over the borders of a strict architectural and urban approach by intermixing personal research and works from various disciplines studying the urban phenomenon.
Speaking about identity, you cannot get stuck in objective features; you have to contemplate the image of a site as well. For this reason, the work starts from common opinions and clichés – „the green city”, „a village-crowd”, „the larger village”, „the city of contrasts” and other of the kind – to find what is actually hiding behind. The work is aiming at devising a method of research to explain why Bucharest makes a difference and what would be the essential qualities deserving to preserve and continue.
The work expresses an evolution that has started from ideas the author expressed for the first time during advanced studies developed over the doctor’s degree preparation at „Ion Mincu“ University and in several articles and research projects. Meanwhile, the proposition of a research method including as basic elements the concepts of boundary and transparency have added to the reading of the city. It finds origins in a research of the city shape and reaches an interrogation on the existence of a housing culture specific to Bucharest.
The work focuses on the last 200 years. The city is contemplated not only within a Romanian background (like in most research works so far), but also in a regional setting – i.e. that of a Southeast European urbanity and through comparative analyses, that of the development features of the European metropolitan type.
Apart from the body subject of the research – i.e. Bucharest, this approach is aiming at assigning an original cross-disciplinary method of research. This method that starts from the shape to describe the society afterwards could be also used for other objects of research than the current one, i.e. Bucharest.
