Project details

Horia Creangă

While documenting the Calimachi Parcel, in Intrarea Armași, Bucharest, we have identified, along with works by architects Ion Giurgea, Marcel Locar, Mircea Sfetescu, Jean Văleanu, Ion Anton Popescu, Mihail Mihalcea, Ștefan Ciocârlan, Ștefan Crețoiu, Tașcu and Maria Ciulli, an unusual project by architect Horia Creangă.

The Calimachi Parcel is known under different names: Parcul Calimachi, Parcelarea Kalimachy, Aleea Calimachi, Aleea Armaș, Armașului, Aleea General Eremia Grigorescu. The land, property of Ana Maria Calimachi, was inherited from Elena Văcărescu, her mother, who in turn owned the house at 14 Armași Street, with the next place at number 16, which formed the garden of the houses, and the place at 87 Polonă Street, May 6, 1892. They were bought from Fridirich Thyr for 36,000 lei.

In 1931, the architect Alexandru Tomescu drew up the first subdivision plan for the 6,789 square meters of land, but since "the lots foreseen in the first approved subdivision plan were too large and could not be sold", two years later Ana Maria Calimachi "submitted new modified subdivision plans with smaller lots", drawn up by the same architect. The second subdivision plan received the opinion of the Special Commission on March 10, 1933, which "admits a larger number of lots", but requires that "the turning place remain rectangular as per the opinion of May 15, 1931, and that the buildings on the lots have no setback towards the bottom"^.1

The second draft of the subdivision provided for 19 lots, later plots 1 and 2 and 9-10 respectively were merged by the owners. In 1935 the sewage, water and electric lighting works were carried out between August 11 and 31, the paving works being completed on September 17. The first building permit is issued in 1935, the last in 1939.

14, Armași entrance

The application for a building permit was submitted on March 23, 1937, by Veturia Goga, to the Registrar's Office of the Galben First Sector: "I wish to build on my property in General Eremia Grigorescu Street, No. 12, Parcelarea Calimachi lot 9-10, please kindly issue me the necessary authorization. The constructions I want to build are a ground floor building, floors according to the attached plans with fencing. Plan drawn up and signed by architect Horia Creangă. The value of the construction is approximately 1.500.000 lei".

Authorization 9G, dated April 26, 1937, states that "it will be built 4 m from the decreed alignment a building with basement, ground floor, 2 floors of wall according to the plans attached by the architect Horia Creangă Horia Creangă with the obligation to execute a basement protection room and all reinforced concrete floors"^.2 The contractor is the engineer Aurel Ivanovici.

In the authorization file is attached a complaint to the Mayor of the Capital dated January 20, 1939, made by the owner of plot no. 8, Maria Dr. Hodoș: "having a neighbor to the north - Mrs. Veturia Goga - who built a group of houses during 1938 and violated the provisions of the building regulations, as regards the fencing of the plot. She built a 3 m high brick fence, whereas the regulation stipulates 2 m. Given that the control bodies of the City Hall of Galben have not taken any action so far, I am compelled to draw your attention to this violation of the regulation by submitting to you kindly to order the entry in the regulation as this causes me inconvenience in the sale of the land". Although Mayor General V. Dombrowski issued a resolution in which Mrs. Veturia Goga was asked to comply with the regulation and the issued authorization: "please comply within 15 days, otherwise we will have to proceed to the legal forms to demolish the wall up to the height of 2 m". The wall is still 3 meters high today.

In 1939, the architect Ștefan Crețoiu designed for Maria Hodoș a 4-storey building, whose terraces all overlook the courtyard of the Goga villa^.3

Horia Creangă and his collaborators

"During his 14 years as a professional, Horia Creangă achieved relatively little compared to other professionals of the same era, but his works and his personality exerted a strong influence on the young architects of the 1930-1940s. (...) he can be regarded as the recognized and undisputed master of this generation."⁴

"In 1935, Haralamb Georgescu and Nae Nedelescu were initially working in Creangă's office, in the meantime Nicu Petrașincu, Gheorghe Lungu, Neculai Măndășescu arrived, constituting a nucleus, which was completed by Eugen Dumitriu, Nicolae Bădescu, Theodor Sassu, at short intervals."⁵ We will dwell on the collaboration between Horia Creangă and Nicolae Nedelescu.

One of the sources of information used by Radu Patrulius for the realization of the volume on Horia Creangă was the architect Nicolae Nedelescu. He "drew quickly, beautifully, following Creangă's manner with great attention, helping him by supervising the studies of his younger colleagues, not yet graduated. Nedelescu assisted Creangă with great zeal, being in his turn, in the first ten years of his activity, a convinced adept of functional architecture (...) From his debut near Creangă he did not finally share the honors that his friend H. Georgescu had reaped. Indeed, he remains the only architect whose work is publicly recognized in several major works alongside that of his master"^6. Architect Nedelescu worked in Horia Creangă's office between 1935-1939, collaborating "on the design of the former Malaxa factories, the ARO cinema, the Gheorghiu villa in Mamaia, the Veturiei Goga villa in the Armașului entrance, the 1938 Bucharest Month exhibition", writes Radu ^Patrulis7. Nicolae Nedelescu wrote modestly in an article published in issue 6 of Arhitectura magazine in 1963: "I knew him closely, working as a young architect in his studio"^8.

Nicolae Nedelescu (1909-1972) was the son of an officer and a schoolteacher, fatherless since 1910. He graduated from the "Mihai Viteazul" high school in 1928, and in 1935 from university, graduating with a modern cinematograph under the guidance of Paul Smărăndescu. Between 1930-1952 he also worked for the Romanian Railways, first as a draughtsman, then as an architect. In 1945 he resigned from CFR in 1945 and joined the Faculty of Architecture, being "compressed" in 1947, he returned to CFR. In 1952 he was appointed head of the Bucharest Metro, and the following year he became chief architect of the Bucharest Project. He was a member of the UAR9 steering committee^.

"Before 1944 he designed 3 villas and 8 residential buildings which were executed. He realized the Romanian Pavilion in Milan in 1941, together with the architect Nicolae Cucu. He participated in various competitions among which we mention: the Palace Square Competition, honorable mention; the Victoria Square Competition together with architect Leon Garcea, second prize; the Agronomy School Competition, honorable mention; the Heroes' Monument Competition, first prize, honorable mention; the Aerogării Competition together with arch. Bornovski, second prize; Lenin Hydropower Plant Competition, second prize, first prize not awarded. All realized together with his wife, architect Victoria Nedelescu, born Vetra.

Among his projects are: Stalin's Workers' City 1949-1950, City of Apprentices, 1949-1951. CFR Snagov 1948, various stations and industrial buildings of the CFR (1934-1953), the official railway station in Băneasa, a work coordinated by architect Duiliu Marcu in 1938, the CFR exhibition pavilion in 1940, the CFR Technical House in 1953. The Carlton housing block in Bucharest, the V.I. Lenin hydroelectric power station at Bicaz, the dam of the hydraulic power station at Sadu Sibiu, the coordination of the design of the Drumul Taberei housing complex"^10.

Veturia Goga

Veturia Goga (1883-1979), known at the time both as the "nightingale of Ardeal" and as Rasputin à tout faire, was a soprano, politician, minister and widow of the nation, cultivating around herself a Garbo-like mystery: "a businesswoman under the patronage of committees and commissions, among which the Patronage Council of the Social Works was distinguished. She bought and sold people, secrets, objets d'art. Everything under the sun. For her everything had a price, and in politics, people even more so. Money buys everything. Truth, silence, impunity"^11.

In the interwar inventories of the Bucharest City Hall, Veturia Goga appears as the owner of the building in Bd. Dacia 13 (current number 53), built in 1935, of the villa in General Eremia Grigorescu Street, no. 12-14, plot 9-10, built between 1937-1938, with her official residence in Puțul de Piatră Street, number⁶¹². In addition to the properties in Bucharest (certainly not all of them identified), Veturia Goga also had a villa in Pre-deal and the castle in Ciucea.

Why did Veturia Goga choose this land? One of the reasons may be the proximity to Gheorghe Tătărescu.

Why Horia Creangă? So far we know that the architect realized, in 1930, the villa of Ioan Lupaș in Cluj, who was a good friend of the Goga family.

It is not known whether the couple lived in the house at 14, Intrarea Armași, as Octavian Goga died on May 5, 1938, the house being almost finished in April 1938 ^13.