In 2005, Mircea Cartarescu wrote beautifully and sadly: “a strictly personal drama: they’ve pulled down my mill! Who did it? No idea. What mill? My mill, “Dambovita” mill behind the block on Stefan cel Mare [Boulevard] where I lived for 25 years and where my folks still live. The mill in “Nostalgia” and “Orbitor”, the mill at whose shadow Mendebil would tell his fantastic stories. The mill which dominates my dreams, as huge as all mausoleums and docks of the world would have been placed together. The construction with a most impressive industrial architecture in the world.
How could I manage to tell you its importance for me? I have spent my childhoold under its magnetic shield curving the space around me. I have lived with the constant hum of its sieves. I have jumped over its fence at night and have run in the empty yard under the stars to touch with fingers its huge surface under the moon […] It was an old and noble building from the 19th century. Strong and thoughtful. A high facade up as in Chirico. In the civilized world, such buildings are not torn down. Facades are to be preserved and the interior is ultramodern redesigned. Best Western hotels and shops are like that. This building was for me alive, an archetype in my inner world, a rune in my alphabet. They have knocked it down stupidly, savagely, cruelly, uselessly… I am left with desolation only.”
Meanwhile, on the site of Dambovita Mill a residential area popped into view, with a density higher than that of the heavily criticised old Socialist “dormitories”. On the other side of the Circus Alley, Olmazu Mill was torn down last month, the place going to take a similar destination. Solaris sunflower oil factory near Obor Station is under the blade of bulldozers these very days, while Stella Soap Factory near Obor was already replaced by a known and standardized hypermarket. Left alone, Assan Mill, a historical monument, heroically resists the zeal of demolishers tacitly encouraged to demolish it.
This is briefly the sad story of a historical part of the first industrial circle of Bucharest on Stefan cel Mare – Obor – Colentina area. No one has tried to look for the value of those industrial sites, to understand if and which one could be reused to the benefit of the city or to take into account the unfortunate effects of intensive construction works at occupation and usage ratios highly over the maxim of a minimal urban comfort. The prospect of a swift profit on real estate seems to be the only reason for destroying major samples of the industrial architecture of the city.
This case is one example only, and such an attitude has turned into a rule in Bucharest, with few exceptions, and it is similar in cities like Timisoara, Cluj or Iasi, while its embryos are already present on industrial heritage landscapes such as in High Banat.
It is obvious that if risks faced by industrial heritage are seen as major internationally, in Romania they are severe. Outdated, losing its initial function, taking up important and “attractive” parts of the surface of cities, hardly explored, often seen as a reservoir of construction materials and metal and hardly getting the sympathy of the wide audience, industrial heritage is in real danger nationally. Though remarkable sites for the South Eastern European area are still preserved, the interests to explore them are at the very beginning and the very term of industrial archaeology is hardly acknowledged by the academia. The conservation, restoration, conversion of such sites are seldom taken into consideration and therefore decisions in favour of demolitions are frequent. Legal protection is not really effective – sites classified as historical monuments not being subject to formal demolition are often abandoned and encouraged to collapse, while authorities have no decisive intervention…
What could be done? International workshops of industrial archaeology taking place in Romania starting with 2001 have tried to answer this question. Industrial archaeology was also the topic of a recent debate and of a photo exhibition at the Romanian Cultural Institute.
The start should be a national survey of valuable industrial sites since the list of historical monuments has serious gaps (given a lack of “accuracy” for this topic in the early 1990). Classifying major sites may ensure their protection until more appropriate ways of recovering will have been identified. Strategies of urban development that often include friendly-environmental actions and rehabilitation of polluted industrial sites (often meaning demolition) may include an integration based on rehabilitation and restoration of valuable industrial architecture. Also, policies to protect the landscape should include conservation measures for traces of historical industries in areas with cultural value. Integrating the industrial heritage in cultural tourism would make the tourist offer more diverse. Landowners could be convinced that there are other kinds of solutions, with clear financial prospects. Former employees may also be involved while the audience may be attracted to save major cultural landmarks for our identity, “new” through a late raised awareness.
Authorities in charge are however hardly interested to implement such working ideas. There is an interest for the Romanian schools of architecture in line with international trends. This fact is reflected by the15 Romanian B.A. projects elaborated in Bucharest, Iasi, Cluj and Timisoara dedicated to recovering certain industrial sites and presented in the exhibition “Approaching Urban Industrial Landscape” (opened for the fifth workshop of industrial archaeology). Unfortunately, over half of the sites vanished or are to disappear…
Romanian civil society starts to react, timidly, but not too effectively. NGOs active in the field are to add the industrial heritage to the “classical” types of heritage yet material and human resources available for their protection are already insufficient.
The recently set up Association of Industrial Archaeology whose members organised lately various events such as those mentioned above; it aims to work as an active group dedicated to protect the industrial heritage, its research, able to stimulate the public debate and the reaction of authorities, to initiate viable projects that will value and restore industrial sites on a market that, for the moment, seems indifferent to such a theme.
Photo: Irina and Camil Iamandescu
English translation: Dana Radler
