Matei Bogoescu _ Bucharest 2025. A new paradigm.

> BUCHAREST 2025 A NEW PARADIGM 12 TOOLS 3 CONJECTURES 1 VISION 1 STRATEGY

Matei Bogoescu, Master Thesis, 2010

> BUCHAREST 2025 A NEW PARADIGM 12 TOOLS 3 CONJECTURES 1 VISION 1 STRATEGY

Matei Bogoescu, Master Thesis This thesis has been produced with the guidance of the mentors:

Prof. Dr. Ir. Stephen Read

TU Delft-Faculty of Architecture Department of Urbanism Chair of Spatial Planning & Strategy

Prof. Ir. Daan Zandbelt

TU Delft-Faculty of Architecture Department of Urbanism Chair of Metropolitan and Regional Design and was reviewed by the readers:

Prof. Dr. Bernardo Secchi

UniversitĂ IUAV di Venezia Faculty of Urban and Regional Planning

Prof. Dr. Kelly Shannon

KU Leuven - Faculty of Engineering Department of Architecture, Urbanism and Planning

European Postgraduate Master in Urbanism Strategies and design for cities and territories TU Delft- Faculty of Architecture August 2010

FOREWORD

I would like to thank a number of people that have helped me to arrive at the end of this Master Thesis.

I would like first to address my gratitude to my partner Maria Sheherazade Giudici that has always been there for me in the most difficult times (always an inspiration and a great mind). Your criticism was very important for this thesis.

I would also like to thank my family and especially my sister, Mara Bogoescu that has helped me through the last days of this thesis.

Last but not least, I would like to thank those who guided me in this two short years towards a better understanding of what urbanism really is: Firstly my mentors: Stephen Read and Daan Zandbelt which had a wonderful patience and stood by me during these sometimes pleasant, sometimes difficult months.

Secondly the other professors that have tought me in the EMU programme: Henko Bekkerring, Han Meyer, Vincent Nadin, Akkelies van Nes, Meta Berghauser Pont, Roberto Rocco, Remon Rooij, Bernardo Secchi, Paola Vigano. My thanks and deep appreciation go to all of you.

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

0 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

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3 BUCHAREST AS PALIMPSEST

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INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

0.1 PREMISE

4 BUCHAREST - 3 CONJECTURES

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4.0 BUCHAREST 3 CONJECTURES AND NEW SPATIAL LAYERS

3.0 STREET NETWORK EVOLUTION 1800 - 2005

4.1 ARCHIPELAGO CITY [MOBILITY]

3.1 THE OTTOMAN CITY 1700 - 1859

4.2 RING CITY [PRODUCTION]

3.2 PARIS OF THE EAST 1859 - 1918

4.3 PARK CITY [OPENSPACE]

3.3 EUROPEAN MODERNITY 1918 - 1947

5 BUCHAREST - 6 CASE STUDIES

3.4 PROGRESSIVE COMMUNISM 1947 - 1974

5.1 THE LINEAR PARK [ARCHIPELAGO CITY]

3.5 ENTR’ACTE 1971,74,77

5.2 THE PLINTH [ARCHIPELAGO CITY]

1.1 TWELVE POST SOCIALIST CAPITALS

3.6 URBICIDE 1974 - 1989

5.3 POLARIZED CLUSTER [RING CITY - CORPORATE RING]

1.2 THREE CONFLICTS

3.7 TRANSITION 1989 - ?

5.4 FORT(RESS) [RING CITY - EDGE RING]

1.3 THREE CONCLUSIONS

3.8 FORMA URBIS 1800 - 2005

5.5 WATERPARK [PARK CITY]

3.9 TOOLS PREVIOUSLY USED TO STRUCTURE BUCHAREST

5.6 INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE PARK [PARK CITY]

0.2 WHY BUCHAREST? WHY THE POST-SOCIALIST CITY? 0.3 WHAT KIND OF RESEARCH? WHAT KIND OF PROJECT? 1 BUCHAREST AS POST SOCIALIST CITY

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INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

2 BUCHAREST AS COMPACT CITY INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

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AND THEIR CONTEMPORARY INTERPRETATION

6 BUCHAREST - VISION & STRATEGY

2.1 BUCHAREST AND ITS TERRITORY

3.10 TOOLS GENEALOGY

6.1 THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FINAL VISION

2.2 REGIONAL PATTERNS

3.11 TOOLS MATRIX & TEST CASES - NEW TOOLS GENERATION

6.2 SMALL SCALE STRATEGY [TOOL MATRIX]

2.3 THE METROPOLITAN AREA [BMA]

6.3 LARGE SCALE STRATEGY [CONJECTURES]

2.4 PROJECT AREA

7 GENERAL CONCLUSION

2.5 CONCLUSIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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137

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ANNEXES 1,2

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

‘We live in a city that we do not understand and therefore we are unable to care for it and to protect it from futures that should of stayed forever unknown. Through our additions and improvements, we are forever ruining that character which, in spite of many shortages, was making the city interesting to the foreigners that came to visit.’

(Nicolae Iorga, Historian, 1930) ‘Bucharest is the final expression of the cohabitation of contrasts!

And this cohabitation is a rare historical constant of a city that put itself together with great difficulty and tried desperately to develop a personality.’

(Adrian Majuru, Historian, 2003) ‘To be conscious is not to be in time But only in time can the moment in the rose garden, The moment in the arbour where the rain beat, Be remembered; involved with past and future.

Only through time, time is conquered.’

(T.S.Eliot, Four quartets, ).

0/ GENERAL INTRODUCTION Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

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0.1 PREMISE*

After the 1989 revolutions eliminated the ‘infamous’ Iron Curtain that divided Europe for over 40 years, the Eastern European block started an accelerated development to match the economies of Western Europe. This process unraveled very fast, under the immense pressure of free market, culminating with the European Union enlargement in two stages (2004 and 2007), transforming a geographical and historical evidence into a spatial reality. Called the biggest enlargement ever, this event propelled ex-socialist countries with different levels of development into a vast spatial complexity of networks concerning both rural and urban settlements. Coming from decades of centralized planning and political-based top-down approach, the new European territories present numerous management problems.

The Eastern European capitals represent not only the main economic and investment gateways for their respective countries, but they are also arenas where ideology, super-fast development, and extreme spatial changes are manifested. After 1989, centrifugal forces generated by rapid privatization, suburbanization and shrinking of public space, have fragmented the centralized hierarchy of these cities; a transition phase between two very different models of urban development started, and in many cases a new paradigm for further development and growth has yet to appear.

The aim of this thesis is to evaluate how infrastructure and open-space can contribute to steer development

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within this type of urban setting, by re-creating a coherent image of the city and becoming reference frameworks for future evolution. The testing ground of this thesis will be Bucharest, capital city of Romania.

Among eastern European capital cities, Bucharest is possibly one of the most controversial examples of post-socialist metropolis. Being the centre of national representation in the years previous to the second world war, the spatial core of the ideological change from capitalism to socialism during 40 years of communist regime, and playground for chaotic neo-liberal development after 1989, Bucharest is hardly present within the European urban debate due to lack of information regarding its transformation and weak long-term planning strategies.

Bucharest is an urban palimpsest, its spatial characteristics bearing the trace of all ideological changes within its urban fabric. Its accelerated development in two stages (1850s- 1930s and 1950s-1989) generated a superposition of fragmented urban projects (signs of various stages of modernity) that were never finished. These stages in its evolution were generated by advances in technology and therefore the reformulation of the infrastructural framework, and changes in the perception of open-spaces as main arenas of publicness.

After 1989, the inability of the City to produce a new infrastructural paradigm and its careless treatment of the open-space through market speculation produced chaotic development, extreme fragmentation, lack of public space,

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

and last but most important, the lack of public thrust in planners.

With this problem setting in mind there are a few questions that become the backbone of this thesis: How could we use infrastructure and open-space to describe the future of Bucharest?

Can they act as frameworks to produce a new paradigm for the city?

Can Bucharest become a testing ground for conjectures that become relevant at a wider scale?

These are the main questions to which this thesis research should be able to answer. By developing conjectures illustrating how Bucharest could be shaped around infrastructure and open-space, the ambition of this work is to produce guidelines and tools for an isotropic and permeable Bucharest.

center: People’s House and Unirii Boulevard the monumental axis and the cardboard urbanism source: Bucuresti 2000 International Competition Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

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0.2 WHY BUCHAREST? WHY THE POST-SOCIALIST CITY?

Twenty years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the postsocialist city seems on its way to successfully transform into its European, capitalist counterpart. Urban studies have analysed in depth how this transition affects both society and built environment, and, beyond some teething problems, the post socialist city appears indeed to be today almost all right. Once the testing ground of extreme social engineering, these cities become increasingly marginal in the contemporary architectural discourse as their marketdriven transformations fail to offer any kind of alternative to the well established spatial commonplaces of the Western city at large.

The post-socialist city is somehow undergoing the same transformation of the Western cities, only in a much shorter time span –and, surely, starting from a very different ideological framework. However, the decay of industry, the dissolution of the nuclear family, and the rise of carbased mobility had enormous influence on both Western and Eastern cities, with the notable difference that behind the Iron Curtain these issues appeared suddenly and thus generated very visible results on the morphology of the city itself.

Between the Iron Curtain capitals, Bucharest is a textbook case of former socialist laboratory that has been colonised by international investors in the few years since it joined the European Union. While up to five years ago Bucharest’s condition seemed to be problematic yet rife with potential, its current situation inspires only stale debates over the overpowering diffusion of a Westernised lifestyle.

Bucharest is today an archipelago of mismatched fragments where the large-scale housing estate of the socialist Golden Age clash with a proliferation of office clusters, gated communities and shopping malls. This situation is commonly seen as ‘bad but unavoidable’, and, quite simply, totally uninteresting. But the paradigmatic value of the post-socialist city in the contemporary context lies precisely in the juxtaposition of the clichés of capitalist urban space with the environments produced by the project of ideology.

Both urban thinkers and politicians fail to see the extraordinary opportunity that this transition offers. It is in fact an opportunity to formulate spatial paradigms that can be relevant not only to the post-socialist city, but to the European city in general. As the dynamics of both life and work changed enormously in the last decades, the modern city as we knew it is not able to cope anymore with the modes of production of immaterial, knowledge-based labour.

Democracy and free market imported in Bucharest one main spatial product that is all the more powerful since it can be applied to whatever program: the enclave. Between the monumental axes of the regime and the system of enclaves generated by the introduction of a new form of economy, the post-socialist city entered an apparent stalemate. This thesis will argue that this condition might become the chance of reformulating new forms of urbanity for the European city.

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

It is time to accept that a fundamental shift is happening in all of our cities, as the meaning of mobility, production and public space has radically evolved since the midtwentieth century modernist dogmas were first formulated.

These shift are all the more visible in the post-socialist countries, where an accelerated development generates an unprecedented pressure over urban dynamics.

but also because it has been from the start an extraordinary place of transition, the threshold between East and West, Christianity and Ottoman empire, Latin culture and Slavic world. In its liminal position, Bucharest will be assumed as paradigmatic case of post-socialist laboratory to expose the potential of the contemporary urban condition.

Self-sufficient enclaves are extremely successful in such an unstable scenario, as it provides investors with a product that does not depend too much on external conditions.

However, the thesis will try to argue that other solutions can exploit the existing potential to generate new urban intensity rather than merely securing clear perimeters to defend certain activities from a city that is sinking into chaos.

As much as we would like to believe that the Western city is immune from the rise of the enclave and the dissolution of traditional urban anatomy, all signs point to the contrary. Therefore, the capitals of the Iron Curtain can become the laboratory for contemporary paradigms that might apply to Western cities as well.

Thought-provoking proposals can emerge precisely from the gray areas that are considered marginal, but that are actually undergoing crucial transformations in an extreme petri dish-like condition.

Post-socialist cities lie today at the periphery of the Empire, and between them, Bucharest is surely one of the most peripheric –not only because of its struggling economy,

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

center: Bucuresti Mall a giant entertainment and retail structure built upon the structure of a communist Hunger Circus.

Hunger Circus commonspace where people get together for daily meals during the last years of the communist regime source: www. romanialibera.ro

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0.3 WHAT KIND OF ANALYSIS? WHAT KIND OF PROJECT?

The post-socialist city is the place where the dormant conflicts of the current condition become visible; as such, it can become a possible testing ground for alternative spatial and infrastructural solutions. Between the Iron Curtain capitals, the thesis will focus on Bucharest as exemplary case of this general condition.

The choice of Bucharest is not casual; because of its mixed blood character, its lack of strong territorial features, and its fragmented urban morphology, Bucharest has proved pliant to several major urban resemantisations in the last two centuries, and will therefore serve as ideal springboard for the development of new strategic tools.

The thesis will be divided in a preliminary research and a strategic proposal for the city of Bucharest. Both the research and the proposal are structured around three main themes that reflect the key features to rethink in the contemporary city: the system of mobility as backbone of the urban structure, the transition from industrial activities to the production of services., and the public open space and its potential in the era of enclaves.

The discourse on housing, public housing and living densities is of course present throughout the thesis as the basis of the construction of Bucharest. But as the last decade has shown, there is little or no possibility to influence directly what has become an entirely market-driven activity.

A strategy for the post-socialist city should therefore try to guide the development through key infrastructural interventions rather than relying on traditional zoning projects.

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What a large-scale strategy can and should do, is encourage new declensions of traditional programs and increase interaction and proximity of working and living spaces. Through a restructuring of open public space and infrastructure, the decaying former industrial areas can be transformed into environments where productive and residential activities mix while generating new forms of urbanity.

With these three aspects as leitmotiv of the whole thesis, the research will be structured in three steps: First, a reading of the conflicts of the post-socialist city that will uncover also its hidden potential and underline the paradigmatic value of Bucharest’s case in a wider scenario.

Secondly, an analysis of the territorial condition of Bucharest aimed at understanding its main charachters – namely, high density and structural fragmentation.

Lastly, a synthetic retracing of the genealogy of mobility, public areas and productive space in the last two century of Bucharest’s history.

Through the genealogy of the three main themes, the thesis tries to reconstruct the urban grammar of Bucharest, a grammar that is hardly understandable in the extremely complex and chaotic canvas the city presents today.

Bucharest is a palimpsest; a rereading of its history can have a pro-active value only if it is aimed at building a

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

MOBILITY

vocabulary for the city and at establishing a continuity of sorts between the evolution of the city and the proposal of future strategies. This continuity should not be considered in a literal or historical way; it is a matter of letting the existing anatomy of the city emerge rather than overlapping another superfluous layer.

wished to become more accessible, efficient, vibrant, and open to the enjoyment of the citizens: I believe there is no reason it cannot become just like that.

As to how this anatomy can emerge, in the second part of the thesis I will try to put forward possible conjectures related to the three urban themes and aimed at rediscovering the potential of the city. In the conjectures, mobility, public open space and mixity will be treated as crucial aspects of an urban condition in transition, therefore addressing the contemporary city at large through Bucharest as specific extreme case of democratic, post-industrial, neo-liberal capital.

PRODUCTION

While this might seem a paradoxical definition for an East European city, Bucharest is all of these things. It is a European capital – only it has been produced in less than two decades rather than through a gradual process of hundreds of years, a fact that causes all of its conflicts to be all the more violent, all of its failures all the more evident.

The project will therefore develop a new take on the three main urban features that the research has outlined, and put forward alternatives to the proliferation of enclaves that is shaping the city today. While one can argue that there is nothing wrong in enclaves per se, I believe architects and planners should be able to open up new, more ambitious perspectives for the city. Ultimately, Bucharest

OPENSPACE Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

top: metro station in the morning Bucharest (1980) source: www.muzeuldefotografie.ro middle: 23 august industrial platform Bucharest (1973) source: Bukres Blog, http://bukresh.blogspot.com bottom: recreation park in the middle of the new housing estates, Bucharest (1973) source: Institutul Proiect Bucuresti (IPB), 1975

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‘Capitalist urbanization occurs within the confines of the community of money, is framed by the concrete abstraction of space and time, and internalizes all the vigor and turbulence of the circulation of capital under the ambiguous and often shaky surveillance of the state’ (Harvey, Consciousness and the Urban Experience, 1985) ‘What happened in the twentieth century with east European and east central European cities was indeed a remarkable experiment.

The results of this experiment were however not yet fully reflected and exploited by urban theory that should try to understand deeper layers of contemporary European city structures.’

(Jirí Musil, Why socialist and post-socialist cities are important for forward looking urban studies, 2005) While the built environment is constantly evolving, the dynamics of urban change vary in speed and character. Some periods are characterized by a continuation of existing trends and traditions, accumulating slow evolutionary changes. Others are much more turbulent, condensing significant transformations within short stretches of time. The latter are known as periods of paradigm shifts and revolutionary changes, and there are many reasons to believe that the years since 1989 mark such a period in the history of Central and Eastern Europe. (Kiril Stanilov, 2007)

12 POST SOCIALIST CAPITALS 3 CONFLICTS 3 CONCLUSIONS

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

This chapter is dedicated to the effects produced in Eastern Europe and particularly in Bucharest by the transition from a centralized socialist structure to a capitalist neoliberal organization.

The maps and the data were produced using the following sources: URGENCIES:

CONFLICTS:

URGENCIES AND CONFLICTS are the two categories that are studied following the triad: mobility/ production/openspace at different scales.

European Commission: Mobility and Transport division - Pan European Corridors http://ec.europa.eu/transport/infrastructure/ extending_networks/pan-european_corridors_ en.htm

National Institute of Statistics http://www.insse.ro/cms/rw/pages/index.ro.do

European Union - CIA - The World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworld-factbook/geos/ee.html

Kiril Stanilov, The Post-Socialist City Springerlink, 2007

Firstly we will quickly pass through a series of URGENCIES common to all the Post-Socialist Capital Cities in Eastern Europe . A series of 12 cities was chosen for this comparative analysis.

Secondly we will review the mobility, production and openspace related CONFLICTS that were generated by the post-socialist condition, focusing on Bucharest as a case study.

Thirdly we will arrive to conclusions regarding the ability of the present planning tools to cope with these URGENCIES and CONFLICTS

Urban Audit http://www.urbanaudit.org/rank.aspx

ESPON: European Observation Network, Territorial Development and Cohesion http://www.espon.eu/ Urban Audit http://www.urbanaudit.org/rank.aspx

1/ BUCHAREST AS POST-SOCIALIST CITY Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

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1.1 TWELVE POST-SOCIALIST CAPITALS

‘Urban changes brought by the collapse of communist regimes in the former socialist countries are as important as changes induced by the establishment of these regimes. They seem to be even more intensive, due to the fact that they comprise two simultaneously running transformations. One is the complex of transformations from an authoritarian, non-pluralistic political system to a democratic and pluralistic one and from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. The other are changes brought by globalization processes.’

(Jirí Musil, Why socialist and post-socialist cities are important for forward looking urban studies, 2005)

left: The former Iron Curtain (red) EU27 (gray) 12 post-socialist capital cities source: Matei Bogoescu

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

1.1.1 URGENCY #1 CONNECTION [MOBILITY]

One of the urgencies to which post-socialist capital cities must respond today is the connection to Western Europe and a general improvement of the accessibility in order to attract direct foreign investment.

At european scale an answer to this imperative is the project of the Pan-European Corridors.

However, is critical to investigate what spatial effects will these pan european corridors generate at the smaller levels of the metropolitan area or city scale.

‘The important role of transport infrastructure for spatial development in its most simplified form implies that areas with better access to the locations of input materials and markets will be more productive, more competitive and hence more successful than more remote and isolated areas (see Linneker, 1997). This relationship has been taken up in the European Spatial Development Perspective which gives improvements in accessibility a high priority as a policy target: ‘Good accessibility of European regions improves not only their competitive position but also the competitiveness of Europe as a whole’ (ESDP 1999, 69).’

(Klaus Spiekermann, Jörg Neubauer, European Accessibility and Peripherality: Concepts, Models and Indicators, 2002) right: The Pan European Corridors the new Eastern European network connecting post socialist capital cities to Western Europe source: Matei Bogoescu [European commission, ESPON]

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

_new paneuropean corridors

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1.1.2 URGENCY #2 ECONOMY [PRODUCTION]

The post-socialist capital cities are development engines for their countries.

Their higher accessibility and relevance at national level make them a prime target for direct foreign investment and therefore subject to an extreme change in production patterns from an industry based economy to a service economy.

In Europe, capital cities as well as other big cities play a decisive role as engines of development for the regions surrounding them and in some cases, of the whole country. They offer important potentials to solve problems of these regions.

The stronger their problem solving capacity is, the better they function as development engines for regions lagging behind and for urban areas in difficulties within the cities. Investing in the problem solving capacity of capital cities and other big cities means creating better opportunities for enhancing the development of urban areas in difficulties within the cities and of less developed regions (potential based approach).

(Warsaw Declaration, The Role of Capital Cities in Implementing the EU - Cohesion Policy nowadays and after the Year 2006, 2003)

left: Matrix of post-socialist capitals with general data and the percentage of national GDP source: European Union CIA World Factbook

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

1.1.3 URGENCY #3 RE-CONVERSION [OPENSPACE]

Large chunks of the post-socialist city have been designed to work in closed circuit, especially through the construction of the large housing estates, that are not adapted to the the mobility and flexibility requirements of the contemporary city.

The public openspaces of the socialist society are as obsolete today as the those of the bourgeois society that preceded it.

The rate of the post-socialist urban changes is striking, leading to radical transformations in the character of the Central and Eastern European cities. Fromhigh-density, monocentric settlements, dominated by high-rise public housing and communal modes of transportation, the CEE cities are being transformed into sprawling, multi-nodal metropolitan areas reaching extreme levels of privatization of housing, services, transportation, and public space. Privatization has become ‘the leitmotiv of post-socialist urban change’ (Bodnar, 2001)

right: Matrix of post-socialist capitals showing the percentage of the population living in large housing estates source: Urban Audit

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

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1.1.4 EXTREME CASES

Warsaw, Bucharest and Sofia are the post-socialist capital cities with the largest share of population housed in monofunctional neigbourhoods of prefabricated blocks.

‘Approximately 70% of Bucharest’ inhabitants live in large housing estates built during the communist regime. The public authorities have proceeded to a shameful retreat from the management of these urban territories and owners associations do not have the capacity to deal with all the problems related to the collective living conditions. The communities are characterized by nonfunctional mixity and do not form a true community of interest and values. Atomization of plattenbauten living can lead to family tragedies and architectural distasters. […] Urban policies are needed to improve the quality of collective living conditions. We must keep social mixity and improve accessibility in order to prevent the segregation and ghetto-isation through active measures.’

(Declaration for Bucharest – Urban policies chart 2007)

left: 3 post-socialist capitals, location and concentration in large housing estates source: Urban Audit

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

1.1.5 BUCHAREST’ CASE

Of all post-socialist capitals, Bucharest has the smallest urban area, the highest density and the largest population, which makes it a critical case study for post-1989 transformations ‘The urban policies of the communist regime have produced an extreme densification in most part of Bucharest’ neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, the urban evolution during the transition has worsen the situation leading to an abrupt decrease in the quality of urban life due to further densification in those areas that were untouched by communist transformations.

With a large population compressed in a small urban area, living space is too little. We have the right to a healthy and ecologic environment. Pollution reduces our lifespan and affect severely the quality of life in the city. We must plant back the one and a half million trees cut in the last eighteen years.’

(Declaration for Bucharest – Urban policies chart 2007)

right: Scaling of Bucharest with respect to other post-socialist capitals source: Urban Audit

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

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PUBLIC TRANSPORT /vs/ CAR-BASED DEVELOPMENT [MOBILITY]

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INNER BROWNFIELDS /vs/ GREENFIELDS [PRODUCTION]

SOCIALIST COMPACT CITY /vs/ FREE-MARKET SPRAWL [OPENSPACE]

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

1.2 THREE CONFLICTS

An essential point of this preliminary research is to establish which are the common patterns of development and the conflicts that post-socialist capital cities share.

From the brief analysis of these conflicts (that correspond to the three main layers of spaces: mobility, production and openspace), the thesis underlines certain problems which become starting points for the development of conjectures and strategies aimed at the improvement of the post-socialist city.

In this chapter, Bucharest is used as a paradigm to illustrate these assumptions.

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

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MOBILITY

1.2.1 CONFLICT #1 PUBLIC TRANSPORT /vs/ CAR-BASED DEVELOPMENT The major part of the post-1989 developments in Bucharest are totally carbased and therefore poorly or not at all connected to the existing public transport system.

This situation generates total meltdown of the traffic system and reduces accessibility within city limits. (a new public mobility plan should balance the total car dependency with an intermodal isotropic public transport system) In the area of transportation, while personal mobility has increased with the explosion of automobile ownership, the level of public transportation services has decreased considerably. This has resulted in significantly higher levels of congestion and sharp increases in air and noise pollution.

The situation has been worsened further by the suburbanization of housing, offices, and retail with all negative environmental, fiscal, and social consequences, well-known from the experience of the Western cities with such patterns of urban growth.

(Kiril Stanilov, 2007) left: Daily traffic jam on one of the radial thoroughfares source: Traffic Control Centre, Bucharest

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

growing car ownership > number of licensed vehicles

decreasing traffic speed > average car speed in the urban area (km/h)

right: Public transport coverage with respect to post-1989 developments source: Matei Bogoescu

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

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PRODUCTION

1.2.2 CONFLICT #2 INNER BROWNFIELDS /vs/ GREENFIELDS While large industrial areas close to the center are decaying, new tertiary activities drive the post-1989 developments that proliferate in the openspaces and greenfields of the city.

This dynamic produced an abrupt decrease of public greenery and therefore a fall of general living standards. (the old industrial areas must be exploited as large reserves of space for future development of other productive paradigms such as the corporate clusters) The invigoration of the post-socialist urban fabric with garish new structures and a mosaic of various activities has not affected all areas equally. Much of the real estate investors’ attention has been concentrated in the city centers, the prestigious neighborhoods, and, most of all, in the suburban periphery where rampant commercial and residential construction has obliterated the landscape.

The legacy of the communist period – the industrial zones covering up to a third of the territory of the socialist towns – have been lying vacant or underutilized, forming large patches of dead tissue in the urban fabric.

(Kiril Stanilov, 2007) left: Abandoned brownfield close to the center of Bucharest source: Bukres Blog, http://bukresh.blogspot.com

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

lowest ratio of green areas (green area x inhabitant)

decreasing greefields and greenery: Bucharest total green area (ha)

right: the disposition of brownfields in Bucharest (black) and the position of post 1989 developments (red) source: Matei Bogoescu

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

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OPENSPACE

1.2.3 CONFLICT #3 SOCIALIST COMPACT CITY /vs/ FREE-MARKET SPRAWL The extensive population of the periphery with one family houses, big boxes of retail and services, led to a depopulation of the center and a decay of previous forms of public openspace.

As a result, the built environment became increasingly difficult to read and to manage. (a new form of public openspace is needed to re-create structure within sprawl and fragmentation) While the market has diversified individual choices in terms of the available types of dwellings, work environments, shopping and leisure opportunities, many neighborhoods have witnessed the closure of community facilities and the disappearance of playgrounds and openspaces. Many of the new suburban developments lack basic public services. (Kiril Stanilov, 2007)

left: Pipera, one of the richest sprawling suburbs north of Bucharest source: www.bloombiz.ro

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

population loss in inner cities after 1989 Eastern Europe

right: suburban sprawl and radial traffic arteries Bucharest source: Matei Bogoescu

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

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Business Crowds Out Bucharest Life

By Claudia Ciobanu

BUCHAREST, Nov 27 , 2009 (IPS) - Competing with the destruction caused by former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s ‘systematisation’ plans might be hard. But an official report says that “the aggression on Bucharest’s architectural heritage, documented since 1989, exceeds Ceausescu’s acts.’’

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

1.3 THREE CONCLUSIONS

1.

As the case of Bucharest demonstrates, even in the absence of real population growth, the city is expanding horizontally at exceptional speed due to general changes in wealth, lifestyle and productive activities. The standardized development of the previous regime was replaced by a generic emulation of Western models.

2.

The 5 year masterplan inherited from the past is unable to cope with the very rapid ‘wild west’ style development of the neo-liberal city.

As consequence new planning tools are required to address mobility, production and openspace.

3.

Conjectures and flexible Strategies based on the use of guidelines are more effective instruments to define a new anatomy for the post-socialist city. left: INTERPRESS SERVICE NEWS AGENCY article / 27 november 2009 http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49441

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

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REGIONAL PATTERNS METROPOLITAN AREA RADIAL STRUCTURE

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

This chapter is placing Bucharest in the larger framwork of its surrounding territory in order to set a limit and scale for the subsequent analysis and project.

The particular way in which Bucharest grew creating a dense and concentrated urban environment imposed over a fragile linear structure of the surrounding built landscape, generates the specific character of this relationship.

The chapter is composed as a sequence of zoomins trying to scale up the city with regards to the national level, regional level and finally the metropolitan level.

The maps and materials presented in this chapter were produced using the follwing sources: European Environment Agency - Corine Land Cover http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/COR0landcover Google Eath and Google Maps maps.google.com Zona Metropolitana Bucuresti (Bucharest Metropolitan Area) www.zmb.ro

It will analyze the urban pattern, the landscape and the infrastructural layout of the city with respect to these different scales.

Finally it will conclude setting the scale of the project and the limits of the study area.

2/ BUCHAREST AS COMPACT CITY Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

33

2.1 BUCHAREST AND ITS TERRITORY

Bucharest is tolerated as capital of Wallachia by the Ottoman rulers because it is virtually impossible to defend due to its unfavorable topographic condition. Lying in the middle of a plain dominated by the Danube, the ‘weak capital’ of the eighteenth century rapidly develops into a thriving centre of trade as the commercial connections improve during the first half of the nineteenth century.

The city is from the start a morphologic accident in a territory that is strongly structured by a system of rivers that run southward from the mountains to the Danube; while all the other settlements favour linear layouts that follow the river structure, Bucharest is an intense punctual agglomeration.

Its character of exception in a clearly defined urban ecology is not only a key condition of its foundation and early development; still today, the city struggles to negotiate a relationship with the landscape. But this relationship has never really existed, partly because the very anatomy of the city goes against the logic of local settlements, partly because the Ottomans prevented Bucharest from becoming a real managing element of its territory in order to protect their political interests.

In an ironic reversal of the Ottoman agenda, the first –and only– attempt at defining a territorial dimension for Bucharest actually happened only at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the monarchy built an extremely expensive ring of fortifications that enclosed the city in a protected area of 20 km of diameter. This ring is the basis

34

of the circular road belt that serves the city today; it has become the physical limit of Bucharest and, as such, its only interface with the surrounding landscape.

In the real estate boom of the past decade, the fragility of the relationship between Bucharest and its territory has become dramatically visible on several levels.

First of all, on an administrative point of view the metropolitan area is impossible to manage as it does not form a single juridical entity –the City of Bucharest proper said is burdened by extreme density and covers too small an area to be able to enforce large-scale policies. As the peripheries have developed without a plan and with extreme social and economical differences, no consensus is ever reached on any kind of regional plan. The thesis will try to argue the possibility of new operative tools based on the project of mobility as a way to overcome this stalemate and improve accessibility.

Moreover, even at the administrative level where the central government could actually intervene, it is very difficult to imagine a solution that could finally restore a certain degree of readability to a very chaotic urban environment that has little or no relationship with the few territorial features that mark its geography. On this respect, the rediscovery of the structuring potential of water courses –river Dambovita on the south, and the Tei-Grivita-Herastrau lake complex in the north– could offer an interesting starting point for a strategy aimed at rereading Bucharest as part of a larger region.

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

Finally, if we accept that the ring of fortification has become an asset as limit of the city, it is of primary importance to consider the meaning of the radial structure that Bucharest has chosen in defiance of its geographical conditions.

scale strategy of open spaces could eventually provide a much needed public layer able to negotiate the balance between city expansion, rural areas and nature.

The ring of fortifications, in fact, is the largest –and the only complete element– of a series of three ring roads that are still readable as street framework of Bucharest. The fact that the inner ring roads are not complete generates an increase of traffic in the radial thoroughfares that link an overcongested centre with the quasi-rural linear settlements of the periphery. The situation is both problematic in terms of traffic, and unclear in terms of urban anatomy.

The radial system fail to manage a situation that becomes increasingly difficult due to the ever-growing importance of private car transport compared to the dwindling budget of the public transport agency.

The analysis of the regional scale therefore underlines density and fragmentation as the main characters of Bucharest, and the necessary starting points for a future strategy.

Historical conditions have imposed to Bucharest a radial structure that up until now has failed to provide a proper relationship between built environment and landscape. The radial system itself suffers from lack of clarity and fails to cater to the transportation needs of the population.

A strategy for Bucharest should therefore consider both the potential and the issues of such a street structure; while the radial system could be reinforced and finally become the backbone the city needs, the introduction of a large-

center: Satellite Image of Bucharest Region source: Google Earth Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

35

2.2 REGIONAL PATTERNS

Situated in the Romanian Plain, Bucharest is a high intensity / high density urban agglomeration in an urbanized carpet structured by low density linear settlements following the water courses. (even if today it is rapidly expanding outwards through suburbanization, Bucharest can still be considered a compact city)

1

3 2

left: Bucharest and its position in Romania the three administrative limits: 1. proposed region / 2. the county / 3. the city limits source: Matei Bogoescu

36

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

PLOIESTI

CONSTANTA

BUCHAREST

GIURGIU (RO) / RUSE (BG)

above: the urban patterns in the Romanian Plain and the four major cities: Bucharest, Ploiesti, Giurgiu/Ruse (Danube port), and Constanta (Black Sea port) source: Matei Bogoescu

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

37

Cole ntin a Dam

bov

rive

r

ita r

iver

E

UB

N DA

The rivers act as ecological corridors linking the Carpathian Mountains to the Danube.

The forests, like the linear urbanization patterns, are concentrated along the rivers, sometimes creating buffer zones within the built areas.

Bucharest is situated on 2 of these ecological corridors that have had significant impact on the structure of the city. (any important openspace project for Bucharest must consider the 2 corridors) 38

above: the ecological corridors in the Romanian Plain source: Matei Bogoescu

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

ss road

PLOIESTI

re E60 exp

CONSTANTA da Airport

Henri Coan

Aurel Vlaicu

A1 h

ighw ay

Airport

A2 highway

E70 express road

BUCHAREST

E

UB

N DA

GIURGIU (RO) / RUSE (BG)

above: the regional infrastructure source: Matei Bogoescu

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

The regional infrastructure follows a radial pattern connecting the capital city with the major urban centers.

This layout is opposed to the pattern of the small centers that are organized as linear developments. (a new strategy for the city should try to reconcile this two opposing anatomies)

39

BUCHAREST 70% OF SURFACE IS BUILT REGION 20% OF SURFACE IS BUILT

BUCHAREST 79% SERVICES REGION 70% AGRICULTURE

~200 inh/km2 ~400 inh/km2 ~8510 inh/km2

limit Bucharest limit BMA limit Ilfov County

above: built mass and territorial division source: Matei Bogoescu

40

above: landscape features of BMA source: Matei Bogoescu

above: density gradient between Bucharest urban area and the rest of the BMA source: Matei Bogoescu

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

2.3 THE METROPOLITAN AREA [BMA]

An analysis of the Bucharest Metropolitan Area reveals a high difference between the inner city and its surroundings with the capital concentrating the major part of the built mass and density while the surrounding territory serves as an ecological buffer zone and support for rural activities. (it is too early to talk about a regional area of Bucharest since the density difference is so radical and functional integration is low)

Henri Coanda airport Aurel Vlaicu airport

The radial structure of the city creates a fragile flow situation overdependent on the city center.

Public transportation (tram and metro) is strictly limited to the inner areas of the city and is not connected to the external ring road. (a project for the city’s mobility structure must overcome the dependence on the radial roads and link public transport to the external ring road)

above: radial road structure of Bucharest and linear road structure of the surrounding territory source: Matei Bogoescu

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

above: public transport structure highly centralized in the inner city area source: Matei Bogoescu

41

2.4 PROJECT LIMIT DEFINITION OF THE ANALYSIS AREA

ILFOV county limit

metropolitan area proposed limit

BUCHAREST urban area limit

outer ring physical limit

The choice of a specific area as target of this thesis’ analysis and design proposal, has been made according to the characteristics of Bucharest with respect to its region.

Even if there is a growing exchange between the capital and the surrounding settlements, most of the conflicts and issues related to mobility, unequal urban development and social dynamics are concentrated within the outer ring of the city.

Taking the outer ring as limit of this project is also justified by its physical appearance as filter and exchange device between the capital and its territory.

left: the external ring road of Bucharest enclosing the densest urbanized area source: Matei Bogoescu

42

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

2.5 CONCLUSIONS

1.

Although the city sprawled significantly during the last two decades, the major part of this spillover has occured within the external ring road and therefore Bucharest remains a compact agglomeration in contrast with its surrounding urbanized territory.

2.

The high difference in density between Bucharest’s city area and its surroundings supports the assumption that the real project at this stage is the city itself, as defined by the external ring road.

3.

The radial structure which introduces an enormous fragility in the system due to its rigidity must be challenged through a new infrastructural project which will enhance the flexibility and the flow capacity within the city.

4.

Public transport has to be extended and connected to the external ring road acting as a transfer point between the city and its territory

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

43

6 periods

44

3 layers (a genealogy)

1700 - 1859

THE OTTOMAN CITY

extension and infrastructure - mobility

1859 - 1918

PARIS OF THE EAST

space of production

1918 - 1947

EUROPEAN MODERNISM

openspace - space of public appearance

1947 - 1974

PROGRESSIVE COMMUNISM

1974 - 1989

URBICIDE

1989 -

TRANSITION

12 tools for a project

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

The aim of this chapter is to follow the way in which Bucharest was built over time following different rationalities, politics of space and mentalities and to extract a series of tools (urban images, spatial devices and urban components) that will serve as guidelines and imaginary for the projection of possible futures of the city.

After the depiction of generic urgencies and conflicts challenging Bucharest as a Post-Socialist City in the first chapter and their more or less specific effects, is important to highlight the pecularities embedded in the construction of this particular city, in order to be able to think a follow-up to its story.

Bucharest, as many other European cities has seen an accumulation and superposition of political-technological spaces (Read, 2010) which have produced particular places. The collection of these places and their spatial effects provide the toolkit that we will use to re-think the future of the city. The places produced by different political-technological spaces, become tools used to re-semantize the city.

In this chapter the analysis will follow the reader through six periods in the evolution of the city, presenting four images for each period together with a written description and tool definition: - an urban extension map which will highlight the way in which the city grew.

- a mobility map revealing which parts of the city are integrated or isolated at each point in time, and which image of the city was created through transport technologies.

The maps are drawn following historical maps and archive materials with the exception of the openspace map which is a spatial interpretation of the writings, pictures, maps and movies related to each period, in which parts of the city become visible while others disappear.

The choice of the triad mobility / production / openspace is coherent to the focus of the previous chapters and to the conjectures of the fourth chapter.

- a production map which shows the evolution of production patterns from craftsmanship to heavy industry and services and their spatial effects within the city.

- an openspace of public appearance map which is an attempt to render the visible city the urban representation of publicness at each period in time.

3/ BUCHAREST AS PALIMPSEST Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

45

1800

46

1900

1925

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

3.0 STREET NETWORK EVOLUTION 1800 - 2005

1965

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

1985

2005

47

BUCHAREST SPATIAL LAYERS

THE POLITICAL- TECHNOLOGICAL SPACE

THE OTTOMAN CITY

left: Bucharest (early 1800’s) litography source: www.muzeuldefotografie.ro right: commercial routes linking the German Towns to Constantinopole (equivalent of today’s Pan-European Corridors) have contributed to the growth of Bucharest in between 1700 and 1820 source: Dana Harhoiu: Bucuresti, un oras intre Orient si Occident

48

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

3.1 THE OTTOMAN CITY

EVENTS

LEIPZIG

KIEV CRACOW

MUNCHEN

GOVERNANCE

LVOV

WIEN BUDAPEST

VENICE BELGRADE

BUCHAREST

iSTANBUL

[1700.....1859] Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

49

EXTENSION AND MOBILITY

3.1.1 MAIDAN AND ULITZA ORGANIC NETWORK

The Ottoman Bucharest is an agglomeration of ‘mahalale’ (small centralities grouped around churches and ‘maidan’s - informal squares at the intersection of two or more roads) linked by a circulation structure that serves as traffic space, gathering place and sometimes workspace.

The complex street lattice resulted through a spontaneous, not planned development of pathways and links is still visible today in the road structure of Bucharest’s city center.

*

TOOL #1 MAIDAN - DEFINITION

Bucharest is also known, in its pre-modern structure, as a place articulated around irregular public spaces, mostly located in the proximity of Orthodox churches as spaces for the gathering of various guilds. These ‘spontaneous’ spaces are called MAIDAN, a Turkish-derived term[...].(Augustin Ioan, O (noua) ‘Estetica a Reconstructiei’, 2002).

The MAIDAN as urban space (not planned, irregular, spontaneous) is an archetype of what we could call today the emergent informal public space or ‘commonspace’ (space of all). With the continuous control, restrictions and erosion of traditional formalized public spaces undergoing today the concept of MAIDAN re-emerges as an interesting tool for the urbanist.

The MAIDAN is a spatial device that supports the un-planned, the un-predictable social activities - a social condenser: ‘Programatic layering upon vacant terrain to encourage dynamic coexistence of activities and to generate through their interference, unprecedented events.’

left: image of premodern Bucharest a low density, low height green supervillage with churches as points of intensity expressed vertically source: www.muzeuldefotografie.ro

50

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

MOBILITY

TOOL #1 MAIDAN

EXTENSION

*

*

1

above: street structure Bucharest 1800 articulated by MAIDAN spaces Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

above: larger streets where carriages can pass through

51

PRODUCTION AND OPENSPACE

3.1.2 PARISHES AND SUPERVILLAGE POLICENTRISM

The policentric organization in parishes concentrated around churches, creates almost isolated environments of life and work that compose a loose agglomeration centered on main commercial routes.

The city is in fact a supervillage, perforated by huge voids of vegetable gardens and orchards.

The concept of formalized public space appears for the first time with the construction of the central garden.

*

TOOL #2 CONSTELLATION - DEFINITION

*

TOOL #3 VALLEY - DEFINITION

It is still possible today, after the ravages of the last age of the Communist regime, to identify in Bucharest’ structure a cosmologic order in the disposition of its numerous small orthodox churches. The churches acted as centers for local communities (MAHALALE) which composed the city.

The first image of Bucharest - The city as an ARCHIPELAGO - comes from this spatial configuration of multiple centralities that was specific to the premodern city.

Born as a green city, a ‘supervillage’, Bucharest was spread north of a large river valley. The valley was in the past a productive and recreational landscape, but the regularization of the river (Dambovita) and the subsequent growth of the city, have occluded the once powerful landscape that crossed the city from one side to the other.

The second image of Bucharest - The city as a LANDSCAPE - is based on the strong spatial and ecological importance that the river valley had within the premodern city. left: river Dambovita 1837 a natural landscape crossing the city from west to east source: aquerelle by Auguste Raffet

52

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

TOOL #3 VALLEY

OPENSPACE

*

TOOL #2 CONSTELLATION

PRODUCTION

*

1

*

2 2

*

3

above: church distribution Bucharest 1800 reflect the policentric organization of the city Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

above: the green openspaces of premodern Bucharest 1. first public garden - Cismigiu Central Garden 2. river Dambovita and its green valley of vegetable gardens and orchards

53

BUCHAREST SPATIAL LAYERS

THE POLITICAL- TECHNOLOGICAL SPACE

PARIS OF THE EAST

THE OTTOMAN CITY

left: Victoriei Boulevard - French influence is clear in this urban space which becomes an attractor for new insitutions and center of representation of the capital city.

54

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

3.2 PARIS OF THE EAST

EVENTS

GOVERNANCE

densification and gentrification of the centre working class periphery

[1859.....1918] Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

55

EXTENSION AND MOBILITY

3.2.1 BOULEVARD AND STREETCAR CENTER INTENSIFICATION

The new role as capital of a nation state imposes a shift from the previous policentric organization to a linear redefinition of the city center through the construction of boulevards and a new streetcar system.

These new mobility spaces introduce a hierarchy in the isotropic premodern circulation lattice.

The dialectic center-periphery is born once the extension of the city goes beyond the external urban ring.

*

TOOL #4 BOULEVARD - DEFINITION

The concept of BOULEVARD was introduced in the planning of Bucharest in the second part of the XIX century. This urban space was used as a political and spatial manifest of Bucharest’ transition to another age, inspired by Western and especially French urban models and was often accompanied by a streetcar or tram line.

After being imported from Paris, the typical Bucharest BOULEVARD mutates into a specific local form: it represents a sequence of important landmarks: institutions, museums, palaces, or a display of new architectural paradigms in the form of private villas.

Although some rules were built to ensure the arhitectural and urban coherence of the BOULEVARD the main spatial characteristic of its local declination is the SEQUENCE and not the UNITY. Therefore the Bucharest’ boulevards act like DISPLAY WINDOWS and this becomes a crucial characteristic which makes the contemporary re-interpretation of this spatial tool interesting.

The BOULEVARD is a spatial device that articulates sequences of centralities at different scales (from the singular building to the cluster). left: The new streetcar infrastructure defines areas of higher intensity within the urban fabric source: Calea Victoriei Foundation

56

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

MOBILITY

TOOL #4 BOULEVARD

EXTENSION

*

*

4

above: system of boulevards introducing hierarchy in the city center and spontaneous growth of periphery Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

above: tram and railway development (the railway starts to create a powerful limit to the growth of the center, while the tram redefines the intensities in the center)

57

PRODUCTION AND OPENSPACE

3.2.2 DEFINING THE CITY LIMITS RING CONCENTRATION

Both industries and gardens being built in this period are located on the urban ring, highlighting the limits of the city center, detaching it from the growing periphery.

While the industry is concentrated on constructing a new dense and durable city with its brick factories, the garden is representing the new space of public appearance for a growing bourgeoisie.

*

TOOL #5 RING - DEFINITION

Born in the premodern era as an infrastructure connecting the commercial gates of the city the concept of RING was reinforced by two main planning decisions of the late XIX century and early XX century: - the placement of production areas on the limits of the inner city (that becomes at this point the city center) along the old gates road (INDUSTRIAL RING) - a plan from 1906 which establishes a series of gardens articulated by a green ring around the city center, creating a circular recreational openspace. (GARDEN RING).

The RING concept is restated in later periods (see chapter 3.3.1 the forts ring built to protect Bucharest (FORT RING) and 3.4.1 - the boulevard articulating the large housing estates developments (BOULEVARD RING)).

The third image of Bucharest - The city as a RING - comes from this latent project that aims at the organization of the city through circular infrastructures at different scales and with different purposes. left: Production in the end of the XIX century is mainly centered on the constructionof a new urban habitat (in the picture a brick factory situated on the urban ring) source: The Museum of Technology

58

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

*

TOOL #5 RING [GARDENS]

OPENSPACE

*

TOOL #5 RING [INDUSTRIAL]

PRODUCTION

*

5

above: growing industry on the ring starts to isolate the city center from the newborn periphery Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

*

5

above: the space of pubilc appearance is the new system of boulevards and gardens which become facades for the new city

59

BUCHAREST SPATIAL LAYERS

THE POLITICAL- TECHNOLOGICAL SPACE

EUROPEAN MODERNITY

PARIS OF THE EAST THE OTTOMAN CITY

left: Magheru Boulevard - a representation of technology and modernity influenced by Bauhaus urban composition principles source: Calea Victoriei Foundation

60

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

3.3 EUROPEAN MODERNITY

EVENTS

GOVERNANCE

central interventions on existing boulevards poor undevelopped colonies rural colonies working class colonies clercks, teachers, bankers, bourgeois communities veteran colonies

[1918.....1947] Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

61

EXTENSION AND MOBILITY

3.3.1 MAHALA AND BOURGEOIS CITY CENTER vs PERIPHERY

The interwar period is a moment of double growth: 1. the extension of a bourgeois city of clerks, public servants, bankers and industrialists to the north through the use of the axis and the new tram technology.

2. the proliferation of autonomous rural and working class colonies concentrated in strategic points on the main thoroughfares and not connected to the overall mobility system.

*

TOOL #6 COLONY - DEFINITION

The concept of COLONY appears after the Great War, when Bucharest doubles in surface following a atypical pattern. Instead of a large plan for the city extension as was usual at the time, Bucharest’ growth is managed through the establishment of a series of COLONIES (suburban compact agglomeration of low-rise high density housing).

These COLONIES are independent from the inner city) and centered on different economies like farming or industry while the center is concentrated on banking, finance and knowledge production.

The COLONY is a component (an autonomous cluster with different functions) used in Bucharest to manage urban growth.

*

TOOL #7 FORT - DEFINITION

The FORTS RING is built little before the Great War as a defensive system for the city.

The FORT is a component that was used in Bucharest for the control of the surrounding territory and the defense of the city. left: the tram system is restricted to the inner city area being still a luxury built for a specific part of the society that does not include the marginal rural and working class suburbs

62

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

MOBILITY

* *

TOOL #6 COLONY [HIGH DENISTY LOW RISE AREAS]

EXTENSION

*

TOOL #5 RING [FORTS RING] TOOL #7 FORT

*

7

*

5

*

6

above: expansion of the city through the axis in the case of the richest suburbs of the bourgeoisie and through grid parcelation in the cheap housing units where the new population is concentrated Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

above: railway and tram systems evolution (it is obvious how the railway line limited the extension of the center / the west, southwest, and northeast suburbs are cut off from the inner city) the external ring of forts finished around 1914 represents the defended area of Bucharest

63

PRODUCTION AND OPENSPACE

3.3.2 CELEBRATION OF TECHNOLOGY EVENT PARK

Both industry and openspace of this period are promote the advance of modernity and new technologies.

While the industry builds the new mobility machines, the birth of the exhibition park is offering a stage on which the urban evolution can be introduced to the masses.

While the new industrial strips along the railway isolate the center from periphery, the extension of the openspace of public appearance is limited to the rich northern suburbs.

*

TOOL #8 EVENT PARK - DEFINITION

The concept of EVENT PARK is created in 1930’s with the creation of the largest green openspace of Bucharest: Herastrau Park.

Built as recreational space for the new bourgeois class of the capital the park soon becomes the ideal stage for the main EVENT happening in the city: LUNA BUCURESTILOR, an exhibition of the city itself, with the declared purpose of promoting the great urban projects of the time and the technological advances within the capital.

An early attempt to BRAND the city, the exhibition was not casually related to the main park of the Capital - the ambition of Bucharest was to become a modern, green and aerated city so the marvel of Herastrau Park created out of dirty marshes was a demonstration that such an ambition was possible.

The EVENT PARK is a component that was used in Bucharest to mix recreational openspace with events in order to potentiate both.

The event gave identity to the park and the park offered an enjoyable environment to the event. (It is to remember that the first public space of Bucharest was a garden so publicness and greenery are often associated in the mentality of the population). left: The exhibition of modenity and urban identity takes place in Herastrau park, newly created event space on the northern river

64

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

TOOL #8 EVENT PARK

OPENSPACE

PRODUCTION

*

*

8

above: railway driven industrial development acting as limit between the inner city and suburbs Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

above: the public openspace system is extended to the second river to the north through a green axis system

65

BUCHAREST SPATIAL LAYERS

THE POLITICAL- TECHNOLOGICAL SPACE

PROGRESSIVE COMMUNISM

EUROPEAN MODERNITY PARIS OF THE EAST THE OTTOMAN CITY

left: The communist thoroughfare and alley system creating a city within a park populated by high density housing slabs source: Proiect Bucuresti, Raport de activitate, 1973

66

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

3.4 PROGRESSIVE COMMUNISM

EVENTS

GOVERNANCE

central interventions on existing boulevards expansion in large housing estates (rayon)

[1947.....1974] Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

67

EXTENSION AND MOBILITY

3.4.1 A CITY FOR THE WORKING CLASS ISOTROPY

In the 1960s, the city’s population doubles through colonization with a rural population converted in workers.

The new social and political paradigm generates a new concept of city in the form of the large housing estates.

Crossed by large green thoroughfares and structured by alleys, the new living areas are inspired by socialist urban models of the same period (particularly western rather than soviet).

Public transport evades for the first time the inner city, becoming a structuring element for the whole urban area.

*

TOOL #5 RING - VARIANT

*

TOOL #6 COLONY - VARIANT

In this period the latent project of the RING is resumed under the form of a partially completed circular boulevard connecting the new large housing estates placed EAST, SOUTH and WEST of the capital. The boulevard was conceived as a modernization of the previous infrastructure that allowed the new socialist colonies to be linked avoiding the city center that was considered to be a decadent example of urban environement.

The large housing estates built in this period following the soviet examples of raion and microraion were conceived as self-sufficient autonomous urban environments where living, work and leisure areas were provided. Their independent character and their freshly new population brought from the countryside give the large housing estates the character of urban COLONY. left: the tram system becomes the mobility backbone of the city linking the new large housing estates, the colonies of the interwar period and the inner city in one isotropic system

68

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

TOOL #5 RING [BOULEVARD]

MOBILITY

TOOL #6 COLONY [LARGE HOUSING ESTATES]

EXTENSION

* *

*

6

above: the large housing estates are positioned in a cross sytem to the 4 cardinal points Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

above: the tram sytem has become isotropic covering equally all the areas of the city the tram lines end near the huge industrial areas attached to each large housing estate

69

PRODUCTION AND OPENSPACE

3.4.2 THE PROJECT OF ISOTROPY INDUSTRIAL CLUSTERS AND GARDENS

The huge growth of industrial areas is placed with a double rationale: 1. along the railway lines for efficient connection to the rail transport system 2. close to the new large housing estates to limit the mobility demand of the workers.

Production areas start to create brown belts around areas of the city that work in closed circuit. The openspace system of insitutions, parks ans boulevards is extended to the whole city becoming isotropic.

*

TOOL #9 RIVER - DEFINITION

*

TOOL #10 GARDEN - DEFINITION

The potential of the water landscapes in Bucharest is realized in the 1960’s when the northern river of the capital (Colentina) becomes an attractor for recreational green spaces.

The RIVER is a spatial device that articulates a sequence of public openspaces.

The GARDENS mixed with educational or cultural facilities are used in the 1960’s as a tool to balance the city’s social disparities, as they are by definition the first public spaces of the capital.

The GARDEN is a component used in Bucharest to create an isotropic social condition and generate qualitative public spaces.

*

TOOL #11 COMMUNITY PARK - DEFINITION

The community park was created together with the large housing estates as the green heart and main public space of the newborn communities.

The COMMUNITY PARK is a component that was used in Bucharest as landscaped commonspace for the new created communities. left: in the 1960’s hundreds of hectares of space dedicated to production are built next to the large housing estates

70

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

TOOL #6 COLONY [INDUSTRIAL]

TOOL #9 RIVER TOOL #10 GARDEN TOOL #11 COMMUNITY PARK

OPENSPACE

* * *

TOOL #4 BOULEVARD [INDUSTRIAL]

PRODUCTION

* *

*

9

*

10

*

11

*

4

*

above: the industrial areas create brown belts around the working class neigborhoods (rayon) Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

6

above: the openspace sytem spills out from the city center creating an isotropic pattern every centrality has to have at least a garden, a school, a library

71

NICOLAE CEAUSESCU AND KIM IL SUNG 1971

72

THE 1974 SYSTEMATIZATION PLAN

THE 1977 EARTHQUAKE

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

3.5 ENTR’ACTE

Three important moments in the 70’s have had a huge impact on the evolution of Bucharest generating a new paradigm shift: 1.

The state visit of president Ceausescu in DPR of Korea and the PR of China in 1971, when the idea of a new form of totalitarian power is born (signs the passage from progressive communism to a form of nationalist dictature following the Kim Il Sung model and the chinese cultural revolution) 2.

The presentation of a new concept for the city through the new systematization plan of 1974.

The plan was permeated with postmodern ideas imported from the west of which 2 concepts became crucial: - the re-development of urban areas instead of new extensions - the return to the urban block as opposed to the stand alone modernist slab 3.

The 1977 earthquake showing the fragility of old structures, giving the perfect excuse to demolish and rebuild the inner city

[1971 / 74 / 77] Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

73

BUCHAREST SPATIAL LAYERS

THE POLITICAL- TECHNOLOGICAL SPACE

URBICIDE

PROGRESSIVE COMMUNISM EUROPEAN MODERNITY PARIS OF THE EAST THE OTTOMAN CITY

left: Victoria Socialismului Boulevard (today Unirii Boulevard) - an archetype of the communist cardboard boulevard and a tool for the development of a new city within the existing city

74

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

3.6 URBICIDE

EVENTS

GOVERNANCE

demolishion area in the city centre (485 HA) expansion in urban blocks / densification of previously built areas

[1974.....1989] Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

75

EXTENSION AND MOBILITY

3.5.1 COREOGRAPHIES OF POWER DE-CONSTRUCTION OF THE CENTRE

The re-formulation of the inner city during the 1980’s is meant to create a city within a city, to generate a new coreography of power.

The birth of the cardboard boulevard and the physical split introduced by the great axis of Centru Civic was aimed at de-stabilizing and hiding the existing urban fabric, considered representation of an obsolete bourgeois mentality.

The interruption of the public tram system in the inner city and the metro construction are also parts of a plan for the deconstruction of the city as it was previously known, in order to prepare a new image aproved by the regime.

left: the new metro system is generating another perspective on the city; in contrast with the continuous and linear experience of the tram travel, the new metro is creating points of high intensity within the built fabric

76

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

MOBILITY

EXTENSION 1

above: the new living areas organized in urban blocks and the communist monumental axis [1] Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

above: the disconnection of the tram (black) in the central area and the new metro network (red) that crosses the city n-s and east-west connecting the main industrial clusters

77

PRODUCTION AND OPENSPACE

3.5.2 WHITE ELEPHANT / URBAN STAGE INDUSTRIAL DECAY & CARDBOARD URBANISM

As the extensive areas of production created in the previous stage become inefficient (and their maintenance and upgrade too costly), they transform into decaying brownfields dividing the city along the railway.

These productive wastelands (in fact white elephants of a wannabe european scale economy) are spaces of enormous potential and powerful spatial borders within the city.

The openspace implodes within the cardboard boulevards which represent the urban stage for a new political and social paradigm.

left: the construction of the communist cardboard boulevard and the translation of the past cultural signs behind the new urban curtains source:xxxx

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

OPENSPACE

PRODUCTION above: huge areas of non performant industries creating strips of wastelands along the railways (represent today the biggest reserve of developable land in the capital)

above: the communist carboard boulevards - the openspace of the city within the city

79

BUCHAREST SPATIAL LAYERS

THE POLITICAL- TECHNOLOGICAL SPACE

TRANSITION

URBICIDE PROGRESSIVE COMMUNISM EUROPEAN MODERNITY PARIS OF THE EAST THE OTTOMAN CITY

left: clash of scale and style between the traditional face of Bucharest and the global corporate models that proliferate today. a reccurent image of the fragmented transformation of the urban landscape .

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

3.7 TRANSITION

EVENTS

GOVERNANCE

new office, retail and residential clusters in the central area sprawl and decentralization of housing, retail and entertainment

[1989.....

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

?

] 81

EXTENSION AND MOBILITY

3.6.1 SPRAWL AND CAR DROSSCAPE *

A common pattern to all other post-socialist capital cities is the concentration of post 1989 development in the periphery, where suburban sprawl, retail and entertainment decentralization occur.

The limited mobility demand of the previous stages is turned upside down by the new rationales centered on car flexibility.

New exclusively car-based developments occur within the outer ring, creating pressure on the belt and radial road system leading to increased [im]mobility of people and goods.

* DROSSCAPES are waste landscapes produced by de-industrialization and rapid horizontal urbanization through sprawl - this concept has been explored by Ala+n Berger in ‘Drosscape, Charles Waldheim (edited by), The Landscape Urbanism reader (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), pp. 197-217.’

left: Baneasa Shopping City a new retail and entertainment cluster on the north outskirts of the capital, huge attractor of car-based commuters

82

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

MOBILITY

EXTENSION A3 highway (under construction)

outer ring(belt)

A1 highway

A2 highway metro stations

tram system coverage

above: the new belt of sprawl and the punctual developments in the consolidated city and the new motorway infrastructure Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

above: the public transport coverage and the disposition of the post 1989 extensions the sprawling areas are completely outside of the covered area

83

PRODUCTION AND OPENSPACE

3.6.2 OFFICE BUILDING AND MALL BIG BOX

The space of production and the openspace of public appearance are exiled in this stage within iconic landmarks and big boxes of mass entertainment as the car traffic has taken possesion of roads, boulevards and thoroughfares.

Car parking requirements, in a city that was not designed for extensive car mobility, have completely consumed the sidewalks leaving the pedestrian with no solution of continuity in his drift between urban pockets and enclaves of publicness.

The mall is the new street, it even replaces recreational functions specific to the park.

*

TOOL #6 COLONY - VARIANT

*

TOOL #12 BIG BOX - DEFINITION

The newest typology of production - the BUSINESS PARK - adopts the typology of the COLONY, sometimes by reformulating abandoned industrial clusters, other times by creating new clusters.

Their isolated appearance and independence makes them ideal contemporary examples of the COLONY component.

Since the end of the 1990’s public openspace shrank dramatically in Bucharest due to traffic conditions and land privatization.

The typology of the shopping mall was imported from the West but introduced (in an american fashion) in central areas of the city, often contributing to the final failure of street life and small commerce.

The BIG BOX is a component (a heterotopy) that is used in Bucharest as ‘public’ space with an extreme concentration of activities, recreation and entertainment. left: concentration of landmark office buildings in Victoriei square on the inner ring of the city is defining the new production space of the capital (services, communication, IT, banking)

84

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

*

*

OPENSPACE

TOOL #6 COLONY [BUSINESS PARK]

PRODUCTION

*

A3 highway (under construction)

TOOL #12 BIG BOX

*

12

6 outer ring(belt)

A1 highway

A2 highway

above: the new infrastructure of production linking office clusters, business parks and logistics is based on the radial road system Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

above: the map of retail and entertainment venues as pockets of space of public appearance

85

POLICENTRIC AGGLOMERATION 1800

86

MONOCENTRIC URBAN CENTER 1900

ARCHIPELAGO WITH DIFFERENT INTENSITIES 1925

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

3.8 FORMA URBIS EVOLUTION BUCHAREST 1800-2005

DONUT (DE-CENTRALIZED) CITY 1965

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

CARDBOARD (STAGE) CITY 1985

URBAN GALAXY 2005

87

88

TOOL #2 CONSTELLATION

TOOL #1 MAIDAN

TOOL # 12 BIG BOX

TOOL #10 GARDEN

THE CITY AS AN ARCHIPELAGO

TRANSPORT NODES

THE BIG BOX

THE GREEN AREA

A DEVICE GENERATING POINTS OF HIGH PUBLIC INTENSITY

A COMPONENT USED TO CREATE EXTREME CONGESTION AND MIXITY

A COMPONENT USED TO STRUCTURE THE PUBLIC SPACE OF THE ARCHIPELAGO

TOOL #5 RING

THE CITY AS A RING

TOOL #4 BOULEVARD

BOULEVARD A DEVICE GENERATING SEQUENCES OF CENTRALITIES AT DIFFERENT SCALES

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

3.9 12 TOOLS PREVIOUSLY USED TO STRUCTURE BUCHAREST AND THEIR CONTEMPORARY INTERPRETATION

TOOL #6 COLONY [CLUSTER]

TOOL #7 FORT

TOOL #3 VALLEY

TOOL #9 RIVER

TOOL #8 EVENT PARK

TOOL #11 COMMUNITY PARK

THE REFORMED CLUSTER

FORT

THE CITY AS A LANDSCAPE

RIVER

THE INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE PARK

COMMUNITY PARK

A COMPONENT USED TO REINTEGRATE ISOLATED COLONIES [CLUSTERS]

A COMPONENT USED TO MANAGE THE CITY EDGE

A DEVICE GENERATING SEQUENCES OF RECREATIONAL OPENSPACE

A COMPONENT USED TO ATTRACT EVENTS

A COMPONENT USED TO CREATE LOCAL IDENTITY

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

89

URBAN IMAGE (CONJECTURES)

DEVICE ANATOMY (SPATIAL STRUCTURE)

COMPONENTS

3.10 TOOLS GENEALOGY

BIG BOX

MAIDAN CONSTELLATION

VISION - STRATEGY chapter 6

GARDEN

COLONY [CLUSTER]

BOULEVARD RING FORT

EVENT PARK

RIVER VALLEY COMMUNITY PARK

90

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

3.11 TOOLS MATRIX & TEST CASES - NEW TOOLS GENERATION [DEVICES + COMPONENTS]

THE FORT(RESS)

THE POLARIZED CLUSTER

THE LINEAR PARK

THE PLINTH

PARK CITY

THE WATERPARK

RING CITY

ARCHIPELAGO CITY

THE INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE PARK

3 CONJECTURES chapter 4

6 NEW DEVICES 6 CASE STUDIES chapter 5

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3 urban images

3 conjectures

CONSTELLATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ARCHIPELAGO CITY [MOBILITY] RING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RING CITY [PRODUCTION] VALLEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PARK CITY [OPENSPACE]

92

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

4/ BUCHAREST - 3 CONJECTURES Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

93

ARCHIPELAGO CITY

ADDITION

CONTINUATION TRANSITION

TRANSITION

URBICIDE

URBICIDE

PROGRESSIVE COMMUNISM RING CITY EUROPEAN MODERNITY

94

+

PROGRESSIVE COMMUNISM EUROPEAN MODERNITY

PARIS OF THE EAST

PARIS OF THE EAST

THE OTTOMAN CITY

THE OTTOMAN CITY

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

4.0 BUCHAREST 3 CONJECTURES AND NEW SPATIAL LAYERS

CONNECTION

The three conjectures that will be presented in this chapter are possible spatial interpretations of the future Bucharest starting from the three history-derived images of the city, using the devices and components specific to the evolution of the city (see chapter 3): CONSTELLATION -> ARCHIPELAGO CITY RING -> RING CITY VALLEY -> PARK CITY They have a different relationship with the previous spatial layers of Bucharest presented in chapter 3: THE ARCHIPELAGO CITY is an ADDITION to the previous layers. form: a set of small centralities disposed in isotropic form within the city. spatial structure: the MAIDAN device combined with the two components of the GARDEN and the BIG BOX.

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

THE RING CITY is a CONTINUATION of the latent ring project present in the previous layers. form: three infrastructural rings that repolarize the production areas within the city. spatial structure: the BOULEVARD device combined with the two components of the COLONY [CLUSTER] and the FORT. THE PARK CITY is a CONNECTION and integration of openspaces created in the previous layers. form: a pedestrian and cyclable strip linking green, cultural , industrial spaces with the river, creating a public openspace section through the city. spatial structure: the RIVER device combined with the components of COMMUNITY PARK and EVENT PARK.

PARK CITY

TRANSITION URBICIDE PROGRESSIVE COMMUNISM EUROPEAN MODERNITY PARIS OF THE EAST THE OTTOMAN CITY

95

CONJECTURE: a conjecture is a proposition that is unproven but appears correct and has not been disproven.

ROAD SYSTEM 3 RINGS

above: ROAD SYSTEM TODAY highly hierarchized towards the city center and concentrated on radial thoroughfares

96

above: ROAD SYSTEM PROPOSED balanced through a series of rings that discourage car access to city center and absorb flow on different levels through park&ride facilities connected to public transport (see annex1 for details) Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

4.1 ARCHIPELAGO CITY [MOBILITY] ADDITION

KIEV 5H VIENNA 5H30

The first conjecture, based on the image of the city as an ARCHIPELAGO, focuses on the issue of MOBILITY as strategic framework for the evolution of the city.

As Bertolini & Dijst notice,

‘The lives of people and the workings of organizations are increasingly independent of urban physical and administrative boundaries, no matter how these are defined. People typically live in one place, work in a second and recreate in a third. Organizations are typically dependent on a range of places of production and consumption scattered across extensive regions[…].’ (Bertolini & Dijst, 2003)

and this phenomenon is even more aggressive in the case of the Post-Socialist City that was thought in such a way as to limit the need of mobility by creating independent working-livingleisure areas.

From the previous study we see that Bucharest has a very fragile radial structure that has been put under pressure by all the colonizations that have been made since 1918 The system is even more weak today, since it seems that public transportation due to its inflexibility and inadaptability has lost the competition to the private car.

Bucharest’ present immobility makes the city unfit for the contemporary requirements of a dynamic population and new production patterns.

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

NEW HST STATION

ALEXANDROPOULIS 2H30

97

above: PUBLIC TRANSPORT TODAY good coverage of the densest areas, but poor interconnection between transport modes, and between public transport and parking facilities

98

above: PUBLIC TRANSPORT PROPOSED enhanced coverage extended to the external ring (fort ring) development of numerous exchange stations between different transport modes and car re-use of abandoned railways as support for a new regional train network (see annex 2 for details) Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

4.1 ARCHIPELAGO CITY [MOBILITY] ADDITION

This conjecture proposes a isotropic extension of the public transport system connected to a series of park&ride facilities, encouraging multimodal travel. This strategy would encourage the citizens to use the public transportation rather than rely on the use of the private car.

Commuting time would decrease significantly improving the quality of life and the efficiency of working hours.

The ambition of this conjecture is to built a new image of the city (mobile ARCHIPELAGO) overlapping a series of public transport gates (points of intensity) over the fragmented and dishomogeneous urban landscape of the city.

Again citing Bertolini & Dijst:

‘Physical places still fulfill an essential role in our open urban systems. In particular, places where mobility flows interconnect – such as airports, railway stations, and also motorway service areas or urban squares and parks – have the potential for granting the diversity and frequency of human contacts that are still essential for many urban activities.’

(Bertolini & Dijst, 2003)

Given the importance that terminal and transfer stations have in Bucharest’ mobile ARCHIPELAGO they can be considered strategic projects and become contemporary social condensers. New tools must be developped in order to conceptualize the new mobility environments. (see chapter 5 - LINEAR PARK and PLINTH) right: concept map - ARCHIPELAGO CITY Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

99

2500 HA

OF EX-INDUSTRIAL SPACES AFTER 1989

INNER CITY OF BUCHAREST

= CONTINUE TO HAVE AN INDUSTRIAL USE HAVE BEEN CONVERTED TO OTHER FUNCTIONS ARE BEING CONVERTED IN THIS MOMENT ARE AVAILABLE FOR FUTURE CONVERSION

100

1000 HA 108 HA 75 HA

1315 HA

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

4.2 RING CITY [PRODUCTION] CONTINUATION

The second conjecture, based on the image of the city as a RING, focuses on the issue of new areas for PRODUCTION as strategic environments for the economy and growth of the city.

‘The strong priority placed by centrally planned economies on rapid development of industry has given rise to a counterpart process in transition: de-industrialization.’ (J.S.Earle 1997) ‘The economic growth, as a characteristic of our era, is considered not only a dynamic process but also structural one being deeply influenced by the basic components of the national economy. A national strategy of lasting economic -social development should consider the services as a priority sector, able to develop and redress the Romanian economy in the context of its integration in the European Union.’ (Maniu, 2009)

With the development of new production patterns and the progressive abandon of old industrial platforms, Bucharest is challenged today to a large size transformation. This metamorphosis from an Industrial City to a International Service City has failed until now to produce a fresh urban image, a new spatial paradigm of the contemporary productive city.

The new basic spatial unit of the changed production system - the office building - has followed in Bucharest patterns similar to those in other Post-Socialist Cities. From center high-rise buildings to business parks situated on top of exindustrial platforms, the proliferation of new work environments failed to produce until now spatial quality and identity.

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

101

the position of the industrial areas and the proposed 3 rings mobility system

above: transformation of ex-industrial areas - present situation

102

above: STAGE RING CORPORATE RING EDGE RING

where the city exhibits most of its urban paradigms along an urban boulevard where new global clusters are hosted and linked through a parkway system where forts become centralities and interfaces between the inner city and the metropolitan area Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

4.2 RING CITY [PRODUCTION] CONTINUATION

This conjecture takes into analysis the previous spatial disposition of productive areas and the new mobility networks in order to build an image of how the contemporary productive city should look like. Based on the tool of the RING as spatial structure of the city created since the premodern era and re-inforced during the incipient phases of the socialist era, the RING CITY describes Bucharest as an urban environment structured by three different production rings with different vocations: - the STAGE RING is the limit of the premodern city, a place where historical gardens, abandoned industrial areas of the interwar period, communist cardboard urbanism and new landmarks of contemporary multinational firms are displayed.

The main vocation of this ring to become a congested display window of urban transformation, a bridge between different ages of the city. main infrastructures: urban boulevard, tram ring strategy: CONGESTION

- the CORPORATE RING is the space that contains most of the large industrial platforms of the 1960’s and 1970’s. It’s challenge is to produce a new form of global production cluster: a place of right: concept map RING CITY Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

103

STAGE RING NEW LANDMARKS

104

CORPORATE RING HISTORIC GARDENS

SOCIALIST CARDBOARD BOULEVARD

MULTINATIONAL FIRMS & NEW COLONIZATION

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

4.2 RING CITY [PRODUCTION] CONTINUATION

work, living and leisure, plugged-in to the rest of the city (see chapter 5 - POLARIZED CLUSTER). main infrastructures: parkway, park&ride areas strategy: INTEGRATION

- the EDGE RING is the limit environment between the inner city and the growing suburbs.

Based on a large scale re-conversion of the defensive FORTS of the city as centralities, this ring tries to absorb the progressive development of the EDGE CITY - the growth of retail, residential communities, and business-logistics areas in the vicinity of the expressway belt of the city. (see chapter 5 - FORT(RESS)) main infrastructures: expressway, s-bahn strategy: CONCENTRATION

EDGE RING IN BETWEEN CITY AND SUBURBS

1 2 3

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105

above: the two main river valleys imagined as two SUPERPARKS crossing the capital, dividing the city in 3 distinct urban ecologies

106

above: THE SLOW CITY: PROPOSED BIKE CIRCULATION SYTEM as main backbone of the urban landscape using the existing capacities of the circulation network and developing a car-free area (in red) in the middle.

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

4.3 PARK CITY [OPENSPACE] CONNECTION - LINK

The third conjecture, based on the image of the city as a LANDSCAPE, tackles the problem of the OPENSPACE in contemporary Bucharest.

‘With the (still unfinished) re-privatization of land and the frenzy of real estate development, [...]the left-over places are the only ones that can be envisioned for public use while the existing ones, [...] are the target of aggressive private invasion with the active (and dubious) involvement of the city hall.’ (Augustin Ioan, O (noua) ‘Estetica a Reconstructiei’, 2002) ‘ In 1989 Bucharest had 3,470 hectares of green areas. In 2004 only 1,710 had hectares survived. Although there is no official data for 2007, the current number is probably around 1,400-1,500 hectares. Instead of buying back from the lawful owners the parks and other estates on which green areas could have been developed in the community service, the City Government has rushed to approve property restoration claims for parks and green areas without any legal constraints on this issue. (Save Bucharest Association, 2008) ‘The aggressive speculative development of the

last years has produced a drastic reduction of urban greenery and greenfields in Bucharest.

The City Government and planners have been unable to define a public openspace at the larger scale of the metropolitan area. No vision for the openspace structure of the city has been produced in 20 years of reform and now, more than ever, a coherent plan for the recovery of Bucharest’s landscape and openspaces as public spaces at regional scale is needed.

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

107

program zoning of the superpark

above: existing functions in the area to be incorporated in the PARK CITY and circulation system in the car-free area linking different pieces of parks and gardens through cyclable and pedestrian routes

108

above: THE SOUTH SUPERPARK, based on the ancient valley of Dambovita river a large scale recreational area containing monuments, education facilities, water areas, re-converted industrial heritage, existing parks, residual green areas and urban fabric Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

4.3 PARK CITY [OPENSPACE] CONNECTION - LINK

This conjecture takes into analysis the recovery of two important ecological corridors crossing the capital in the East-West direction. The PARK CITY is an image of Bucharest as a green, eco-balanced city expressed in two strips of green landscape dividing the city in 3 areas: the drosscape specific to the transition period in the north (SPRAWL SUBURBIA), the continuous urbanized area in between the strips (METROPOLITAN CORE) and the poor areas in the south (SOCIALIST COMPACT CITY).

Based on the tool of the VALLEY as spatial structure and the device of the RIVER as main backbone of this ecological system, the two trips are designed as public OPENSPACES at the scale of the entire city (metropolitan area).

The north strip has been consolidated since the Socialist era through the realization of a series of recreational parks and protected areas.

The south strip of the PARK CITY that represents the focus of this project, is a collection of different green and cultural environments connected by a bycicle network at the metropolitan scale and the river Dambovita (see image to the right).

Two park typologies of this strip are detailed as case studies through exploratory projects: the WATERPARK and the INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE PARK (see chapter 5 WATERPARK and INDUSTRIAL HERIRAGE PARK) right: concept map - PARK CITY Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

109

110 Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

THE POLARIZED CLUSTER

THE PLINTH

THE LINEAR PARK

THE INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE PARK

THE WATERPARK

THE FORT(RESS)

5/ BUCHAREST - 6 CASE STUDIES (TESTS) Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

111

5.1 THE LINEAR PARK [ARCHIPELAGO CITY]

112

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

A spatial reinterpretation of the area in between the new HIGH SPEED TRAIN STATION and the old NORTH STATION (GARA DE NORD) (CFR railway yard, Gara de Nord, 1st District, Bucharest) from a bundle of railways and a powerful urban border to a linear park and 3 new informal openspaces

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

113

KIEV 5H

5.1 THE LINEAR PARK [ARCHIPELAGO CITY]

VIENNA 5H30

ALEXANDROPOULIS 2H30

This exploratory project investigates how the new mobility patterns of the ARCHIPELAGO CITY trigger the transformation of residual areas areas previously used by infrastructure. The study area is concentrated on the two main train stations in the north of Bucharest: the new High-Speed Station (main station of the city) and the old North Station (Gara de Nord) which becomes the Central North Station.

This highly congested nodes of public transport are also the two most important gates of the city.

The tools used for this project are the MAIDAN (social condenser) which is repeated three times in three different typologies (the courtyard, the bridge and the front square), the BIG BOX which is represented mainly by the two stations as attractors for a large diversity of services and activities, and finally the GARDEN that here takes the shape of a linear park situated along the railways, connecting the two train stations.

The opportunity created by shifting the new main train station to the north opens the possibility to create a public park with amenities in place of the old bundle of railways cutting the urban fabric along 3,5 km.

On the north and the south sides of the linear park, old areas occupied by industry related to the railways are transfromed into new urban environments with different characteristics: a chunk to the north that is built follwing the typology of the block and a chunk to the south that adopts a low-rise high density typology similar to its surroundings.

This two new centralities are related to the transport nodes as they become working/living environments for the freshly created class of service workers embedded in a mobile and international environment.

MAIDAN

BIG BOX

+ 114

GARDEN

+ Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

0

500m

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

115

VIENNA 5H 30 KIEV 5H

BUCHAREST HIGH SPEED TRAIN STATION CONSTANZA 1H 30

ALEXANDROPOULIS 2H 30

TRAIN STATION [HST]

TRAIN STATION [NT, SB,RT]

The High-Speed station is conceived as a ring of commercial and entertainment areas (BIG BOX) connecting four main platforms at different levels around a Courtyard (MAIDAN). The use of this courtyard is free, and numerous events and temporary activities can take place here due to its exceptional connectivity.

The Bridge of Culture (MAIDAN) is conceived as a link connecting the right and the left side of the railways. While the roof (the actual bridge) is a free surface ready for spontaneous events or weekly markets (like a raised stage), at the park level there are a series of public cultural buildings as described in the nearby schemes. The name of this device has symbolic value since it connects parts of the city that have different cultural backgrounds and character. the physical bridge is also a temporal link between different ages of the city.

The Central Station is a filter of commercial areas and services (BIG BOX) between the train platforms and the Front square (MAIDAN) which is mainly a young people’s park where urban sport activities can take place.

TRAIN STATION [NT,RT]

HIGH-SPEED STATION TRAIN STATION [HST] BIG BOX HOTEL MAIDAN 1 / COURTYARD BIG BOX COMMERCIAL BIG BOX ENTERTAINMENT

116

5.1 THE LINEAR PARK [ARCHIPELAGO CITY]

THE LINEAR PARK

PARK PAVILIONS [DUNES]

MAIDAN 2 / BRIDGE CULTURAL STRIP

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

1000 m T HST NT SB RT

TM TM

0

T T

BIG BOX 1 / HIGH-SPEED STATION MAIDAN 1 / COURTYARD

T

MAIDAN 2 / THE BRIDGE OF CULTURE

CULTURAL FACILITIES STRIP

M

T

T

CHUNCK 1 BLOCK STRUCTURE

library music hall fnac gourmet biennale spaces

T

TM

STADIUM

TT T

THE LINEAR PARK

TM

TM T

CHUNCK 2 LOW RISE HIGH DENSITY

T T M NT SB RT

T

BIG BOX 2 / CENTRAL STATION NORTH MAIDAN 3 / FRONT SQUARE

T tram station M metro station NT national train station SB s-bahn station RT regional train station HST high-speed train station

TRAIN STATION [NT,SB,RT] PARK PAVILIONS [DUNES]

THE LINEAR PARK

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

CENTRAL STATION NORTH MAIDAN 3 / FRONT SQUARE BIG BOX COMMERCIAL

117

5.2 THE PLINTH [ARCHIPELAGO CITY]

118

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

A spatial reinterpretation of one of the oldest MAIDAN (informal square and openspace) and MARKETPLACE of Bucharest.

(OBOR square and commercial area, 3rd District, Bucharest) from a residual commercial area, parking, and slums to a multimodal on multiple levels and a public garden

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

119

KIEV 5H

5.2 THE PLINTH [ARCHIPELAGO CITY]

VIENNA 5H30

ALEXANDROPOULIS 2H30

This exploratory project tries to re-define the concept of a regular transfer node of the ARCHIPELAGO CITY. The study area is focused in a place of particular historical significance for Bucharest. One of the oldest MAIDAN in the capital since the premodern era, and its most important market place, this site is today a residual space where informal markets and squatter stand next to high class shopping areas and the City Hall of the second district of the city.

In the new public transport scheme it acquires a very important role as transfer point between car, tram, regional train and metro.

It is an eloquent example of what a transfer station should become as re-invented space in the city: a public plinth that encourages extreme congestion and acts like a social condenser.

The tools used for this project are the MAIDAN which is situated in this case below the ground zero connecting different stations and areas divided by the high affluence traffic on the inner ring. This level is dedicated to commerce entertainment and culture. The level above is a representation of a GARDEN in various declinations. The ground zero, today suffocated by cars whould be available for the setting of a series of public green spaces once the underground parking areas are built.

The resulted green spaces will have different destinations: some of them precise (the orchard and the maze as a memory of the original green spaces of the city), others free like the slope, the traditional garden, the english garden that are simply supports for recreational activities.

MAIDAN

GARDEN

+ 120

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

0

150m

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5.2 THE PLINTH [ARCHIPELAGO CITY]

The concept of the PLINTH is one of a solid mass (material representation of the congestion in the node) which is excavated on different levels creating a beehive of flows connecting the different transport modes and generating potential for the development of connected activities.

The PLINTH becomes the base for the reconstruction of the ground zero which turns into a public GARDEN for pedestrian and cycling use.

In specific points the underground energy contained in the PLINTH surfaces on the ground level where it connects to different parts of the city or creates event spaces like the open-air theatre in this case. In the middle of the highly trafficked roundabout of the inner ring, the theater is both an event space and the tram station.

Finally, the PLINTH also capitalizes the potential of existent important buildings that do not profit today from easy accessibility or stimulating environment. In the middle of the garden, buildings such as the City Hall, or the Old Market building from the 30’ies become actual landmarks adding value to the site itself.

122

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

300 m AM TR

GREEN ROOMS BOOKSHOP & MUSIC

TR

REGIONAL TRAIN

EDGES

JAPANESE GARDEN

THEATRE

ROTONDA

AM

0

DEPT. STORE

PARKING 2

PARKING 1

TR

PATIO GARDEN BLOCKS

AM GREEN PROMENADE

LANDMARKS

-2

INFRASTRUCTURE

COMMERCIAL PLAZA

-1

GARDEN

CAMOUFLAGED BUILDINGS

ORCHARD

MAZE

LAWN

ENGLISH GARDEN

TRAM

METR O

GALLERY

PARKING 3

MARKET

SLOPE

0

BUILDINGS

+

THEATRE

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

METRO

ROUNDABOUT

TRAM STATION

UNDERGROUND PASSAGE

TRAM

ROUNDABOUT

DIAGRAMS OF DIFFERENT LEVELS / ANATOMY OF THE PLINTH

CAFE PARKING

COMMERCIAL LEVEL

GARDEN LEVEL

INFRASTRUCTURE LEVEL REGIONAL TRAIN STATION

123

5.3 POLARIZED CLUSTER [RING CITY - CORPORATE RING]

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

A spatial reinterpretation of one of the old industrial platforms built by the communist regime that has been occupied by multinational companies and became a contemporary BUSINESS CLUSTER. (Dimitrie Pompei Boulevard, PIPERA industrial platform, 2nd District, Bucharest) from a functional business cluster to a space for new productive activities

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

125

5.3 POLARIZED CLUSTER [RING CITY - CORPORATE RING]

This exploratory project tackles the problem of the typical isolated business cluster. The study area is an ex-industrial platform of high technology that was created in the late 1970’s. Its exceptional position in the north of the city, close to the two airports and next to the richest areas in Bucharest facilitated its transformation that begun as early as 1996. Unfortunately there was no coherent plan or strategy to steer the metamorphosis from a gray and polluted industrial site to a creative environment for business and services. The subsequent occupation of land and transformation of old warehouses was carried on with no care for the openspaces in between buildings and the boulevards that cross or border the site.

The tools used for this project are the BOULEVARD which here is interpreted as an instrument of extreme congestion populated by a large variety of programs and the COLONY [CLUSTER], since the area in itself is detached from the rest of the city and not a continuation of it.

In the new geography of production, this area is situated on the CORPORATE RING. A series of international companies as well as romanian companies re-located here, but the quality of the environment for such a high-standard tertiary production zone is still very poor.

The aim of the project is to radicalize the very idea of cluster by POLARIZING its contents and creating hierarchy between the edges and the core areas. This case study becomes a paradigmatic example of the way in which a closed colony or cluster can be re-configured, improving its internal quality and its connection to the city.

BOULEVARD

COLONY [CLUSTER]

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

CORPOR ATE RING

0

350m

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

127

5.3 POLARIZED CLUSTER [RING CITY - CORPORATE RING]

128

HYBRID FLOATING SLABS

SERVICE STRIP

CENTRAL BOULEVARD + + DENSITY

SERVICE STRIP

CORPORATE TOWERS

OFFICE BLOCKS

COURTYARD PARK - DENSITY

RECREATION ENERGY

RE-USED WAREHOUSES GREEN FROOFS

HYBRID FLOATING SLABS

HYBRID TOWER

SERVICE STRIP

SOUTH BOUEVARD + DENSITY

The strategy in this case follows a series of steps: 1. POLARIZATION - reinforcement of the edges where the cluster connects to the city - improvement of the public transport on the main crossing boulevard.

2. EDGE DENSIFICATION - extreme congestion along the boulevards.

New program can be added using 4 different typologies: - office blocks in the vacant places - towers in the vicinity of the tram stations - floating slabs above the existing blocks and warehouses where space is not available - service strips of bars, cafes, restaurants, boutiques along the boulevard creating a new front.

3. CORE EROSION - the migration of new buildings to the boulevard and the demolishion of some abandoned warehouses will allow to grow greenery and parks in the core areas of the cluster. This new green areas will serve both as recreational spaces and energy suppliers through the installation of windmills.

4. PROGRAM HIBRIDIZATION - mixing uses and adding new programs besides offices and business along the boulevards will transform them into actual public spaces and social attractors.

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

900 m M NT RT

ABANDONED

RESIDUAL GREEN AREAS BUILT FABRIC

BUSINESS

T

0

T

TM T

T T

TM

T HARD SURAFACES

T

PROGRAM HIBIRIDIZATION

T tram station M metro station NT national train station RT regional train station

CORE EROSION

POLARIZATION

EDGE DENSIFICATION

RESIDENTIAL / EDUCATION

HYBRID FLOATING SLABS IN-BETWEEN AREAS ARE ERODED MORE GREEN

BUILT FABRIC

BUSINESS

EDGE PARKS

LINEAR PARKS

SERVICE STRIP

HARD SURFACES COURTYARDS

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

HYBRID TOWERS

NORTH BOULEVARD ++ DENSITY

HYBRID TOWER

RESIDENTIAL / EDUCATION

SHOWROOMS SERVICE STRIP

LINEAR PARK - - DENSITY

INDUSTRIAL ARCHEOLOGY

PARKING 3

INFRASTRUCTURE

RE-USED WAREHOUSES GREEN FROOFS

GREEN POROSITY IN THE HARD AREAS

TOWERS, FLOATING SLABS, OFFICE BLOCKS, SERVICE STRIPS

RECREATION ENERGY

OFFICE BLOCKS

BOULEVARDS ATTRACT MORE DENSITY MORE CONGESTION

129

5.4 FORT(RESS) [RING CITY - EDGE RING]

130

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

A REUSE - RESSURECTION of the 20 forts that were built in the beginning of the XX century to defend the capital.

(External Ring Road, Bucharest) from abandoned heritage landscapes and large-scale military architectures to new spaces destined to absorb sprawl and de-centralization on the city edge

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

131

5.4 FORT(RESS) [RING CITY - EDGE RING]

This exploratory project is focused on the re-use of the old defense forts of Bucharest as new centralities on the EDGE RING. The case of the forts is very interesting since they were built at the beginning of the XXth century, but soon after the Great War became obsolete as defense structures.

Nevertheless the infrastructure made for their use (a ring railway and a road) were of extraorinary importance for the subsequent evolution of the city. Today this infrastructure is ideally placed at what we can call the limit of the city area, in between Bucharest and the surrounding cities. The forts themselves were abandoned in oblivion and numerous parasite structures corrupted their extraordinary landscape value.

In the mobility conjecture, multimodal transfer nodes are created in the vicinity of the forts linking public transport and park & ride areas. The forts can therefore become (due to their extraordinary acessibility) small centralities on the edge between the inner city and outer suburbs, attracting functions as those described by Joel Garreau in his book EDGE CITIES. The tools used for this project are the BOULEVARD seen at a larger scale, connecting not important buildings or landmarks but the forts themselves, and the FORT re-interpreted as an attractor instead of a defense mechanism.

The FORT(RESS) becomes a center, but not an island, since each fort has a different urban function. The intention is not to create gated communities, but pieces of city linked by an edge infrastructure.

BOULEVARD

FORT

+ 132

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

0

250m

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

133

5.4 FORT(RESS) [RING CITY - EDGE RING]

134

AVENUE

APARTMENT SLABS

LOW-RISE HIGH DENSITY

PARK & RIDE

EXPRESSWAY

S-BAHN

TRAM

HYPERMARKET

PARKING AVENUE

PROM

RETAIL & ENTERTAINMENT FORT

PARKING

COMMERCIAL GALLERIES

RING

CENTRAL GARDEN

FORT GALLERIES

OPEN-AIR CINEMA PROM

AVENUE

COMMERCIAL GALLERIES

FOREST BETWEEN HYPERMARKETS

PARK & RIDE

EXPRESSWAY

S-BAHN

TRAM

EDGE

The forts have a distinct ANATOMY composed by 3 SPACES divided by an avenue linked with parking areas (where cars have access from the underground park&ride) and a promenade which is for pedestrian and cycling use.

The outer ring on the edge of the fort has a direct relationship with the large landscape or the infrastructure.

The middle ring is a transition ring between the avenue and the promenade. Finally the core is the main public space of the fort - generally a park populated by punctual elements.

There are three typologies of FORTS which compose the milieu of this EDGE RING CITY: The RETAIL FORTS have a program similar to the existent retail clusters in the city. The outer ring is composed of large hypermarket structures, the middle ring hosts commercial galleries under a portico perforated by gardens and the core is destined to the entertainment - cinema, open-air theatre and exhibition pavilion.

The RESIDENTIAL FORTS attract residents which want to evade the inner city or work in the EDGE RING area.

Here the outer ring is composed of low-rise high density housing, the middle ring is composed of aparment slabs creating different courtyards (forest or plazas), while the inner ring is destined to the park, the sport field and the mixed-use towers.

Finally the BUSINESS FORT is composed by a logistic area in the outer ring camouflaged under the forest, an area of courtyard blocks in the middle ring and a park space in the core occupied by high-rise towers connected by a raised public promenade.

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

400 m INFRASTRUCTURE

PROMENADE (PROM)

HYPERMARKET

LOW-RISE HIGH DENSITY

LOGISTICS

OFFICE BLOCKS

AVENUE

COMMERCIAL GALLERIES

S-BAHN

0

EDGE RING EXPRESSWAY APARTMENT SLABS

ENTERTAINMENT

TOWERS & PARK

TOWERS & PARK

T SB P&R T tram station SB s-bahn station P&R park& ride

TRAM

BUSINESS & LOGISTICS FORT

RESIDENTIAL FORT FOREST

GARDEN

OUTER RING

ANATOMY

RETAIL & ENTERTAINMENT FORT

LAWN

MIDDLE RING

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

BUSINESS & LOGISTICS FORT

LOGISTICS

PARKING AVENUE

PROM

OFFICE BLOCKS

OFFICE TOWERS

CENTRAL PARK

FORT GALLERIES PROM

OFFICE BLOCKS

PARK & RIDE

EXPRESSWAY

S-BAHN

TRAM

LOW-RISE HIGH DENSITY

PARKING

PARKING

FOREST OVER LOGISTICS AVENUE

RESIDENTIAL FORT

AVENUE

PROM

APARTMENT SLABS

CENTRAL PARK

FORT GALLERIES

PROM

RESIDENTIAL TOWER

CORE

135

5.5 WATERPARK [PARK CITY]

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

A spatial reinterpretation of one of the largest water landscapes in Bucharest.

(Lacul Morii, 6th District, Bucharest) from a residual lake to a community waterpark, center of a new reality of the city: Bucharest on the water

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

137

5.5 WATERPARK [PARK CITY]

The great lake upstream Dambovita river (the central watercourse of Bucharest) was built in the 1980’s to control flooding and regulate water levels in the city. It was a purely utilitarian initiative, and the high dike surrounding the lake (5m) severed the chance of a direct relationship between the water and the city.

This exploratory project investigates how this exceptional piece of fabricated landscape can become a COMMUNITY WATERPARK. The lake is one of the green pieces composing the PARK CITY, the green strip crossing Bucharest from East to West. The presence of the dyke as a powerful physical border gives the lake the appearance of an independent space, extraordinarily natural and artificial at the same time.

Given the lake’s protective function the integrity of this border cannot be touched. Bringing Bucharest around this lake therefore means building new water-related urban environments.

The tools used for this project are the RIVER which is reborn here (the sluice between the lake and Dambovita river appears as the origin of the watercourse), and the COMMUNITY PARK which is the urban function and the atmosphere that is intended to be given to this residual lake.

Building the city around the lake means creating a series of special living working and leisure spaces related to the water, connected by the dyke as main infrastructure.

The total perimeter of the lake - around 7km - can be covered by bike mobility in less than half an hour which makes this space a possible pilot project for eco-mobility.

RIVER

COMMUNITY PARK

+ 138

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

RING CORPOR ATE 0

450m

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

139

5.5 WATERPARK [PARK CITY]

140

DECK

SUN DECK

SERVICES

POOLS

CANOEING

CAMPO

WATERHOUSES

YACHTING

3. THE FLOATING STRAND which remembers one of the manifest projects of the early OMA becomes a leisure environment directly related to the lake.

Building on the water is encouraged also in order to prevent future development in the green areas surrounding the lake which are to be preserved intact and become specialized recreational areas - THEME PARKS or NATURAL PARKS.

ACTIVITIES PEER

DYKE

LANDMARK TOWER

Three typologies are proposed as possible archetypes guiding future development of the city around the lake.

1. THE PEER BLOCK which is inspired by harbour architectures and by extraordinary water-related environments such as Hamburg HafenCity.

2. THE WATERHOUSES which are a re-interpretation of the row-houses of Borneo Sporenburg in a Venice type of spatial configuration around a central CAMPO.

FLOATING STRAND

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

GREEN LAKE BIRD NESTING FLOODABLE SWAMPS FISHING

URBAN GARDENS AND ORCHARDS

WATERPLAZA

BEACH

EVENTS ISLAND

BEACH URBAN GARDENS AND ORCHARDS

DYKE

0

FLOATING STRAND

ISLAND GARDEN

CANOEING

WATERPLAZA THE CAN

GREEN PROMENADE

YACHTING

OE

LEISURE WATER TRIPS

STADIUM

RAC ING

WATERHOUSES

BEACH WIND SURF

PEER BLOCKS

STR

PARK

BEACH

IP

ENTERTAINMENT PARK

URBAN GARDENS

SPORTS PARK

GARDEN

WATERPLAZA

3 TYPOLOGIES DYKE

DYKE

ACTIVITIES ‘PEER’ MAIN PUBLIC SPACE

FISH BASINS

ACTIVITIES ‘RAFT’ MAIN PUBLIC SPACE

CAMPI (SQUARES)

SUN DECK ABOVE SERVICES BELOW SWIMMING POOLS

WATERHOUSES

PEER BLOCKS

MODEL: BORNEO + VENICE ACTIVITIES RAFT

MODEL: HAMBURG

EVENTS ISLAND

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

FLOATING STRAND MODEL: OMA CONCEPT

PARK

MAIN STREET

DYKE

OPEN COURTYARD BLOCKS

OPEN COURTYARDS

DYKE

700 m

THE DYKE CITY

PEER BLOCKS

141

5.6 THE INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE PARK [PARK CITY]

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Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

A RE-USE of obsolete, forgotten and abandoned productive areas of Bucharest which have an outstanding urban and architectural value.

(Tabacarilor, 3th District, Bucharest) from residual areas removed from the urban reality to spaces dedicated to the creative society

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

143

5.6 THE INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE PARK [PARK CITY] The central area of Bucharest, particularly near the central river (Dambovita) is filled with industrial sites built around the 1900’s - the first industrialization period.

Their exceptional position and availability (since industrial activity ceased in this places after 1989) makes them perfect targets for speculative development which proved to be very destructive in regards to industrial heritage buildings and indiferent to the re-integration of this sites in the public structure of the city.

This exploratory project investigates how this sites could be integrated as pieces of public greenery and historic patrimony in the general structure of the PARK CITY. The anatomy of this industrial sites is very interesting since is so different from the industrial clusters of the 1960’s.

Here the growth of the production areas occured in time by (addition) infiltrating itself in-between houses and courtyards, creating a second connective tissue overlapping the intricated street network of the old city. Therefore, a re-conversion of these sites into INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE PARKS would generate a new model of public green space percolating the traditional urban fabric. The position of these sites next to the river is to be enhanced connecting the new parks with the water surface, generating points of public intensity on the river. The effect of such a continuous green network integrating the river and industrial heritage would create the potential for the development of new space for CREATIVE activities and grassroots development of EVENT SPACES related to the particular qualities of these sites. This bottom-up generation of IDENTITY would protect these sites from aggressive speculative development.

RIVER

EVENT PARK

+ 144

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

0

150m

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

145

5.6 THE INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE PARK [PARK CITY] The transformation process of these sites could follow some simple steps: 1. PRESERVATION of the most valuable pieces of industrial heritage within the site and CLEARANCE from the parasite structures that accumulated in time in order to clear up space for outdoor activities and green spaces.

2. tracing the new HERITAGE INDUSTRIAL PARK connecting the preserved industrial buildings (courtyards, machines, pavilions, gates) through a series of different archetipal garden spaces (tree-lined alleys, orchards, lawns, flower gardens).

3. PERIMETER DENSIFICATION left to speculative development.

4. CONNECTION TO THE RIVER through light bridges and floating rafts on the watersurface that can host small events, pavilions, cafes and restaurants.

This process would create the basis for the bottom-up BRANDING of the site through occupation of the low-rent spaces by creative activities such as: architecture and design offices, artists colonies and workspaces, art schools and exhibition galleries.

Some paricular spaces like the courtyards could become ideal EVENT SPACES hosting concerts, outdoor film projections, contemporary theatre and ballet performances and art performances.

GREEN PARKING TREE LINES

146

COURTYARD

LAWN

THE COURTYARD EVENT SPACES

MACHINE GARDEN ORCHARD

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

250 m

PRESERVATION CLEARANCE

INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE PARK

0

EXISTENT URBAN TISSUE AND STREET LAYOUT

TREE GARDEN

PERIMETER DENSIFICATION

FLOATING RAFT

GARDEN TYPOLOGIES

INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS KEPT AND NEW ADDITIONS

TEA PAVILION

FLOWER GARDEN

THE GATE: CREATIVE OFFICES

THE MACHINE: ART ATELIERS, ARTIST ACCOMODATION EXHIBITION SPACES, ART SCHOOL

ORCHARD

TREE LINED ALLEYS

FLOATING RAFT

DESIGN HOTEL THE COURTYARD: EVENT SPACES FILM, THEATRE, OFFICES

LAWN

TEA PAVILION

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

RIVER QUAY

ENTRANCE GARDEN

TREE GARDEN

DAMBOVITA RIVER

PAVILION GARDEN

FLOWER GARDEN

RIVER QUAY

THE MACHINE

FLOATING RAFT

GREEN PARKING

147

MOBILE

148

PRODUCTIVE

PUBLIC

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

How would a VISION for Post-Socialist Bucharest 2025 look like?

Could Bucharest become a mobile, isotropic, productive, attractive, green city?

How could we use infrastructure and openspace to describe the future of Bucharest?

These were the recurrent questions of this thesis (implicit and explicit).

A VISION is, of course, (at least from the american perpective) a very complex process involving different practitioners actors and public, culminating in the creation of a desirable future for the city.

In this thesis, the process is much more modest: the VISION becomes a teaser, a provocative statement, built to create a debate subject.

The final VISION is generated through the superimposition of the three conjectures that have been the result of the whole analysis of this thesis, based on the triad: mobility / production / openspace.

Superimposing these three generated images of the city we could answer to the questions mentioned above and therefore satisfy the limited ambitions of this thesis.

Of course the final image resulted by this fusion represents only the ‘grounds’ for a much larger and challenging research.

The combination of the three conjectures produces an image which is deeply referenced in the peculiar way in which the city grew following agencies and rationalities that were expressed through particular spatial devices like the MAIDAN (as informal public openspace), the GARDEN (as main formalized public space) , the BOULEVARD in its local declination, the very interesting (cosmological) presence of the circle of FORTS, or

the independent COLONIES which created in time a city of islands - an urban ARCHIPELAGO. Through this project Bucharest’ diversity is reinforced and re-connected through: - a mobility system that produces a CONSTELLATION of urban gates - supports for public acessibility and and generators of a new quality of place, - an infrastructure of RINGS producing a new geography for the emerging URBAN LANDMARKS, the CORPORATE colonization and the growing EDGE CITY. - a re-constructed LANDSCAPE acting as structural element for the city (expressed in the two river valleys that divide the city in three distinct urban ecologies.)

+ ARCHIPELAGO CITY

+ RING CITY

PARK CITY

6/ BUCHAREST - VISION & STRATEGY Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

149

150

end product: TOOLS MATRIX

ANALYSIS > TERRITORIAL SCALE

DEFINING SPECIFIC PLANNING TOOLS TO BE USED AS GUIDELINES

ANALYSIS > URGENCIES + CONFLICTS

SETTING THE LIMIT OF THE RESEARCH & PROJECT

SETTING THE FRAMEWORK IN SEARCH OF NEW PLANNING TOOLS

3 LAYERS: MOBILITY / PRODUCTION/ OPENSPACE

RESEARCH TOPICS PROBLEM STATEMENT MAPPING > SPATIAL LAYERS

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

>

end product: 6 DEVICES

PROJECTS TEST CASES

end product: 3 IMAGES OF THE CITY

PLINTH

CONJECTURE 3 PARK CITY

FORT

>

INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE PARK

CONJECTURE 2 RING CITY

WATER PARK

>

POLARIZED CLUSTER

CONJECTURE 1 ARCIPELAGO CITY

LINEAR PARK

6.1 THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FINAL VISION

BUCHAREST 2025 Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

151

6.2 SMALL SCALE STRATEGY THE USE OF THE TOOL MATRIX TO GUIDE INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS

COLLECTION OF TOOLS PREVIOUSLY USED IN BUCHAREST

GENERATION OF THE TOOL MATRIX (SPATIAL GUIDELINES) ORGANIZED IN 3 PARTS CORRESPONDING TO THE THREE CONJECTURES

ARCHIPELAGO CITY

RING CITY

PARK CITY

UNIT APPROACH

ACTORS COMBINING ELEMENTS OF THE MATRIX RESULTS IN NEW DEVICES (PARADIGMATIC PROJECTS)

CONSTRAINTS

MINIMAL REALIZATION SPIN-OFF

152

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

6.3 LARGE SCALE STRATEGY APPLICATION OF THE CONJECTURES PPP

TOP DOWN

ARCHIPELAGO CITY

RING CITY

BOTTOM UP

PARK CITY

EXCHANGE PUBLIC TRANSPORT STATION

LANDMARKS, CLUSTERS, FORTS

CULTURE/ WATER/ INDUSTRIAL/AGRO PARKS

TOP-DOWN, managed by the City Hall that provides new public spaces that will be concessioned to private operators.

PPP managed by private investors following the conditions imposed by the City Hall.

BOTTOM-UP grassroots strategies encouraging the local initiatives in order to render the future public openspaces attractive

CITY HALL, PRIVATE OPERATORS, PUBLIC

PRIVATE INVESTORS, MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES, YOUNG PROFESSIONALS, LOCAL COMMUNITIES

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS, CREATIVE JOBS, STUDENT ASSOCIATIONS, CULTURAL INSITUTIONS

each station must provide a minimum number of basic services

boulevard congestion, increased green porosity high density, mixed uses

all green or reconverted spaces must become public openspaces, the privatization of green is prohibited, building is allowed under strict conditions (typology, position, height)

THE ‘MAIDAN’ (INFORMAL PUBLIC SPACE, SOCIAL CONDENSER)

THE 3 INFRASTRUCTURAL RINGS (BOULEVARD, PARKWAY, MOTORWAY)

THE ‘SLOW’ NETWORK (BICYCLE LANES, RIVER QUAYS, DYKES)

increased accessiblity in peripheral areas, good intermodal coordination, increased travel choice, regeneration of areas around the stations, generation of public intensity, construction of contemporary mobility environments

increased public intensity through congestion and mixed uses, efficient connection of business and productive areas, isotropic disposition of development, concentration of sprawling edges

increased attractivity of waterfronts and existing green areas, integration of cultural activities, events and recreation leading to the renewal of neighbouring areas, re-use of heritage industrial buildings, increased ecological quality of the city

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

153

Bucharest is not an easy city to work with, but once dissected on the urbanist’s table it becomes a very challenging subject. An urban space that lived through NO GOLDEN AGE, an endless accumulation of projects, visions, agencies, political-technological spaces and changing mentalities, Bucharest presents itself today as an almost medieval city re-produced day by day by the invisible hands of the market.

While past projects were clear statements of a cultural and political position, the present growth cannot be related to any visible rationality. The apparent lack of purpose and identity in its evolution is generated by the passage in a Post-Socialist condition that is still not finished after twenty years of transition. Bucharest was not re-born yet, it remains in a comatose state, in-between paradigms.

Like many other Post-Socialist capitals, Bucharest’ ‘main parameters of urban transformation have been set by the neo-liberal framework of post-socialist reforms, implemented under the strong influence of the major international institutions.’ (Stanilov, 2007) in an attempt to ‘make a desperate leap from totalitarian existence to capitalism in a matter of only a few years’ (Stanilov, 2007).

This deep structural change was doubled by a loss of authority and trust: ‘ What followed after 1989 in the former Eastern Block was a typically post-modern situation characterized by a lack of moral certainty and clear authority, and the rise of multiple voices previously oppressed by the meta-narrative of communist ideology.’ (Stanilov, 2007), leading to a ‘chaotic pattern of development, generated

154

by the retreat of central authorities, the appearance of a multitude of new players, and the frivolous application of patterns of development “borrowed” from the West.’

(Stanilov, 2007).

People’s values and beliefs related to their urban environments suffered after 1989 of a major earthquake since they entered in ‘a new period, commonly referred to as postsocialism. Similarly to the terms post-industrialism and post-modernism, already quite popular at the time, this expression signified a condition that was defined primarily by the disintegration of the characteristics of the preceding system, rather than by a coherent vision of what should follow.’ (Stanilov, 2007).

This disintegration was manifested at all spatial levels from the degrading architecture to the uncontrolled proliferation of sprawl and the appearance of anonimous BIG BOXES throughout the city. Unexperienced in dealing with the volatile character of the market and moved by extreme individualism, the population and the planners gave up any kind of control on the city producing an abrupt and violent decay of public spaces, work environments, greenery and accessiblity: ‘The public places and the public use of urban space have been seriously compromised in an autistic, booming, business-oriented Bucharest. In a very short time, we went from conceptions of public place as empty squares for marches and parades to the absence of any expert debate on the making, appropriation, and use of public place and space.’ (Ioan, 2007).

Bucharest has become a city made of ‘capsular civilizations’ (de Cauter, 2004) that react with pure angst at the metamorphosis of the space and place occuring all around them, choosing to retreat in isolated and protected enclaves, creating a city of clusters.

Given this volatile, unstable condition of the city what could be a possible project for its contemporary transformation?

The planning tools of the past (GENERAL URBAN PLAN, LOCAL ZONING PLANS, DETAILED REGULATION PLANS) seem to be unfit for the UNCERTAINTY that is the general condition of the present urban development. Instruments of the socialist years required another type of political and mental framework to succeed in their mission and become totally inefficient in the current condition. The blind and continuous repetition of the same obsolete procedures has taken the city to the edge of structural collapse.

No contemporary plan for Bucharest recognizes its specific potential that comes from within its own growth patterns and rules developed during centuries.

No contemporary plan looks beyond the well established cliche’ that Bucharest is a typical gray, dull and crumbling post-socialist city that has to be adapted and transformed in order to imitate at best its Western counterparts.

No contemporary plan dares to produce a new approach to the city that would consider its uniqueness and transform it into a European model of urban transformation, a laboratory to test new spatial tools and paradigmatic projects denying the static and unefficient recipes of the past.

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

We are the subjects of a transformation process knowing neither the rationale behind it, nor the identity of the decisionmakers. The public is disconnected from the active implication in the construction of the city and the actors have multiplied to a point where they become invisible.

REALITY REQUIRES NEW TOOLS AND STRATEGIES TO MANAGE THE CONDITION OF UNCERTAINTY WHICH HAS BECOME THE HALLMARK OF THE CONTEMPORARY CITY. This is the aim that repesented the horizon of the thesis: the development of a new set of TOOLS that act like guidelines, the generation of images, the construction of CONJECTURES and the production of a VISION and STRATEGIES that could consitute an organic approach to UNCERTAINTY. Starting from a proactive reading of the historical layers of the city, the research underlines a series of urban TOOLS that were of crucial importance in the development of the city. They represent a reconstruction of the city’s DNA, of the peculiar devices that were invented here as spatial answers to urban imperatives. Their combined application is extremely flexible and generates new devices which can be reused to answer specific problems. Therefore the whole system is built as a set of guidelines and paradigmatic tools, created to deal with UNCERTAINTY and to generate a sense of place which seems to be lost in the current GENERIC AND AGGRESSIVE transformation of the urban landscape.

The TOOLS are able by themselves (through different combinations) to generate complexity and to provide original answers for particular cases.

landscape organized in horizontal layers divided by large PARKS at the scale of the city which become contemporary generators of publicness.

On top of the TOOLS MATRIX stand the CONJECTURES which generate NEW IMAGES OF THE CITY, based on its ANATOMY, LATENT PROJECTS, or LANDSCAPE. The role of CONJECTURES is to provide an image of the future Bucharest which is an answer to a specific URGENCY and a specific CONFLICT described in the ANALYSIS chapters: mobility (the necessity of a connected, accessible, isotropic city) / production (the reality of globalization and the emergence of new productive patterns) / openspace (the reconstruction of the landscape and the provision of large public openspaces at the larger scale of the city).

They act as frameworks for the application of specific tools related to mobility / production / openspace issues.

The role of this thesis is not to give a definitive answer of how Bucharest should be. Its aim is to provide the basis - a platform for debate, a provocative manifesto for a new approach, a new perspective over the post-socialist realities of the city. The VISION is not describing a proposed GOLDEN AGE. The quality of Bucharest as underlined by this thesis lies in its open character, its appearance as ‘UNFINISHED PROJECT’ (Ioan, 2007). The city should be ‘more or less the oeuvre of its citizens instead of imposing itself upon them as a system, as an already closed book’ (Lefevbre, 1996:117) The abandon of the rigid plan in favour of an approach concentrated on building potential for future development is not a new strategy. Underlined by Koolhaas and other urban theorists as the only contemporary method to deal with UNCERTAINTY, the generation of potential for Bucharest is realized in this thesis using its own urban devices, recovered from the ‘warehouse of urban history’.

The MAIDAN as contemporary support for public informal activities, the BOULEVARD as sequence and attractor of congestion, the RIVER as a structuring and defining element of natural and urban ecologies are examples of such an approach.

Dealing with the very complex nature of the city always requires a certain degree of reduction, but that operation must be done with great care in order not to lead to an extreme simplification of the urban reality.

Therefore, the VISION is a return to the original complexity of the city, where the three separate but interdependent layers of research are superimposed generating a unique image where the three CONJECTURES are overlapped.

Bucharest becomes an ACCESSIBLE ARCHIPELAGO made of fragments and gates, a productive city made of RINGS with different local, international and regional vocations, a green

7/ GENERAL CONCLUSION Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

Finally the hope is that Bucharest will not become a pale imitation, a replica of Western Cities or other PostSocialist Cities in Eastern Europe. The aim is to make Bucharest a laboratory for contemporary urban development, to transform its handicap of 40 years of isolation from capitalism and neoliberalism, into an advantage by creating new answers to the eternal urban issues of the Capitalist City.

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156

2025

integration in the metropolitan mobility system and cycling network

CONCENTRATION SUBURBAN

CORPORATE RING

DENSIFICATION POLARIZED

POROSITY CLUSTERS

1970

2005

new mobility system, congestion of the boulevard, new landmarks, new working environments for the corporate world

2025

SPRAWL 2005

new green quays and living/leisure spaces on the water integration of functional lakes in the PARK CITY

2025

LAKE

1980

VIENNA 5H30

INTEGRATION LARGE HOUSING ESTATES

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

2005

KIEV 5H

CONSTANZA 1H30

BUCHAREST HIGH-SPEED TRAIN STATION

ALEXANDROPOULIS 2H30

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

BUCHAREST 2025 2025

PEDESTRIANIZATION

INNER CITY 1890

OCCUPATION RE-USE 1980

integration of waterspaces in the PARK CITY

2025 new green quays and EVENT SPACES on the water

RIVER

EVENT SPACE in the PARK CITY

2025

INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE PARK

1700

1930

1700

Bucharest churches

1989

Bucharest’ traditional gardens integrated in the PARK CITY

2025

1900

2002

URBANISM

car-free areas of the inner city bacome pedestrian-cyclable environments part of the PARK CITY

CARDBOARD

new mobility system, greening of the boulevard, new landmarks

2025

STAGE RING

1980

DIVERSIFICATION

157

on Bucharest: Cazacu Matei, Interbellum Romania (Bucharest: Noi Media Print, 2005).

Cinà Giuseppe, Bucarest dal villaggio alla metropoli: Identità urbana e nuove tendenze (Milan: Unicopli, 2005).

Cinà Giuseppe, L’avvento della modernità: urbanistica e architettura a Bucarest tra ‘800 e primo ‘900, in Marco Dogo, Armando Pitassio (edited by), Città dei Balcani, Città d’Europa: Studi sullo sviluppo urbano delle capitali post-ottomane (Lecce: Argo, 2008).

Costantini Emanuela, L’evoluzione di Bucarest tra il 1830 e il 1859, in Marco Dogo, Armando Pitassio (edited by), Città dei Balcani, Città d’Europa: Studi sullo sviluppo urbano delle capitali post-ottomane (Lecce: Argo, 2008).

Harhoiu Dana, Bucuresti un oras intre Orient si Occident / Bucarest, une ville entre orient et occident (Bucharest: Simetria, 2001).

Ioan Augustin, The peculiar history of (post)communist public places and spaces: Bucharest as a case study, in Kiril Stanilov (edited by), The Post-Socialist City – Urban Form and Space Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe after Socialism (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007).

Majuru Adrian, Bucurestii mahalalelor (Bucharest: Compania, 2003).

Olteanu Radu, Bucurestii in date si intamplari (Bucharest: Paideia, 2002).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

on general themes: Andrusz Gregory D. , Harloe Michael, Szelényi Iván, Cities after socialism: urban and regional change and conflict in post-socialist societies (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996) Berger Alan, Drosscape, in Charles Waldheim (edited by), The Landscape Urbanism reader (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), pp. 197-217.

Bertolini Luca, Dijst Martin, Mobility Environments and Network Cities (Journal of Urban Design, vol. 8, no. 1, 2003), pp. 27–43.

De Cauter Lieven, The Capsular Civilization (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2004).

Hamilton F. E. Ian, Andrews Kaliopa Dimitrovska, Pichler-Milanović Nataša (edited by), Transformation of cities in Central and Eastern Europe: towards globalization (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2005) Harvey David, Consciousness and the Urban Experience (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1985).

Musil Jirí, Why socialist and post-socialist cities are important for forward looking urban studies, (Helsinki: ‘Forward Look on Urban Science’ conference paper, 2005) Read Stephen, Lukkassen M., Jonauskis T., Revisiting ‘Complexification’, Technology and Urban Form in Lefebvre (yet unpublished: http://www.scribd.com/doc/29775811/2010-Revisiting-Lefebvre) Stanilov Kiril, The Post-Socialist City – Urban Form and Space Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe after Socialism (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007).

Tsenkova Sasha, Nedovic-Budic Zorica, The Urban Mosaic of Post-Socialist Europe – Space, Institutions and Policy (Heidelberg: Physica-Verlag, 2006).

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

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above: ROAD SYSTEM TODAY highly hierarchized towards the city center and concentrated on radial thoroughfares

160

above: ROAD SYSTEM TODAY RING fragments and secants

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

ANNEX 1 FROM A RADIAL ROAD SYSTEM TO A RING ROAD SYSTEM

above: ROAD SYSTEM PROPOSED RING completion or modernization by connecting existent fragments

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

above: ROAD SYSTEM PROPOSED NEW RING SYSTEM and proposed hierarchy of access - discouragement of car access in the inner city through park & ride facilities connected to public transport

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ANNEX 2.1 THE NEW RAILWAY INFRASTRUCTURE PROPOSAL

above: RAILWAY SYSTEM TODAY only 2 important stations (NW) and 5 secondary stations placed in unefficient positions. only 1 train typology in operation. no coverage for the inner city and the large housing estates.

162

above: RAILWAY SYSTEM PROPOSED using abandoned railways shown in the left map, a new 4 tier railway system is implemented 2 HIGH-SPEED TRAIN LINES (corresponding to the 2 Pan-European corridors), NATIONAL TRAIN LINES, REGIONAL TRAIN LINES, CIRCULAR S-BAHN LINE. Coverage is improved in all areas and most of the stations are intermodal exchangers Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

ANNEX 2.2 THE NEW METRO INFRASTRUCTURE PROPOSAL

above: METRO SYSTEM TODAY too much distance between stations (approx. 1,5km) poor coverage no connection to the external ring of the city Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

above: METRO SYSTEM PROPOSED reducing distance between stations (approx. 500m) by building new stations extended coverage in the central, north and west areas connection to the external ring road for intermodal exchange with train

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ANNEX 2.3 THE NEW TRAM INFRASTRUCTURE PROPOSAL

above: TRAM SYSTEM TODAY a series of lines inherited from the past ensuring good coverage but poor exchange options interruption in the central area with stations too distant from one another no connection to the external ring road

164

above: TRAM SYSTEM PROPOSED completion of the CENTRAL TRAM RING around the INNER CITY. increased multimodal options, and connection to the park & ride facilities on the second ring re-connection of lines in the centre and connection of all radial lines to the external ring road for intermodal exchange with train Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis

ANNEX 2.4 MULTIMODAL EXCHANGE NODES

above: EXCHANGE NODES TODAY the system lacks flexibility since transport modes are poorly interconnected trough few intermodal exchange nodes

Bucharest 2025: a new paradigm

above: EXCHANGE NODES PROPOSED by extension of lines of metro, tram, train, the development of multimodal exchange nodes, the construction of a system of park & ride areas, public transport becomes a viable option for efficient urban mobility in Bucharest

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Matei Bogoescu TUDELFT mbogoescu@gmail.com +40728909651 August 2010 166

Matei Bogoescu EMU Final Thesis