Planning Capital Cities

290 Pages·2015·16.15 MB·English

Grigor Doytchinov, Aleksandra Đukić, Cătălina Ioniță (Eds.)
Planning Capital Cities
Belgrade
Bucharest
Sofia
Imprint
Editors: Doytchinov Grigor/Đukić Alexandra/Ioniță Cătălina
Title: Planning Capital Cities: Belgrade, Bucharest, Sofia
Publisher: Verlag der Technischen Universität Graz, www.ub.tugraz.at/Verlag
Graphic design: Martin Grabner, www.martingrabner.com
Print: www.primerate-druckerei.at
© 2015 Verlag der Technischen Universität Graz
ISBN: 978-3-85125-398-6
ISBN (e-book): 978-3-85125-399-3
DOI: 10.3217/978-3-85125-398-6
Cover illustration: Detail of the cadastral map of Sofia by Bartel, 1897. (Museum
of Sofia)
We would like to express our thanks to the Institute of Urbanism and the
Faculty of Architecture of the Graz University of Technology for the financial
support of the monograph.
We owe Georgi Petev, Nadin Nadja Schaupp, Ana Jeinic, Nelly Tsenova,
Alexandra Doytchinova a debt of gratitude for the assistance.

Table of contents
Table of contents
Hannes Swoboda
Foreword 6
Harald Heppner
Capital city as national vision at the Serbs, Bulgarians and 10
Romanians
Mirjana Roter Blagojević
The modernization and urban transformation of Belgrade in the 20
19th and early 20th century
Monica Sebestyen
Urban image and national representation: Bucharest in the 19th 44
and the beginning of the 20th century
Andreea Udrea
The first urban plans of Bucharest in the rise of the 20th century 62

Maria Duda
Shifts. A brief history of public plazas in central Bucharest 80
Hristo Ganchev, Grigor Doytchinov
Sofia before World War II: urban design as a cultural implication 98
Miruna Stroe
Bucharest’s urban planning instruments during the communist 116
regime: systematization sketches, plans, projects and interventions
4
Grigor Doytchinov
Designing Sofia’s city core in the context of the changing 140
ideological paradigm 1945-1989
Aleksandra Đukić
New Belgrade: visions, plans and realizations 1950-2014 160
Eva Vaništa Lazarević
Urban regeneration tools (city branding) in Belgrade after the 174
democratic change in 2000 – social frame
Milena Vukmirović
Belgrade: The quest for the desired city image 188
Nikola Samardžić
Belgrade 1714-2014: Utopianism and urbicide 212

Angelica Stan
Urban expansion in Bucharest, after 1990: errors and benefits 224
Mihai Alexandru
Urban planning through major planning documents after 1999: 234
urban centrality between vision and reality
Yani Valkanov
Suburbanisation in Sofia: changing the spatial structure of a post- 248
communist city
Grigor Doytchinov, Aleksandra Đukić, Cătălina Ioniță
The urbanism of Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia - analogies, 264
influences and differentiations
Abstracts 272
The authors/editors in alphabetic order 288
5
Hannes Swoboda

Foreword
The subject of this very timely and interesting publication is the development
and urbanism of the three capital cities Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia. These
capitals are located in a region, which is often neglected and rarely in the focus
of the European scientific and political attention. Interestingly, they are the
capitals of two EU member countries, Bulgaria and Romania, and of a candidate
country, Serbia. This fact shows the artificial and spiritual boundaries we are
still confronted with in Europe.
The regional neighborhood and the approximately comparable historic
background make the three cities a unite object of research. Their development
is closely connected to the delayed nation building process and the nomination
for capitals. This is especially true for the unification and transition of different
regions into the new state of Romania. But it is also true for the other two
countries in their fight for sovereignty. It is not by chance, that often in the past,
but sometimes even today, the name of the capital is used when reference
is made to the state. Therefore today‘s capitals are synonymous for their
respective nations and the state as a whole. They represent and symbolize the
successful formation of the nation by bringing together different people and
cultures into one state and a capital where the government and the important
institutions are located.
One of the big questions for the future of all capital cities is their role
in a common Europe without borders on the one hand and the ongoing
globalization on the other. Cities in general and capital cities in specific will
have to find new roles and tasks. With a growing urbanization worldwide they
will be more and more defining our living conditions, irrespective of national
boundaries and historic identities. They must be able to bring together
people of different cultural origins and different lifestyles and to create a
future, out of their diverse past, which is accepting and promoting diversity
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Foreword
in unity. It is the inherited heterogeneity of Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia
which characterizes them, but which could be seen as a potential to master
the future.
Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia have their own characteristics and phases
of development. The Ottoman political and cultural influence is one of the
most interesting commonalities in the urban history and is still visible today.
It makes the three capitals comparable and distinguishes them from the art
of organizing the western European cities. There are many common issues of
development after the achieving of the national sovereignty in the 19th century:
the speed of urban growth, the prompt change of the cultural paradigm and
the implementation of the western European urbanism and urban models.
Romania’s connection to France and also to other countries from the Roman
language family is well known. Sofia and Belgrade have had special relations
to Central Europe, especially to Austria and Vienna. Many Austrian architects
practiced for example in Bulgaria establishing the academic architecture and
urbanism. The relations between Belgrade and Vienna were not always easy,
but Vienna was often the place to give asylum to Serbs, from Vuk Karadic
to Bogdan Bogdanovic. All three capitals examine an analogue shift to the
modernistic ideas in the period between the world wars. They have a valuable
stock of historic buildings from this period which needs to be renovated and
integrated into the modern city, capable to master the future.
The post-war period is characterized by ambivalences caused by the
differentiation of the socialist political systems. However, the traces of the
socialist modernity are omnipresent in the cityscapes of Belgrade, Bucharest
and Sofia, forming a specific heritage. The cityscapes are also affected by some
buildings from this period, mostly for housing, but also by buildings of political
representation, especially in the case of Bucharest. Today these buildings
create a lot of problems for the integrated urban planning and development.
An additional issue concerning all the three capitals is the underdeveloped
public transportation system.
In spite of many links to Central and Western Europe all the three countries
and their capitals still have to fight today for recognition and acceptance. Their
urban images are connected in the mind and perception of many “westerners”
with poverty, backwardness and corruption. But instead of arrogance we would
need to exchange ideas and visions about the future and offer understanding,
support and help. A special task is for example the integration of the Roma
population we have to solve in Bucharest, Sofia and Belgrade. I have seen
horrible situations, but also extraordinary successful pilot projects. I have met
a lot of engaged citizens, but I have also seen a lack of courage of some city
officials to improve the situation of poverty and discrimination. In a united
Europe with more or less open borders this is a European issue and not only
one of the three countries and their capitals.
7
Hannes Swoboda
Each of these capitals has its peculiarities and its own atmospheres. My first
visits to all three cities took place after the political changes 1989. Perhaps
in their “chaotic”, contradictory and sometimes neglected ambiance they
were and maybe they still are expressing a special amalgam of backwardness
and modernity, bourgeois and proletarian forms of life and housing. These
characteristics and structures are closer situated to each other than in any
other cities of Western Europe. It will be an enormous task to transfer and
to link the inherited backwardness to the present and to promote modern
structures without destruction of valuable ingredients of the past. A high
degree of sensitivity will be necessary to manage this transformation.
Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia could be a different kind of “smart cities”, where
modern technologies should not substitute, but complement the long historic
development with all its benefits but also wounds and scars.
I want to thank all the authors and editors, in particular Grigor Doytchinov,
for their engagement. They present in their contributions an overview of
the historical development as a basis for reflections about the past and the
future, which each one of the capital cities must define and implement as a
sophisticated and innovative continuation of the past.
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Foreword
9
Harald Heppner
Capital city as national vision at the Serbs,
Bulgarians and Romanians
Introduction
When tackling the issue of capital cities in the national vision of the Serbs,
Bulgarians and Romanians, it is necessary at the outset to reflect on how far
and in which way a particular area eventually comes to constitute that vision
of a nation state comprehensible to the respective population. Should one
not wish to fall into the trap of nationalism, according to which the nation has
always existed and exerts a right to a particular territory, one must be aware
that there is a complex process in which components sometimes together,
sometimes separate, define the nation-state model and attribute a normative
power to it.1
Serbian, Bulgarian and Romanian ‘lands’ are like all lands with national
characteristics fictional, because 1. The geographical area under consideration
gives no indication as to its ‘owner’; 2. Countless systems and regimes of rule
have overlapped and claimed these territories throughout history leaving
behind no discernible national characteristics; 3. in pre-modern times, regional
organization and structures of consciousness possessed no national character,
directly contradicting notions of an inherent nationalism. The continuity of
settlements throughout history does likewise not legitimize any claim to those
areas in question because, 1. Within each settlement, large tracts of territory
were not occupied (mountain, forests, wetlands), 2. The people inhabiting
these areas mixed continuously, 3. The inhabitants could not possibly be
aware of their belonging to a particular nation (the concept of which was
not invented until much later), and 4. Language, one of the most important
criterion in distinguishing national identity was, in the case of settlements not
codified or reformed until much later and therefore cannot be interpreted as
endemic of any national language in the strict sense of our understanding of
the concept.
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