Architect Gheorghe Leahu at 80: A life among houses and colors

Architect Gheroghe Leahu was born on May 10, 1932, in the capital of Bessarabia, Chisinau-Romania, today's Republic of Moldova.

His father, Theodor Leahu (1889-1970), a prosperous businessman and landowner, was the son of Gheorghe and Olimpia Leahu, wealthy peasants from the village of Cegoreni (Orhei County).

His mother, Ana Leahu (1904-1982), born Luțcan, was artistically talented and published poems in "Life of Bessarabia". She came from a family of priests and intellectuals from the villages of Cucioaia and Cubolta (Balti County). The future architect's maternal grandmother, Xenia Halippa, was the sister of the great Bessarabian patriot and statesman Pantelimon Halippa (1883-1979), one of the architects of the Great Union with Romania in 1918.

In the preface to his album "A life among houses and colors", the architect Gheorghe Leahu confesses: "Banished from the borders of Bessarabia where I was born, I spent my life combining the memory of my lost homeland with the love and amazement I felt when I discovered Romania during the war years, when we fled across the Prut. Perhaps all those who have never lost their native places do not appreciate how much I value the honor that God has done me, to be born Romanian and to spend all the years of my life in Romania."

"We have the example of the architect Gheorghe Leahu. When you have a thorough training, when you have grace and dedication, you succeed in creating, even in adverse conditions.

You thus give a greater meaning to your own life and move forward with your nation."

Academician Dinu C. Giurescu

"The memoirs of the architect Leahu are a happy opportunity to enter into the intimacy of an artist who has a true profession of faith: architecture, but an architecture placed on a pedestal that is, in fact, the altar of culture. By reading his memoirs, we are not doing the author an honor, but the whole of our guild is being honored to know intimately a devoted and dedicated personality".

Prof. dr. dr. arh. Prof. Sorin Vasilescu

"Following in the footsteps of prestigious documentary artists of the nineteenth century, and learning from them the concise style of rapid notation in pencil and watercolor, Gheorghe Leahu has created a pictorial history of Bucharest, a worthy continuation of the albums and disparate plates created by Michel Bouquet, Charles Doussault, Amadeo Preziosi and Carol Szatmari."

Art critic Adrian Silvan Ionescu

"In Gheorghe Leahu's watercolors, the Capital looks the way it does after a summer rain, when the sun bursts out and everything sparkles with pros-peace. An exuberance of shapes, an over-fullness of color and light tend to turn every moment of street life into a celebration."

Writer Alex Ștefănescu