{"id":13462,"date":"2023-05-18T14:10:05","date_gmt":"2023-05-18T14:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e-zeppelin.ro\/en\/?p=13462"},"modified":"2023-05-18T14:23:11","modified_gmt":"2023-05-18T14:23:11","slug":"interior-design-triggers-rehabilitation-the-block-of-flats-at-1-sf-stefan-square-bucharest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e-zeppelin.ro\/en\/interior-design-triggers-rehabilitation-the-block-of-flats-at-1-sf-stefan-square-bucharest\/","title":{"rendered":"Interior design triggers rehabilitation. The block of flats at 1, Sf. \u0218tefan Square, Bucharest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The restoration history of the building with few apartments at 1, Sf. Ștefan square, Bucharest, <\/span>and the remodelling and lay-out of its attic is, in itself, anything but spectacular. <\/span><\/span>Its results are those of a normal course of things, of moderate-budget, not overly complicated, works, which should be done periodically on any building. Yet the frequency with which we encounter, in Bucharest, a coherent restoration of a Modernist building belonging to several owners – therefore, without the support of city halls, and entailing the initiative and responsible cooperation of a group of inhabitants – makes such an accomplishment fall under the extra-ordinary, it gathers over 500 likes a day^{1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and the admiration of those who know what this adventure, full of bureaucratic and inter-human obstacles, requires.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n}

Text: Ilinca Păun Constantinescu<\/strong>
\nPhoto: Tudor Constantinescu<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Art Deco heritage of Bucharest is quite widespread and rich in typology (public buildings, offices, hotels and residential buildings of varying densities and heights), and it takes extremely varied and playful stylistic shapes. This is because, as Mihaela Criticos^{2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> puts it, this form of gentle Modernism, at the same time eager for progress and tolerant to tradition, was perhaps the most appropriate for Bucharest in the interwar period. Today’s precarious state of this heritage and the small successive individual changes, such as balcony enclosures, roof framing changes, burying the delicate facade ornaments under polystyrene, sometimes render the initial compositions unrecognizable. Of course, degradation in the sense of not having had any renovation since they were built is still an opportunity to see parts of the original finishing and details. But this also falls under the sign of precariousness. In this respect, the newly-launched plastering recipe book of inter-war Bucharest, produced by the Pro Patrimonio foundation}^{3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>, comes at the right time for the future restorations, and partially replaces a necessary institutional endeavour.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n}

The apartment building in Sf. Ștefan Square is a representative of residential typology, a “Modernist little block of flats”, which articulates the fronts of the Popa Soare St. and of the Sf. Ștefan Square in the Jewish Quarter. Set in a minor, yet deep and rather well preserved fabric, from an urbanistic standpoint, the block rests in a small respite provided by the widening of the intersection and by the Sf. Ștefan park, and plays well on its role of end-of-perspective as seen from Popa Soare, through the soft monumentality of its symmetrical facade, with its vertical and horizontal play of lines, characteristic of a crystallized Art Deco (as we were to later find out from a brick unveiled during the works, bearing the alleged year of the initial construction site, 1932). A seductive image, which could only captivate us as well, in the autumn of 2013, when we were contacted by the owner of the block’s attic, Damiana Oțoiu, to remodel this space which functioned as storage, except for some rooms used by the house servants in the past. I remember the disjunction in the building’s logic, which I felt when I first climbed to the last floor. The modern facade and the high gables hide a very traditional roof-structure. Inside, you felt in a completely different world, no longer modern. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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$\"SONY$ <\/a>*<\/em>The building before rehabilitation<\/em> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n