Today Bucarest is mainly perceived through the massive social housing developments from the Ceaucescu dictatorship. Their esthetics and living conditions are commonly related to socialist modernism, industrial modernization, and the regulatory rationalities of modernism.
Ricado Bofill´s “Wage-earners' Versailles” in Paris, the “peoples palace” in Bucarest, and the Bofill-influenced housing projects built by Romanian architects follow the highmodernist passion for both massive spaces and perspectives and for uniformity. But the power of the straight line (always superior to the curve in modernism) is already broken by the confusion of curved facades, cultural artifacts, and antimodern/ postmodern styles.
When a Spanish architect becomes the state architect of France and his architectural style is mimiced on a large scale in Romania, is a particular European urbanism the result? Does Bofill’s influence create a “critical regionalism” obscured by block-ideology? How were these architectures perceived then in the eighties in Bucarest; what do they mean today to the people living there? What will be the impact of future urbanism in Bucharest?
Can the architectural setting of Bofill’s Paris megastructure Abraxas in Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil provide a critique of the rationalities of modernism through postmodern visual aesthetics and architectural logics?
What can we learn about recent Bucarest & Romanian architecture and urban developments by reviewing the postmodern infusions and visual collages of Brazil?
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