HERITAGE in PERIL (Razing Romania's Past)

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About HERITAGE in PERIL (Razing Romania's Past)

The Communist Cultural Terrorism perpetrated in the field of architecture reached a peak of destruction in the 1970's and 1980's when historical town centres were razed to the ground and many historical and religious monuments were lost only to be replaced by unimaginative prefabricated brutalist architecture.

After December 1989 when Ceausescu was put down in a palace coup, the old nomenklaturists became the new oligarchs and power brokers, securing for themselves an economic and political platform.
For the last decade of the 20th century and the firrst decade of the 21st century whatever was not destroyed by Ceausescu in the way of historic buildings is now lost in the name of modernisation and rampant capitalism.
In particular the old charm of Bucharest described by Paul Morand, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Satcheverel Sitwell and other western visitors who called it "Le petit Paris" is about to be lost forever. Bucharest is a vast building site and about to become a non-descript concrete, glass and steel city. The infrastructure is far for catching up with the construction flurry and the city is in chaos, choking in traffic polution. The professional and religious elite remains silent in face of this irreversible damage and loss of identity.
This group is intended to show the damage and by doing this to draw the attention and pull a serious alarm bell to stop the wanton cultural terrorism.

Please show:
1. urban decay of historic cities with ruined ancient buildings about to be demolished.
2. pictures of buildings already lost
3. The glaring contrast between the historic monuments and their near neighbours of a brutalist style and size.
4. The horror of some of the "new" architecture, including Ceausescu's prefgab buildings, the buffetting of historic churches between high-rise blocks of flats and NOT forgetting the unthinkable revanchist megalomaniac architecture of the so-called "Palace of the People" - now the parliament (second largest building in the world,) as well as the more recent the mythomaniac revanchist and brutalist new cathedrals erected by the Orthodox church. This latter institution instead of being a spiritual leader in saveguarding its old churches and even the lay identity of a nation is busy in self-absorbed pharahonic projects, totally alien to the ethos of the Romanian people.
The Romanian Ministry of Culture, The Romanian Academy, The Romanian Cultural Institute who are supposed by definition to be the curators of the national heritage are totally unconcerned. There is a total absence of protection of monuments through lack of a listing policy and the government, politicians, parliamentarians, senators seem totally insensitive to this alarming state of affairs. If anything, through their inaction, they give a nodding approval to the razing of Romania's heritage..

This group should show buildings in peril.
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