Tour: The Neo-Romanian style at its peak

Tour: The Neo-Romanian style at its peak

Valentin Mandache
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Dear readers,

I will organise an architectural tour this Sunday 8 March 2026, between the hours 11.30h – 13.30h, on the subject of the mature phase of the Neo-Romanian architectural style, when it reached a peak in terms of expression and development. That represents an extraordinary creative period, unfurled throughout the first three decades of the c20th, which produced the most iconic and accomplished edifices in this manner of architectural design specific to Romania and neighbouring regions where the country had influence. The Neo-Romanian style had thus became the most visible identity marker of this nation and is now considered its chief contribution to the world’s built heritage. Bucharest is the best endowed place with edifices in that architecture, with a great selection of buildings from the period when the Neo-Romanian reach its magnificence. The tour may be of interest to any of you working as expatriates here or visiting the town, looking to find out more about its fascinating historic architecture and identity.

The mature phase of the Neo-Romanian style was initiated with the Great Royal Jubilee Exhibition of 1906 in Bucharest, when the pavilions of that venue were designed according to rigorous tenets, and the style was thus first properly and eloquently presented to the wider public of

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Tour in west Cotroceni

Tour in west Cotroceni

Valentin Mandache
Cotroceni west-004
Medical Sciences University, west Cotroceni

Dear readers,

I would like to propose you an architectural history tour, in the western part of the picturesque Cotroceni quarter, which contains the grandiose edifices of the Medical Sciences University and the Palace of the President of Romania. The tour completes my series of distinct walks (east, central and west) covering this architecturally valuable area of Bucharest.

The event is scheduled to take place this Sunday 22 February 2026, between 11.30h – 13.30h. This cultural excursion could be of interest to any of you visiting Romania’s capital as a tourist or on business, looking to understand the character of this metropolis through discovering its peculiar and fascinating old architecture.

The most beautiful baroque revival style palace of Bucharest is the Medical Sciences University, the best such school in southeast Europe, designed by the Swiss architect Louis Blanc, and built in 1902, which is at the centre of west Cotroceni. Its aesthetics is auspiciously put into light by the the surrounding elegant built environment, one of the finest in the capital. You are thus going to sample, under my guidance, many of those examples, displaying a dazzling array of symbolism and messages, typical of the Neoromanian, the national architecture of this country, or the international Art Deco, Modernist and Mediterranean styles. The creators of many of those buildings were part of the golden generations of Romanian architects, people active mostly in the interwar period, when this part of Cotroceni was endowed with the bulk of its houses. Some of them are still

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Tour in Dacia area

Tour in Dacia area

Valentin Mandache
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Dear readers,

This is an invitation to an architectural history walking tour in the area centred on Dacia – Eminescu and Polona streets of Bucharest, endowed with some of the best quality historic architecture of Romania’s capital, open to all of you who would like to accompany me, the architectural historian Valentin Mandache, on Saturday 14 February 2026, between 11.30h – 13.30h.

I will be your guide in this distinguished Bucharest quarter, packed with impressive building designs, especially Neo-Romanian, belonging to its mature (such as the image on the left) and late flamboyant phases, along with Art Deco and Modernist designs. Dacia also encompasses Little Paris and a multitude of mixed style buildings of a powerful personality. The architects of many of these structures were from among the golden

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Tour: Kiseleff area & the late Neoromanian style

Tour: Kiseleff area & the late Neoromanian style

Valentin Mandache
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Dear readers,

I would like to invite you to a thematic walking tour this Sunday 8 February 2026, on the subject of the late phase of the Neo-Romanian architectural style, which unfurled mainly in the fourth and the fifth decades of the c20th, a period when this order peculiar to Romania reached a crisis in terms of expression, mitigated by a fascinating synthesis with the Art Deco, Mediterranean and Modernist styles. The tour takes two hours, between 11.30h – 13.30h, and it may be of interest to those of you visiting the city as a tourist or on business, looking to find out more about its enchanting historic architecture and identity.

The modern construction technologies that emerged in the roaring twenties affording the development of light, airy structures expressed in the Art Deco and Modernist architecture, were quite antithetical to the traditionally ornate, heavy-built Neo-Romanian style edifices, as typical to its early and mature phases. That led to a

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The Wallachian Style Portal

Valentin Mandache
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The Wallachian style portal of Saint Apostles Church in Bucharest, early 18th c

The Wallachian style is a remarkable synthesis between the Christian and Islamic art that emerged in a frontier Christian province of the Ottoman Empire, the Principality of Wallachia, corresponding to southern Romania today. It flourished from the later half of the 17th c until the early the early 19th c. 

Among the most remarkable creations of the Wallachian style are churches such as Stavropoleos in Bucharest or Horezu in southwestern Romania. 

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Stavropoleos church, Bucharest, 1724

One of the diagnostic elements of this style is the church portal (by which I mean its doorway, and not its faux narthex veranda). The portal is a design feature that was later adopted in the national-era Neo-Romanian style architecture. 

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Tour in Cismigiu area

Tour in Cismigiu area

Valentin Mandache
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Dear Readers,

I would like to invite you, in my quality as the author of Historic Houses or Romania – Case de Epoca blog, to an architectural history tour in Cismigiu area of Bucharest. This cultural excursion, open to all interested in Romania’s capital history and identity, is scheduled to take place this Sunday 4 January 2026, for two hours, between 11.30h – 13.30h.

I will be your guide throughout this beautiful expanse of Bucharest, which borders and includes the Cismigiu Gardens, the “Central Park” of this town, which is also its oldest surviving landscaped garden. The quarter boasts a balanced mix of architectures ranging from Little Paris, Art Nouveau, Neoromanian to Art Deco and interwar Modernism, and also representative church buildings, various species of neo-Gothic and Mediterranean styles. Cismigiu is packed with the remarkable creations of some of the most famous native and foreign born architects, active on the local market starting with the last decades of the c19th; personalities such as Giulio Magni, Oscar Maugsch, Horia and Ion Creanga, Ion and Tiberiu Niga, Nicolae Cucu, Gheorghe Simotta, Petre Antonescu or Emil Günes, to cite just some of them. All of these exceedingly interesting edifices and garden architecture are waiting to be discovered by you as part of this cultural excursion!

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How 2025 was for an architectural historian of Southeast Europe

Valentin Mandache

The past year has been challenging in many respects, shaped by the turbulence of national-populist politics in Europe and the United States, as well as by the anxieties generated by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, close both to my principal area of work and study, Southeast Europe, and to my base in Bucharest. As an independent scholar, these developments have had a direct and adverse impact on the market for my professional services, as my audience has understandably become more concerned with the pressing issues of the day and consequently less responsive to my research findings and educational work in architectural history.

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Independent scholar: architectural historian presenting to the public the built heritage of Southeast Europe

Despite all those headwinds, I was able to carry on successfully my activity as an architectural historian, which unfurled on five directions:

  1. Study trips
  2. Specialist guide for learned societies
  3. Bucharest architectural history tours
  4. Research
  5. Social media engagement
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Remarkable old buildings encountered and examined throughout 2025

In the following paragraphs I will give brief overviews of those directions emphasising my goals and outcomes.

1. Study trips

These are envisaged as short forays to locations in Europe and beyond that are significant for their architectural heritage and art museums, enabling me to remain professionally up to date and to verify in situ the theories and evidence on which I am currently working. In 2025, I undertook seven study

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The Rule of Three of the Art Deco Style

Valentin Mandache

Among the multitude of peculiarities of Art Deco design is the grouping of decorative and functional elements in threes on buildings or objects in this style. This contributes fundamentally to its architectural vocabulary. In the architectural commentariat, this is known as the Rule of Three, which traces its origins in the ancient Egyptian religion. 

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Art Deco door exhibiting the Rule of Three. Bucharest, Rosetti area, 1930s

Art Deco emerged on the architectural and arts scene in the mid-1920s as a truly global style. It made use of modern technologies such as reinforced concrete, steel and glass, available en masse for the first time in that period, to express its ethos through a large panoply of symbols and themes. These included the ocean-liner theme, with its flagpoles, portholes, streamlining, speed lines, and also ethnographic, Egyptian, Native American and other place-specific symbolism, together with many other motifs derived from the universe of the industrialising world of the third and forth decades of the twentieth century.

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Art Deco house in Dacia area of Bucharest, 1930s

The style enthusiastically absorbed the fashions and trends of its period, becoming a true expression of the interwar zeitgeist. One watershed moment was the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the early 1920s and the Egyptomania it generated in all walks of life. Lotus and other Nilotic flora, stylised pharaonic wigs, and ancient Egyptian symbolism were all the rage in the Art Deco as the

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Tour in Mantuleasa

Tour in Mantuleasa

Valentin Mandache

ImageDear Readers,

This is an invitation to an architectural history tour in Mantuleasa quarter of Bucharest, open to all of you who would like to accompany me, the author of the Historic Houses of Romania blog, this Sunday 21 December 2025, between the hours 14.00h – 16.00h.

I will be your guide in this fabled part of the old city, much talked about in the novels of Mircea Eliade, one of the brightest writers and historians ever produced by Romania, who spent there his childhood and early formative years. The quarter used to be one of the most ethnically mixed areas of Bucharest, endowed with a very diverse and exuberant period architecture ranging from beautiful Wallachian style churches, some dating from the late c17th, picturesque French c19th historicist and Read more →

Tour in Dorobanti area

Tour in Dorobanti area

Valentin Mandache

ImageDear readers,

This is an invitation to an architectural history tour in Dorobanti area of Bucharest: open to all of you who would like to accompany me, the author of the Historic Houses of Romania blog, this Sunday 14 December 2025, for two hours, between 11.30h – 13.30h.

I will be your guide through one of the architecturally most distinguished areas of Bucharest, in the same league with neighbouring Kiseleff in its quality of historic buildings. Dorobanti is brimful with architectural wonders, ranging from the finest Neo-Romanian to Art Deco style houses or hybrids between the two, to many other architectural designs. There are also some beautiful public monuments from the inter-war period Read more →