Bucharest Centennial: Duiliu Marcu, an architect of modernist Bucharest

Romania-Insider.com has started a series of articles about Bucharest landmarks of architecture or history, which have witnessed the last century of what is now the Romanian capital, and noteworthy people who have helped build the Romanian capital as it is today. This project is supported by the Bucharest City Hall through the Public Monuments and Touristic Heritage Administration (AMPT), within the cultural program Bucharest-Centennial.

Check the full series of articles dedicated to the Centennial on Romania-Insider.com here. The author of 150 public and private constructions in Bucharest and in the country, Duiliu Marcu is one of the most important Romanian architects. His career, spanning from 1912 to 1966, reflects the evolution of local architecture in the first half of the 20thcentury, from the Neo-Romanian style and the preoccupation with the national characteristics, to modernism, which Marcu interpreted in a personal manner. Historically, it is the period when Great Romania was formed, following the 1918 Union, and of the development that followed, a period when four monarchs reigned and, later, the communist regime settled in. The architect himself described his activity as being divided into three stages, with most works developed before 1945. After this date, Marcu dedicated himself to teaching. He was a professor at the Ion Mincu Architecture Institute in Bucharest (1929-1957), a president of the Romanian Architects’ Union (1953-1966), and a member of the Romanian Academy, beginning with 1955. A first stage of his career, between 1912 and 1925, was that of “the works of classical conception.” The architect had returned from France, where he graduated from the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Among his teachers was Victor Laloux, the author of Orsay Station, hosting today the museum of the same name in the French capital. Having recently finished his studies and influenced by French academicism, Marcu collaborated with Nicolae Ghica-Budești on the project to expand the building of the University of Bucharest, the section dedicated to the Mathematics and Physics Faculty, between 1912 and 1913. Also, during this period, he worked on the house of engineer Constantin M. Vasilescu, the headquarters of the Romania Aero Club, on the Lascăr Catargiu Blvd. in the capital, and on two other residences in Craiova. In between 1920 and 1930, the architect created several constructions associated with the Neo-Romanian architecture, thus marking the stage of the “works of traditional architecture.” It was the period following the Great Union of 1918, and of the interest in rediscovering the local specificity in contemporary architecture. Marcu proposed the “Neo-Byzantine style” or “the Romanian architecture of tradition,” looking to identify the Byzantine influences and their regional interpretations in the Romanian provinces. Throughout this period, the architect designed several private residences in the capital and in the country, among them the Dr. Dobrovici House, also located on the Lascăr Catargiu Blvd., but also public buildings such as the Polytechnic School in Timișoara, the Capitol Cinema in the same city, and Romania’s Pavilion at the International Exhibition in Barcelona, in 1929. The third stage, and the richest one was that of the “works of modern Romanian architecture,” spanning from 1925 until the end of his career. Historians speak of a modernism distilled through his own vision. A representative edifice of the capital built in this period is the