S.O.S. - villa architecture in the town of Eforie, Constanța county

Hotel Bellona, Villa Aviana, the two villas-"Kulé", Bibescu and Don, Villa Violeta - all designed by G. M. Cantacuzino in Eforie Nord - appear in the vintage photographs in this magazine alongside other buildings designed in the same period by Romanian architects such as Horia Creangă, Horia Teodoru and Duiliu Marcu or by European architects Johannes Brinkman and L. C. Van der Vlugt from Holland. Few colleagues are aware of this article today and of the existence of elegant interwar villas on the Romanian maritime coast, especially in the area of the two Eforii, and the local mayors are not even aware of this, ignoring a European architectural heritage, which attests to the synchronization of Romanian architecture with Western architecture.

The interest of the local councillors and private investors in the resorts on the Black Sea coast emerged towards the end of the 19th century, after the administrative organization of Dobrogea, a region annexed to the Romanian Principality after the War of Independence, began. After the First World War, the towns in the southern part of the Romanian coast - Eforie, Techirghiol and Mangalia, as well as Balcic - were already oriented towards the creation of a modern spa. A system of services was timidly set up for spa tourism and spa treatment, as well as a local specificity, also supported by the Royal House of Romania. The bold settlement of "Techirghiol-(Ion) Movilă"¹, named after its founder, developed on virgin land between the sea beach and the Turkish and Tatar village of Techirghiol, facing the lake of the same name, whose curative benefits had been exploited in a primitive way since ancient times.

A part of the locality took the name of Techirghiol-Movilă and became the current Eforie Sud, by its separation, in 1921, from the locality of Techirghiol - following the drawing of the plan for the systematization of the locality, resulting from the competition won by the urban architects Alexandru and Ion Davidescu.

Eforie Nord, a former hamlet of the commune of Techirghiol, became a seaside resort after 1920 and became an independent urban commune on November 1, 1933, when it was separated from Techirghiol under the name of "Eforia - balneal-climate resort". The plots of land that proliferated after the First World War formed the nuclei of the future spa resort. Subsequently, the Techirghiol - Eforie Nord resort's development plan included several constructive stages concretized by the emergence of new parcels. The Eforie Town Hall report no. 2523 of November 17, 1936, registered at the Ministry of Public Works and Communications under no. 84711 of November 18, 1936, gives a true urban history of the town, which developed without any real coherence. At the time of the change in its administrative status, the locality had a well-defined perimeter, made up of nine pre-existing parcels designed by different architects, namely: the Eforia Spitalelor Parcel, the Ministry of the Domain Parcel, the Arch. Leautey, Blank Parcel, National Bank Parcel, Techirghiol Society Parcel, Butărescu Parcel, Suliman Parcel and O.N.E.F. These nine parcels - realized, with all the legal administrative forms, before 1933 - were designed independently, but it was necessary to connect them by a general development plan, in order to form a unitary seaside ^resort2.

The Blank Parcel, named after its promoter, the banker Aristide Blank, and part of a larger parcel, managed by the "Techirghiol" joint-stock company, is the result of an urban plan designed by the architect G. M. Cantacuzino between 1930 and 1934. Lui G. M. Cantacuzino was also entrusted with the design of a whole series of villas, some of which still exist today. The generosity of the founder of the plot and its architect undoubtedly created the premises for an "experiment" of modern architecture, the creators of the villas in the plot being a group of architects-friends, united by the avant-garde aesthetic ideas of modern architecture: Horia Creangă, Henriette Delavrancea-Gibory, Remus Iliescu.

The advancement of the idea of 'experiment' has no documentary basis, but in the context presented here the resemblance with a famous European model is obvious, the Weissenhof Siedlung (Weissenhof Siedlung) in Stuttgart, Germany, built in 1927 for the Deutscher Werkbund exhibition. The Weissenhof was a triumph of the Bauhaus style in all its aspects - aesthetic, functional, conceptual and environmental, a veritable manifesto on which great European architects (Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Hans Scharoun, Hans Poelzig, Bruno and Max Taut, Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud and, of course, Le Corbusier) collaborated.

The opportunity created by the banker Aristide Blank was profitably exploited by the group of Romanian architects for a show of strength of local creativity in line with European architectural trends. The Blank plot was formed around the major axis of Ovidiu Boulevard, generously laid out like a thorn dividing the plot, quite neatly, into two parts, and connecting the former Grand Hotel - the sanatorium designed by the architect N. Nenciulescu - and the alley that follows the cliff coast.

First, the summer villas designed by G. M. Cantacuzino; and later the imposing Hotel Bellona was built (1932-1934). The boulevard exits perpendicular to the seafront, near Aristide Blank's Villa Aviana, situated slightly off-center from the monumental axis.

G. M. Cantacuzino used a synaesthetic concept, rare in architectural perception, based in particular on visual, auditory and olfactory sensations. The association of an infusion of marine suggestions with the graphic design of the alleyways in the plot plan, which refers to the symbolic representation of an airplane, the body of a seagull with its wings open or an open eye looking out towards the sky and the sea, was also transmitted to the Villa Aristide Blank. With the special shape of the plan embracing the sea and the name Aviana, it awakens other senses in addition to the visual one, the unique concept aiming to arouse the observer's emotional participation.

G. M. Cantacuzino frequently uses metaphorical forms to give meaning to the built space. The Bellona Hotel, like an ocean liner breaking the waves, symbolizes progress and man's power over the sea. And the maritime villas designed by G. M. Cantacuzino at Eforie Nord each bear the imprint of figures of style - metaphors or symbols. In Letters to Simon, the architect confessed: "I have always had a tendency to metamorphose things into symbols and to give them mythical resonances, and scientific explanations have never satisfied me. Behind each one of them I feel that there is something else, something else that recedes without shrinking, and that is all the more oppressive the further it recedes. The world of appearances satisfied me precisely because the shapes of things and, in general, the appearance of life were and remained for me like a writing with characters that I could read and understand. The forms of things became ideograms"^3.

A happy association between beneficiary, architect and, later, edili made the semantics of G. M. Cantacuzino's architectural genius was translated into reality and even influenced the overall systematization of the entire locality.

The city's mayors at the time were intellectually open-minded enough to adopt an urban regulation and a town-planning plan that would emphasize the experiment proposed by the architects. Among the archival documents preserved is an important opinion for the history of Eforie: "Minutes No. 3" of the Commission Meeting of November 1, 1937, held in Bucharest, at the headquarters of the Local Office of Cure and Tourism, under the chairmanship of the mayor of Eforie, Tudor Don, and in the presence of members - Dr. T. Tanașoca, Dr. Panaitescu, Valeriu Tebeică, Radu Butărescu, Gh. Albu and Șt. Ratea. Decision no. 1 ordered the approval of the systematization plan of Eforie, which would harmoniously connect all the old parcels of land, independently pre-settled on the territory of the ^city4.

In the Journal no. 193 of the approval meeting of December 22, 1936, this time of the Higher Technical Council of the Ministry of Public Works and ^{Communications5}, it was stated that in 1936 the resort had five hotels, two hot and mud baths, one of which was new (arch. N. Nenciulescu), a cold sea bathing facility, a modern swimming pool, sports fields and a shooting range, a makeshift slaughterhouse, a food processing plant, and a town hall built in 1936, which shared the space with the post office and the police. Also from this Diary we learn that the locality has benefited from works carried out on boulevards and wide, generously laid out streets, and that access from the cliff to the sea was created, taking up a 16 m difference in level and including stairs and stone terraces. Also, "a basin in the course of execution, connected by a canal with the sea, was to become a harbor for small boats and isolate the building and the royal beach from the rest of the beach". For the water supply there were '20 wells drilled and a deep well' being drilled. Electricity was supplied by the Constanța power station under a concession contract. In the fall of 1936, the CFR Directorate rebuilt the new railway line on the ground and dismantled the old line that ran along the seafront, between the villas, hindering sea traffic and the development of the shore. After this operation, the Eforiei City Hall recommended that on the site of the former railway station, between Str. Mării and Principele Nicolae beach, left vacant after the lines and the CFR station were removed, the possibility of creating a garden or a public park should be studied, where the future construction of the local casino could be located.

The existence of some primary archival sources, namely the file on the activity of the Eforie Civil Hospitals Eforiei in Eforie, has greatly enriched the material studied, filling in other documentary gaps. Together with the mentioned official opinions and reports, the surprise was the rediscovery of the 1937 Building and Alignment Regulations of the City of Eforie, Constanța County - a particularly valuable and well drafted administrative act, which clarifies the intentions of the mayors in conjunction with the ideas of ^urban planning specialists6.

In order to ensure the smooth functioning of a town where the population doubled or tripled in the summer season, the regulation divided the territory into four zones: Zone I - the commercial district and civic center; Zone II - the district of grouped and collective villas; Zone III - the district of individual villas; Zone IV - the ^workers' district7. The resort's urban planning regulations were pedantic and exhaustive, leaving nothing to chance. Given its scope, we limit the citation to only certain paragraphs or regulations necessary for the study. The references demonstrate the ability of the mayors to understand how to organize the functioning of the locality in the name of modernity and the need for discipline in construction. Among the specifications of the regulation, we find in Article No. 67 a special mention in support of the Blank neighborhood experiment: 'Preference shall be given to the style adopted by the majority of buildings, i.e., without roofs and painted white, with blue windows'.

Other stipulations, which remain valid to this day, stipulate: 'Shanties of any kind shall not be permitted throughout the city except for temporary fairs, exhibitions, fairs, and benefit celebrations. In all these cases they shall be used by the town hall on a temporary basis and shall be dismantled immediately after the end of the festivities, etc.'.

Art. 94 - During the bathing season, from June 15th to September 1st of each year, all kinds of constructions are completely stopped in the whole radius of Eforia, except on the outskirts of the town and only where the transportation of materials is not done through the center streets and only with the special permission of the Town ^Hall8.

Art. 150 - Properties along the seafront towards the sea shall not have any kind of enclosure, but only ^flowers9.

Art. 188 - Properties may not have their facades damaged during the season. Owners are obliged to repair them. If by June 1st they are not repaired, the Town Hall may order their repair at the owner's expense"^10.

The 1937 regulation also specifies the obligation to draw up ^complete authorization files11 , which today should be found, at least in part, in the State Archives.

A few lines should be added on the building history of Eforie Nord in connection with its development after the Second World War, starting in 1955. After Stalin's death, Eforie Nord was developed following a vast integrated urban plan for the systematization of the Black Sea coast (1955-1965), which annexed the old part of the town, building outside it and not on top of the original buildings. The development plan was aimed at creating new resorts and transforming the region into a summer park extending from Eforie Sud to Capul Midia. The main objectives of the communist state were: the creation of two large areas of different character, one south of Constanța, made up of the localities of Eforie Sud, Eforie Nord, Techirghiol and Agigea, forming a single complex for cures and treatments, and another north of Constanța, exclusively for rest and recreation.

The separation was made over time, by reorganizing the localities, developing the beaches by consolidating and enlarging the cliffs, organizing and equipping them with all the necessary annexes, and making the most of the lake and the mud from Techirghiol. The extensions of the summer constructions in Eforie Nord completed the functions of the old nationalized villas and hotels, and the architects involved in this program initiated by the communist state knew how to insert the new buildings in those vacant plots of land, connecting them to the built-up areas, in a vision that took into account the existing nuclei.

Today, after almost 80 years of Eforie Nord's existence, we are witnessing a regression in the understanding of architectural values by the city's mayors and even by the owners, to the detriment of preserving the specific character of the locality and with the loss of long-term tourist attractiveness. The lack of awareness of the true historical and architectural values of the locality, as well as the reticence towards the old, inoculated by the post-Decembrist transition and sustained by the refusal of a dialog between the mayors, owners and architects, irreversibly undermines the built heritage of the Blank Parcel. As the cultural value and uniqueness of the built heritage of the Blank Parcel are undeniable, the Romanian Union of Architects has funded a cultural program from the Timbrul Arhitecturii (the Romanian Architecture Stamp) to revive interest in the area. The program, entitled "S.O.S. - Villa architecture in the town of Eforie, Constanța County"¹² and carried out during 2011 (April-November), took the form of the preparation of the documents for the initiation of the classification procedures for five villas, which received, among the specialized audience at the U.A.R.'s Communication Session of 18 November 2011, distinguished appreciation for the objectives researched.

The five villas proposed for the initiation of the ^{classification} procedure13 , located in Eforie Nord, in the perimeter of the Blank Parcel are:

- Vila Crinul, str. Tudor Vladimirescu, nr. 14, 1933, arh. G. M. Cantacuzino;

- Villa Aviana, 26 Tudor Vladimirescu str., 1930, arch. G. M. Cantacuzino;

- Villa G. V. Bibescu, 42, Tudor Vladimirescu str., 1931, arch. G.M. Cantacuzino;

- Vila Marelui Voievod Mihai, 44, Tudor Vladimirescu str., 1930, arch. Horia Creangă;

- Vila Vera, Bd. Ovidiu, nr. 10, 1934, arch. Henriette Delavrancea-Gibory.

Primary sources

A.N.R.-A.C., Inv. 1218, Fond: Bibescu family, file no. 35/1927-1934,

A.N.R.-A.C., Inv. 1354, Fond: Ministry of Public Works, Higher Technical Council, file no. 1438/1936

- S.A. Techirghiol-Blank plot plan, 1934

Bibliographical sources

- G. M. Cantacuzino, Izvoare și Popasuri, Eminescu Library, Bucharest, 1977,

- G. M. Cantacuzino, Scrisorile către Simon / The Letters to Simon, Ed. Simetria, Bucharest, 2010

- Paul CONSTANTIN, Dicționar universal al arhitecților, Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, Bucharest, 1986

- Mirela DUCULESCU, George Matei Cantacuzino (1899-1960), Arhitectura ca temă a gândirii / Architecture as subject of thought, Ed. Simetria, București, 2010

- Militza SION, Henrieta Delavrancea-Gibory, arhitectură 1930-1940, Ed. Simetria, 2009

- Dan TEODOROVICI, G. M. Cantacuzino (1899-1960), Dialogik zwischen Tradition und Moderne, PhD Thesis, Städtebau-Institut der Universität Stuttgart, 2010.

Periodicals:

- G. M. Cantacuzino, "Tendances dans l'Architecture Roumaine", in L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui nr. 5 / 1934

Webografie:

http://www.fin.ro/articol_12165/aristide-blank-un-poet-ratacit-in-afaceri.html, August 28, 2008, Aristide Blank, a poet lost in business. Financial personalities of the inter-war period

1 . http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eforie Sud,Constanta. "The locality of Eforie Sud was founded in 1899, by Ioan Movilă, a nobleman from parts of Moldavia, when the foundation stone of the Movilă Hotel was laid. At first, the resort was called Băile Techirghiol-Movilă, later Băile Movilă or Techirghiol. Ioan Movilă was a landowner with advanced ideas, formed on the occasion of his studies in the West of Europe, who knew the seaside resorts of Europe, appreciating the therapeutic value of the mud of Lake Techirghiol and the marine sunrays, a value confirmed by the people of these places, by local legends, by the results obtained by the military doctors who treated here the suffering soldiers of the Dobrogean Division since 1894. In 1899, he decided to establish a seaside resort between the sea beach and the lake on the land he had bought in 1899. With funds from the exploitation of his estate and with loans from the banks of the time, Movilă started to bring doctors and chemists from Vienna to analyze the water and the mud, then he began the construction of two hotels - today's Hotel Parc and a sanatorium for hot mud baths with 50 cabins."

2. A.N.R. A.C., Inv. 1354, Fond: Ministry of Public Works, Higher Technical Council, File no. 1438/1936, Draft systematization plan of the town of Eforia, Constanța County, Journal no. 193

3. G.M. Cantacuzino, Scrisorile către Simon / Letters to Simon, Ed. Simetria, București, 2010, p.126, 128

4. A.N.R. A.C., Inv. no. 1354, file cited, Journal no. 193: "A first project elaborated by architect Remus Iliescu was previously rejected and a plan by architect Al. Hempel, an urban architect in the Ministry of Finance and 'one of the few specialists we have in the country'." Architect Al. Hempel had been unanimously approved by the Higher Technical Council of the Ministry of Public Works and Communications and which had also been voted by the Eforie City Council."

5. Ibidem, Journal no. 193. It is mentioned that the meeting was chaired by N. Vasilescu-Karpend, the members of the Technical Council were P. Antonescu, I. Bușilă, E. Doneaud, I.S. Gheorghiu, D. Germani, I. Ionescu, I. Mihalache, Gh. Nicolau, R. Oprean, I. Rarincescu, Gh.D. Roșianu, Eug. Ștefănescu, B. Stinghie

6. Ibidem, "Building and Alignment Regulations of the Town of Eforie, Constanța County".

7. Ibidem, "Regulament... Chapter I. Division of the city, systematization plan."

"Art. 1. According to the systematization plan of the municipality, approved by the Superior Technical Council by journal No. /193 and appropriated by the Communal Council, by minute No. /193 of the meeting of ... establishing the general perimeter and the street regime."

ANR-AC, Inv. 1354, Fond: Ministry of Public Works, Higher Technical Council, File No. 1438/1936, Draft systematization plan of the town of Eforia, Constanța County, "Building and Alignment Regulations of the Town of Eforia, Constanța County"

8. Ibidem, "Regulament... Chapter X. Mode and kind of constructions"

9. Ibidem, "Regulation... Chapter XVI. Enclosures"

10. Ibidem, "Regulation... Chapter XVII. Repairs and alterations"

11. Ibid, "Regulation... Chapter XVII. Repairs and alterations":

1. - Situation plan to scale 0,005 showing street, number and neighbors

2.- A cellar plan showing the foundations

3.- A plan of each floor

4.- A general section of the building showing the nature of the land

5.- Frontages to the street and to the neighbors to the right, left and rear

6.- These last four specimens shall be at a scale of 0,01 m

7.- Sketch of fencing to street and neighbors

8.- The location of the drainage and sewerage shall be indicated

9. - Deeds of ownership of the site

One of the copies of each plan shall be returned to the owner, and the second shall be retained at the Communal Technical Service for verification of the works after completion and transfer to the cadastral plan. These plans, after they have been examined by the Technical Service of the town and the situation of the constructions, their condition, the regime to which the construction will be subjected, if found to be in conformity with the provisions of the present regulation, will be approved, and the building permit will be issued after all fees have been paid and the contractor's declaration of responsibility has been given.

Art. 182. Building work, alterations and radical repairs, other than interior work, shall not be permitted during the season, i.e. from June 1 to September 1 of each year

12. Program coordinator and author - dr. arh. Ruxandra Nemțeanu; co-authors arh. Laura Tudose, stud.-arh. Irina Nemțeanu (UAUIM), stud.-arh. Ștefan Farmazon (UAUIM); collaborators psych. Adina Spoială, stud.-arh. Laura Cotoban (USH).

13. The suggestion to choose these five objectives belonged to Mrs. arh. Militza Sion

The Hotel Bellona, Villa Aviana, the two "Kulé" villas, Bibescu and Don, and the Villa Violeta, all designed by G. M. Cantacuzino in Eforie Nord, appear in period photographs in the French magazine, along with other buildings designed during the same period by Romanian architects including Horia Creangă, Horia Teodoru, and Duiliu Marcu, or European architects such as Johannes Brinkman and L. C. van der Vlugt from Holland. Few architects today are aware of this article or the existence of the elegant inter-war villas on the Romanian coast, in particular in the area of the two Eforii, not to mention local officials, who ignore a European architectural heritage that attests the synchronization of Romanian with Western architecture.

Local officials and private investors began to show interest in the Black Sea resorts in the late nineteenth century, following the administrative organization of Dobrudja, a region annexed to the Romanian Principality after the War of Independence. After the First World War, the twosn in the southern part of the Romanian coast - Eforie, Techirghiol, Mangalia, and Balcic - were already oriented towards creating a modern spa setting. A tentative system of holidaying and spa treatment services was built, but with a local flavor, which was also supported by the Romanian Royal Family.

The daring "Techirghiol-(Ion) Movilă" bathing establishment (1), named after its founder, was developed on virgin grond, between the beach and the beach and the Turkish and Tartar village of Techirghiol, and facing the lake of the same name, whose curative properties had been exploited in a primitive way since ancient times. A part of the settlement took the name Techirghiol-Movilă and became what is now Eforie Sud, when it was separated from the town of Techirghiol in 1921 following implementation of a local systematization plan, the competition for which had been won by architects and town planners Alexandru and Ion Davidescu.

Eforie Nord, formerly a hamlet of the Techirghiol commune, was transformed into a bathing resort beginning in 1920 and became an independent urban commune on November 1, 1933, when it was separated from Techirghiol and renamed "Eforia bathing and spa resort". The land parcellations that had proliferated after the First World War constituted the nucleus of the future bathing resort. Subsequently, the development plan for the Techirghiol-Eforie Nord resort also included a number of construction phases that took concrete form in the appearance of new parcellations. Report no. 2523 of 17 November 1936, registered as no. 84711 by Eforie Town Hall at the Ministry of Public Works and Communications on 18 November 1936, provides a true picture of the town's urban planning history, which evolved without any real coherence. At the date of the modification in its administrative status, the town had a well-determined perimeter, being made up of nine already existing parcellations designed by various architects, namely: Eforia Spitalelor (Hospitals Trusteeship), Ministry of Domains, Architect Leautey, Blank, National Bank, Techirghiol Company, Butărescu, Suliman, and O.N.E.F. These nine parcellations, created with the full administrative procedures prior to 1933, were conceived independently, but the town hall ruled that they should be connected together as part of a general development plan to form a single bathing resort (2). The Blank Parcellation, named after its sponsor, banker Aristide Blank, and forming part of a larger parcellation run by the Techirghiol Anonymous Company, was the result of a urbanism plan designed by architect G. M. Cantacuzino between 1930 and 1934. G. The generosity of the founder of the parcellation and his architect undoubtedly created the premises for an "experiment" in modern architecture, and the villas therein were created by a group of architects and friends united by the avant-garde aesthetic ideas modern architecture: Horia Creangă, Henriette Delavrancea-Gibory, and Remus Iliescu.

There is no documentary basis for putting forward the idea of an "experiment", but in the given context there is an obvious similarity with a famous European precedent, the Weissenhof (Weissenhof Siedlung) district of Stuttgart, created in 1927 for the Deutscher Werkbund Exhibition. Weissenhof was an example of the triumphant Bauhaus style in its every aspect: aesthetic, functional, conceptual and ambient, a true manifesto on which a number of major European architects collaborated (Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Hans Scharoun, Hans Poelzig, Bruno and Max Taut, Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud and, of course, Le Corbusier).

The opportunity created by banker Aristide Blank was enabled the group of Romanian architects to make a powerful display of native creativity in tune with the wider trends of European architecture. The Blank Parcellation was shaped around the main axis of the broad Ovid Boulevard, which served as the parcellation's backbone, dividing it into two distinct parts, and connected the former Sanatorium Grand Hotel, designed by architect N. Nenciulescu, and the seafront path.

The summer villas designed by G. M. Cantacuzino were the first to make their appearance, on a strip of vacant land stretching along the seafront, perpendicular to the Ovid Boulevard. Later, the imposing Hotel Bellona (1932-34) was built. The end of the boulevard was perpendicular to the seashore, near the Aristide Blank's Villa Aviana, positioned slightly off-center in relation to the monumental axis.

In the parcellation, G. M. Cantacuzino, a true aesthete and aristocrat of the arts, drew upon a synaesthetic concept such as is rarely met in architecture, based on visual, auditory and olfactory sensations in particular. The combination of an infusion of marine suggestions with the strong lines of the lanes in the layout of the parcellation, which suggest a symbolic representation of an airplane, the body of a seagull with outspread wings, or a protective eye gazing at sea and sky, was also transmitted to the Aristide Blank Villa. Given the special shape of its plan, which embraces the sea, and its name, Aviana, it also awakens senses other than the visual, and the unusual concept aims to stir the affective participation of the viewer.

G. M. Cantacuzino frequently made use of metaphoric shapes to endow the built space with meaning. The Hotel Bellona, which is like a packet boat breaking the waves, symbolizes progress and man's domination over the sea. And the seaside villas designed by G. M. Cantacuzino in Eforie Nord each bear the imprint of a figure of style, whether a metaphor or a symbol. In The Letters to Simon, the architect wrote: "I have always tended to metamorphose things into symbols and to give them mythic resonances, and scientific explanations have never satisfied me. Behind each of them I sense that something else exists, a something that moves into the distance without diminishing and which is all the more oppressive the further away it moves. The world of appearances satisfied me precisely because the shapes of things and, in general, the outward aspect of life were and have remained for me like a text by means of whose letters I am able to read and understand. The forms of things created ideograms (3).

A felicitous association between beneficiary, architect and, subsequently, local officials enabled the semantics of G. M. Cantacuzino's architectural creations to be transposed into reality and even to influence the overall systematization of the whole town.

The town's officials of the time had the necessary intellectual openness to adopt an urbanism plan that would bring out the value of the experiment put forward by the architects. Among the archival documents that have been preserved there is a permit that is significant for the history of the town of Eforie: Process Verbal No. 3 of the Meeting of the Commission held in Bucharest on November 1, 1937 at the Local Bureau of Health Cures and Tourism, presided over by the mayor of Eforie, Tudor Don, and attended by members Dr. T. Tanașoca, Dr. Panaitescu, Valeriu Tebeică, Radu Butărescu, Gheorgh Albu, and Ștefan Ratea. Decision No. 1 passed the systematization plan for the town of Eforie, which harmoniously linked together all the old parcellations scattered independently throughout the town (4).

In Journal No. 193 of the Meeting of December 22, 1936, held at the Higher Technical Board of the Ministry of Public Works and Communications (5), it was specified that the resort had in that year five hotels, two hot and mud baths, including one that was new (architect N. Nenciulescu), a cold seawater bathing facility, a space for the sale of food produce, and a town hall run restaurant, built in 1936, which shared a building with the post office and police station.

The Journal also informs us that the town benefited from works carried out on the boulevards and wide streets, and that access to the seashore from the bluff sixteen meters above had been created by means of stone steps and terraces. Likewise, "a basin in the course of construction, connected to the Sea by a channel, will become a port for small vessels and seal off the royal building and beach from the rest of the beach." For the water supply there were "twenty wells and a bore hole to a great depth" in the course of being drilled. Electricity was provided by the plant in Constanța, on the basis of a concessionaire contract. In the autumn of 1936, Romanian Railways built a new line and pulled up the old track, which had run along the coast, between the villas, hindering access to the sea and development of the seashore. Subsequently, Eforie Town Hall recommended that on the site of the former railway station, between Mării Street and the Prince Nicolae Beach, left vacant after the old track had been pulled up, studies should be carried out with a view to laying out a garden or public park, where the local casino would later be built.

The existence of primary archival sources, namely the file relating to the activity of the Civil Hospitals Trusteeship in Eforie, has greatly enriched the material under study, filling in other documentary gaps. Besides the official permits and reports already mentioned, another surprise was the rediscovery of the Regulations for Buildings and Alignments in the Town of Eforie, Constanța County, dating from 1937: an administrative document that is extremely valuable and well-written, and which elucidates the intentions of the town's officials, corroborated with the ideas of experts in town planning (6).

In order that a town whose populace doubled or tripled in the summer season should function well, the regulations divided the territory into four zones, according to building types: Zone I - the commercial quarter and civic center; Zone II - the district of grouped villas; Zone III - the district of individual villas; Zone IV - the workers' district (7).

The resort's town planning regulations were drawn up in a pedantic and exhaustive manner, attempting to leave nothing to chance. Given their extensiveness, we shall limit ourselves to quoting only certain paragraphs or regulations pertinent to this study. The references demonstrate the officials' ability to understand and organize the functioning of the town in the name of modernity and the need for discipline in construction. Among the specifics of the regulations we find a special mention in Article no. 67, which supports the Blank district experiment: "Preference will be given to the style adopted by the majority of the buildings, i.e. buildings without roofs, painted white and with blue window frames."

Other specifications, which remain valid even today, stipulate: "Throughout the town it is not permitted to build huts of any kind, except during temporary fairs, exhibitions, or benevolent celebrations. In all such cases they shall be provisionally employed by the town hall and shall be dismantled as soon as the festivities etc. are over."

"Article 94 - During the bathing season, from 15 June to 1 September of each year, building work of any kind is completely forbidden within the city limits of Eforie, with the exception of the periphery of the town and only in case where transport of materials is not via the town center and only with the special permission of the town hall" (8).

"Article 150 - Properties on the bluff facing the sea shall have no fences, but only flowers" (9).

"Article 188 - Properties shall not have broken facades during the season. Owners are obligated to repair them. If they are not repaired by June 1, the town hall shall order their repair at the owner's expense" (10).

Likewise, the Regulations of 1937 stipulate that exhaustive authorization files should be drawn up (11), which today are only partly to be found in the State Archives.

A number of things should also be added about the history of town planning in Eforie Nord after the Second World War, in particular after 1955. After the death of Stalin, Eforie Nord developed according to a vast systematisation plan for the Black Sea coast (1955-1965), which annexed the old part of the town, building outside it and not on top of the original structures. The development plan aimed to create new treatment and rest resorts and to transform the region into a summer season park, stretching from Eforie Sud to Cape Midia. The main objectives of the communist state were to create two large zones of differing character, one to the south of Constanța, made up of Eforie Sud, Eforie Nord, Techirghiol and Agigea, which were to form a single complex for health cures and treatment, and the other to the north of Constanța, set aside exclusively for rest and recreation.

The division was carried out over time, by means of the differentiated reorganization of the towns, the consolidation and modernisation of beaches, the expansion of seafront promenades, the establishment of all the necessary facilities, and the most efficient exploitation of Techirghiol Lake and its curative mud. The extension of summer-season buildings in Eforie Nord added to the functions of the old villas and nationalized hotels, and the architects involved in this program initiated by the communist state were able to insert the new buildings into vacant lots, linking them up to the built areas, as part of a vision that took into account the existing urban nuclei.

Today, in almost the eightieth year of Eforie Nord's existence, we can observe a regress in the understanding of its architectural values on the part of the town's official and even private owners, to the detriment of the preservation of the local specificity and with a loss of tourist appeal over the long term. Ignorance of the town's true historical and architectural values, as well as reticence towards the old, inculcated by the post-1989 transition and fostered by the rejection of any dialogue between the local authorities, private owners, and architects, has irreversibly eroded the built heritage of the Blank Parcellation. Given that the cultural value and uniqueness of the Blank Parcellation are indisputable, the Union of Romanian Architects financed, via the Architecture Stamp, a cultural program aimed at reviving interest in the area. The program, named "S.O.S. Holiday Architecture in the Town of Eforie, Constanța County" (12), unfolded during 2011 (from April to November) and resulted in the drawing up of documents to set in motion procedures to list five villas, garnering among the specialized audience at the Session of the Union of Romanian Architects held on 18 November 2011 high praise of the objectives under research.

The five villas put forward for listing as historical monuments (13), which are situated within the Blank Parcellation in Eforie, are as follows:

Villa Crinul, Str. Tudor Vladimirescu, No. 14, 1933, architect G. M. Cantacuzino;

Villa Aviana, Str. Tudor Vladimirescu, No. 26, 1930, architect G. M. Cantacuzino;

Villa G. V. Bibescu, Str. Tudor Vladimirescu, No. 42, 1931, architect G.. M. Cantacuzino;

Villa Marelui Voievod Mihai, Str. Tudor Vladimirescu, No. 44, 1930, architect Horia Creangă;

Primary sources

A.N.R.-A.C., Inv. 1218, Fund: Bibescu Family, file

no. 35/1927-1934,

A.N.R.-A.C., Inv. 1354, Fund: Ministry of Public Works, Upper Technical Board, file no.1438/1936

- Parcellation Plan: Techirghiol-Blank Company, 1934

Bibliographical sources

l G. M. Cantacuzino, Izvoare și Popasuri, Biblioteca Eminescu, Bucharest, 1977,

l G. M. Cantacuzino, Scrisorile către Simon / The Letters to Simon, Ed. Simetria, Bucharest, 2010

l Paul CONSTANTIN, Dicționar universal al arhitecților, Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, Bucharest, 1986

l Mirela DUCULESCU, George Matei Cantacuzino (1899-1960), Arhitectura ca temă a gândirii / Architecture as subject of thought, Ed. Simetria, Bucharest, 2010

l Militza SION SION, Henrieta Delavrancea-Gibory, architecture 1930-1940, Ed. Simetria, 2009

l Dan TEODOROVICI, G. M. Cantacuzino (1899-1960), Dialogik zwischen Tradition und Moderne, doctoral thesis, Städtebau-Institut der Universität Stuttgart, 2010.

Periodicals:

l G. M. Cantacuzino, "Tendances dans l'Architecture Roumaine", in L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui no. 5 / 1934

Web articles:

http://www.fin.ro/articol_12165/aristide-blank-un-poet-ratacit-in-afaceri.html, August 28, 2008, Aristide Blank, a poet lost in business. Financial personalities of the inter-war period

Eforie Sud was founded in 1899 by Ioan Movilă, a boyar from Moldavia, who built the Movilă Hotel. At first, the resort was called Techirghiol-Movilă Baths, then Movilă or Techirghiol Baths. Ioan Movilă was a forward-looking landowner, educated in Western Europe, who was familiar with bathing resorts in Europe and realized the therapeutic value of the mud from Lake Techirghiol and of marine solar rays, a value also confirmed by locals, local legends, and the results obtained by military physicians who had been treating soldiers from the Dobrudja Division here since 1894. He decided to found a bathing resort on his new estate, between the lake and the sea, in 1899. With funds from his estate and bank loans, Movilă brought physicians and chemists from Vienna to analyze the water and mud, and subsequently built two hotels: the present-day Park Hotel and a warm mud bath sanatorium with fifty cabins.

2. A.N.R. A.C., Inv. 1354, Fund: Ministry of Public Works, Upper Technical Board, File no. 1438/1936, Systematization Plan for the town of Eforie, Constanța County, Journal no. 193

3. G.M. Cantacuzino, Scrisorile către Simon / Letters to Simon, Ed. Simetria, Bucharest, 2010, p.126, 128

4. A.N.R. A.C., Inv. no. 1354, cited file, Journal no. 193: An initial plan drawn up by architect Remus Iliescu was previously rejected and a plan by architect A. Hempel, a town planner with the Ministry of Finance and 'one of the few specialists we have in the country,' is presented. The plan of architect A. Hempel was unanimously passed by the Upper Technical Board of the Ministry of Public Works and Communications and had also been voted on by the Communal Council of the town of Eforie.

5. Ibid, Jurnalul no. 193. It is mentioned that the meeting was presided over by N. Vasilescu-Karpend, and on the Technical Board sat P. Antonescu, I. Bușilă, E. Doneaud, I.S. Gheorghiu, D. Germani, I. Ionescu, I. Mihalache, Gh. Nicolau, R. Oprean, I. Rarincescu, Gh. D. Roșianu, Eug. Ștefănescu, and B. Stinghie

6. Ibid, "Regulations for Buildings and Alignments in the Town of Eforie, Constanța County".

7. Ibid, "Regulations... Chapter I. Division of the town, systematization plan."

"Article 1. According to the systematization plan for the commune, passed by the Upper Technical Board through Journal No. .../193 and adopted by the Communal Council through process verbal No. .../193 of the meeting at ... whereby the general perimeter and regime of the streets is laid down."

ANR-AC, Inv. 1354, Fund: Ministry of Public Works, Upper Technical Board, File no. 1438/1936, Systematization Plan for the town of Eforie, Constanța County, "Regulations for Buildings and Alignments in the Town of Eforie, Constanța County"

8. Ibid, "Regulations... Chapter X. Mode and Kind of Buildings"

9. Ibid, "Regulations... Chapter XVI. Surroundings"

10. Ibid, "Regulations... Chapter XVII. Repairs and Alterations"

11. Ibid, "Regulations... Chapter XVII. Repairs and Alterations":

- Site plan to a scale of 0.005 showing the street, number and neighbours

- Plan of the cellar showing the foundations

- Plan of each storey

- General section of the building indicating the nature of the terrain

- The façades facing the street and the neighbours on the right, left and behind

- The preceding four examples shall be on a scale of 0.01m

- Sketch of the surrounding street and neighbours

- Indication of the place of the cesspit and drains

- Deeds to the property

One copy of each plan will be returned to the owner and the second will be kept by the Communal Technical Service for verification of the works after their completion and inclusion in the cadastral plan. These plans, after they are examined by the town Technical Service and after the site of the constructions, their condition, and the regime to which the structure will be subject are recorded in a questionnaire, will be passed, if they are found to be in accordance with the disposals of the present regulations, and a building permit will be issued, after all the taxes are paid and the entrepreneur submits a declaration of responsibility.

Art. 182. Construction work, alterations and radical repairs, apart from interior work, are not allowed during the season, i.e. from 1 June to 1 September of each year.

12. Co-ordinator and author of the program: architect Dr. Ruxandra Nemțeanu; co-authors: architect Laura Tudose, student architect Irina Nemțeanu (UAUIM), student architect Ștefan Farmazon (UAUIM), collaborators: psychologist Adina Spoială, student architect Laura Cotoban (USH).

13. The suggestion of these five objectives was made by architect Militza Sion.