Architect Dimitrie Ionescu-Berechet in Câmpulung

Berechet's architecture and the architecture of inter-war Câmpulung are two notions that combine so harmoniously that we can say that they are, to some extent, synonymous. Dimitrie Ionescu-Berechet (1896-1969), chief architect of the Romanian Patriarchate (1930-1963), was born in Câmpulung Muscel at the end of the 19th century into a family with ancient roots in the town. This was reflected in the more than 80 public buildings, churches, private dwellings, memorials and funerary monuments, designed or laid out by architect Berechet in Câmpulung Muscel between 1925 and 1960, in many cases free of charge.

We will try to decipher his imprint on the architecture of Câmpulung by following a relevant ^urban itinerary1 along the north-south axis of the city, starting from Mateiaș, 11 km north of Câmpulung.

Photo: Cristina Ionescu-Berechet

Personal archive of the Ionescu-Berechet family

1. Mausoleum of the heroes of Mount Mateiaș, commune of Valea Mare-Pravăț, 1928-1935

Built between 1928-1935, under the aegis of the Society of the Cult of Heroes, to honor the memory of the heroes from Muscelena and elsewhere who fought in October-November 1916. The project belongs to the architects D. Ionescu-Berechet and State Baloșin, and was carried out by the well-known De Nicolo brothers' firm in Campopulunge. The building is realized in an Art Deco style combined with neo-Romanesque elements, with a sober finish. The mausoleum's volumetry is inspired by that of the crosses of Muscelena, to which have been associated specific elements of a chapel-dosuary and a belvedere. The mausoleum, originally made up of these two bodies, underwent extensive refurbishment and extension work between 1980-1984, and is now a section of the Câmpulung-Muscel Municipal ^Museum2.

2. Ateneul cultural Vișoi, str. Cuza Vodă, nr. 52, ca. 1930

The same combination, on the exterior, between the late classical Art Deco style - characterized by harmony, symmetry, regulating lines - and national elements, such as the volumetry of the towers, the roofing, the roofing, the arched windows, can be found in the Ateneul cultural Vișoi built in the 1930s.

3. Secondary School No. 6 Vishoi, 30 Cuza Voda Street, 1929-1933

In the same neighborhood of Vishoi, arch. Berechet designed a school building with a ground floor and first floor, which was opened in 1933 and extended in 1975 with the addition of a new building.³ Built in neo-Romanesque style, it includes neo- and post-Brâncovenetian elements as well as neoclassical and post-academic elements.

4. Church of the Entrance of the Mother of God Schei, 13, Col. Stănescu str., 1938-1940, consolidation/repairs

Between 1938-1940, architect Berechet carried out several interventions on the Schei Church, a 15th century medieval monument. The works consisted mainly in reinforcing the foundations, rebuilding the Pantocrator's spire, restoring the enclosed porch and the exterior ^plastering4. The remodeling of the facades in neo-Romanesque style is particularly noteworthy, the columns and arches on the west facade being neo-Brâncovenetian in inspiration and similar to those designed by the architect Gh. Simotta for the new church of the Darvari Hermitage in Bucharest (1933-1934).

5. Diaconescu House, 226 Negru-Vodă Street, 1936

It was built by the priest Isaia Niculescu, parish priest of the Visoi Church and teacher at the girls' high school, for his daughter Elena, married Diaconescu. The project is realized in a national style specific to the architect Berechet, in which we recognize synthesized elements taken from the parish house of Bărăției, from the small church of Dionisie Bălăcescu at the Hurezi Monastery, from the archiepiscopal church of Neagoe Basarab in Curtea de Argeș.

6. Girls' High School (now Technical College), 145A Negru Vodă Street, 1931-1933

The Girls' High School was established in 1922, and in 1925 it was decided to build its own premises. In 1930, the 6,000 square meters of land was bought from the Muscelului Bank, and the architect Berechet drew up the project free of charge, which was completed in red in ¹⁹³¹⁵. The building, realized in a neo-Romanesque style of neo-Brâncovenetian origin, recognizable in the gazebo, the arches and the columns on the ground floor of the main façade, was inaugurated in April 1934. It is currently one of the headquarters of the Câmpulung-Muscel Technical College.

7. Palatul administrativ al jud. Muscel (current Town Hall), str. Negru Vodă, nr. 127, 1928-1934

The seat of the Prefecture of Muscel was built within the framework of the Ministry of Public Works' program to equip the Old Kingdom with public buildings for the county administrations, following the project of the architect Berechet begun in ¹⁹²⁴⁶. The works were completed only in 1934, under the prefect N. D. Nicolau, the city's flagship building being inaugurated on November 21 of that year. Built in the Neo-Romanesque style, in the manner of the architect Statie Ciortan, the building is a successful synthesis of Neo-Brâncovenetian, Neo-Romanesque, Neo-Gothic and Neo-Byzantine elements. Particularly noteworthy are the interior staircase of honor, with its balustrade of openwork ornaments (phytomorphic and fantastical) executed in Mateiaș stone, and the refined treatment of the central body on the main façade, with a large semicircular portal on the ground floor and a loggia with high trilobate arches and three richly decorated balconies on the first floor, suggesting the shape of a church ^pulpit7.

8. Villa Iancu Anastase, 162 Negru Voda Street, 1928

In the vicinity of the current Town Hall is a villa built for the great industrialist Iancu Anastase, which rivals the former in size and exuberance of the ornamental repertoire in stone and wood. The villa is realized in national style, combined on the northern façade with neo-Gothic elements. The floor plan and volumetry, post-Brâncovenetian in the manner of Dimitrie Ionescu-Berecehet, revolve around a nucleus formed by a tower-culque (with a gazebo), showing some similarities with examples by architects Petre Antonescu, Paul Smărăndescu or Statie Ciortan. In addition to the stone lacework of the facades, the hall and the interior staircase stand out, in which the register of wood carvings is extremely rich: each of the 25 or so counter-steps and each doorway has ornamental patterns that are completely different from each other.

9. General School No. 1 Oprea Iorgulescu (formerly C. D. Aricescu), str. G-ral Poșoiu, nr. 1, 1927-1929

The Domnească Normal School, called from 1864 Boys' School No. 1, functioned between 1836-1926 in a building constructed in 1833-1836 in the neighborhood of the old Town Hall, the current Tudor Musatescu House of Culture. In 1926, during Candid Ionescu's directorship, the old premises were demolished and a new one was built on the same site, according to the project of the architect Berechet and with the help of the great philanthropist from the town of Plapulgiu Oprea D. ^Iorgulescu8. The building was inaugurated on October 29, 1929, in the presence of ministers Ion Mihalache and N. Costăchescu and the then mayor N.V. ^{Constantinescu9}, and was built in a neo-Romanesque style of neo-Brâncovenetian style. The architectural details (the thermal window of the main entrance, columns, balustrades, facades, etc.), however, are highly original. Between 1989-1993, the west wing was extended by the construction of a new ^building10.

10. Villa General Gheorghe Poșoiu, 7, G-ral Poșoiu Street, 1930

The villa, with beautifully decorated facades, was built in 1930, in a national style with Art Deco accents, for Major General Gheorghe Poșoiu (1891-1973), whose mother was first cousin to the architect Berechet.

11. Villa Col. Costică Berechet, 12, Soldat D. Golescu str., ca. 1925

Opposite Vila Golescu, the architect Berechet built, in the 1920s, a vacation home for his brother, the pharmacist colonel Costică Berechet, owner of the Royal Pharmacy in Brăila. The architecture of the building respects the national style, being a synthesis between local Muscelene elements and the manner of the architect Cristofi Cerchez.

12. Public Garden, Negru Vodă Street, 1925-1929

The landscaping of the Merci Public Garden and Pardon Boulevard was started by Mayor Istrate Rizeanu in 1885 and continued after ¹⁸⁹¹¹¹. The Albești stone enclosure of the Garden was realized during the reign of Mayor Ionel Nicolau, between 1925-1929, by the undertaking Frații de Nicolo and the sculptor Victor Mezaroba, after a project by the architect. ^Berechet12, respecting the national style (with post-Brâncovenetian and neoclassical elements) of post-academist expression.

13. Edisson Cinema Theater (Jinga), 1, D. I. Berechet Street, 1938-1940

Built in a mature Art Deco style with a tendency towards classicism, similar to the Polish, Italian and Austrian schools of architecture, the building is currently in an advanced state of decay. The once imposing, part-storey auditorium is now a ruin, with only the block of flats adjoining it inhabited by needy families.

14. Dr. N. Cojan building, 115 Negru Voda Street, 1932-1933

Neighboring and typologically related to the famous Ion N. Staicu Bookstore, the building is a remarkable example of early Art Deco, with an architectural style similar to that of the building in Bucharest, 13 Ion Câmpineanu Street (architect Eugeniu M. Popescu, 1934) and the one in Alexandru 39 B Aleea (architect Arghir Culina, ca. 1928-1930). Constructed in the early 1940s by the Frații de Nicolo company, currently unoccupied, the building is a good example of efficient use of the built space, the plot being located between Negru-Vodă and Republicii boulevards. The four apartments are arranged symmetrically around an interior courtyard with a pentagonal opening, with different colors (colored wallpaper) and generously lit, the effect being greatly enhanced by the doors (with crystal glass) between the rooms, which allow excellent light circulation.

15. Vila arh. D. Ionescu-Berechet, str. C. Brâncoveanu, nr. 16, 1925

It was built as a vacation house in the neo-Romanesque style, in the manner of Christofi Cerchez, associated with local (Muscelan) elements. Situated on the grounds of the parental house, at the end of Constantin Brâncoveanu Street, it is a small building, which in 1945 was to receive a second floor, not executed.

16. Gică Ștefănescu House (now the Museum of Ethnography and Folklore), 5 Republicii Street, 1928

A traditional Muscelean house considered to be the oldest preserved building in Câmpulung (ca. 1735), which belonged in the 19th century to the logofăt Nicolae Ștefănescu. It was remodeled and enlarged in a post-Brâncovenesque style with Baroque insertions of the Constantinopolitan-Persian school by the architect Berechet, who won the 1928 Salon of Architecture Prize for this intervention.

17. Chapel of the Municipal Hospital (today's Morgue), M. Tican Romano Street, 1942

Built in 1942 in a neo-Byzantine style reminiscent of the Stella maris chapel of Queen Mary in Balchik, it suffered a cruel fate, being desecrated and transformed into the hospital morgue during the years of the communist regime. In a move with a disturbing symbolic charge, the place of the Holy Mass was taken by the dissection table, and the exterior and interior appearance were profoundly altered. Only the apsidal shape of the former altar and a beautiful column of Albești stone on the outside, close to it, still suggest its original functionality.

18. Negru-Vodă Monastery, the monastery and the cell block, 64 Negru-Vodă Street, 1934

On May 8, 1934, a fire started in the chimney of the old cellars that housed the Patriarch Miron War Orphans' Seminary, which burned down a large part of the monastery: the monastery's stables, the cellars and the upper part of the ^bell tower13. The works started shortly after the dramatic event by the Brothers of Nicolo and lasted until 1935. The project is in the national style, with specific elements of the 17th-18th centuries, reintegrated into the monastery complex.

19. The Negru-Vodă Popular Athenaeum (today's Muscel Deanery), 64 Negru-Vodă Street, 1927-1929

In 1927, on the initiative of priest G. Stroian, with funds from the citizens of Câmpulung and from the Banca Populară Șubești, the construction of the Popular Athenaeum of Câmpulung was started. Matei Drăghiceanu and as members the judges C. Negulescu, C. Bălăceanu and Ad. ^Stroe14. The style used is national (neo-Romanian), neo-Brâncovenetian, reminiscent of the gazebo of the Domnești House of the Văcărești Monastery, as well as that of the Metropolitan (patriarchal) Palace in Bucharest.

20. The commemorative cross in Șubești neighborhood, at the intersection of Al. Voievod and Maior Giurescu str., 1934

The powerful fire of May 8, 1934 also severely affected the Șubești neighborhood, located in the vicinity of the ^Negru-Vodă Monastery15. The systematization of the neighborhood and the design of 24 houses were carried out free of charge by the architect Berechet. The construction works were carried out on an emergency basis by the undertaking Frații de Nicolo, the expenses being mainly covered by state funds made available by the then Minister of Finance, Victor Slăvescu. On November 7 of the same year, a cross was consecrated to commemorate the tragic event and the reconstruction of the Șubești district, executed in a national style of local Muscovite style.

NOTES:

1 This urban itinerary is part of the project Arhitectura Berechet în viziune Berechet, of the Association of Architect Dimitrie Ionescu-Berechet, which aims to bring the personality and creation of one of the Romanian architects of the 20th century to the attention of specialists and the general public through a series of cultural and academic events (exhibitions, editorial projects, round tables, conferences, etc.).

2 Petre Popa, Two decades since the inauguration of the Mateiaș Mausoleum and the publication of the Book of Heroes, in "Revista de Istorie a Muscelului. Studii și comunicări", 8 (2005), p. 217-221.

3 Constantin Ciotei, Gh. Pârnuță, Ion Popescu Argeșel, Monografia municipiului Câmpulung Muscel, Editura Expert, București, 2005, p. 481.

4 Ioan Răuțescu, Câmpulung Muscel. Monografie istorică, Ars Docendi Publishing House, University of Bucharest, anastatic edition, 2009, p. 293-294; Historia of the Schei Church, in Arhiva Bisericii Schei, file no. 1689, p. 5, 8-9.

5 Ioan Răuțescu, op. cit., p. 227-8; Câmpulung Muscel, ieri și azi. Istoria orașului, elaborated by Ion Hurdubețiu, Flaminiu Mârțu, N. Nicolaescu, Gh. Pârnuță, Ilie Stănculescu, coordinated by Gh. Pârnuță, Câmpulung Muscel, 1974, p. 202.

6 Cf. Contract of April 21, 1928, between N. D. Nicolau, prefect of Muscel County, and D. Ionescu-Berechet, architect, in the Ștefan Ionescu-Berechet Archive.

7 Carmen Oprescu, Funcțiunile administrative și rolul lor în evoluția orașului Câmpulung Muscel (II). Funcția de reședință zonală, in "Argesis. Studii și comunicări", XIV (2005), p. 712.

8 Dan Simonescu, Monografia primei școli publice din Câmpulung Muscel, Pitești, 1970, p. 49.

9 Lucian Bundoiu, Școala Națională "Oprea Iorgulescu", in Radiografia Câmpulungului, Ars Docendi Publishing House, University of Bucharest, 2008, p. 65.

10 Ibid, p. 65.

11 C. Oprescu, Funcțiunea de loisir și rolul ei în modernizarea orașului Câmpulung Muscel, in "Argesis. Studii și comunicări, seria istorie", IX (2000), Argeș County Museum, Pitesti, p. 522; Dumitru Baciu, Lumini muscelene, Editura Sport-Turism, Bucharest, 1980, p. 95.

12 Ioan Răuțescu, op. cit., p. 151.

13 Ziarul Universul, Wednesday, May 9, 1934, p. 12.

14 Constantin Ciotei, Gh. Pârnuță, Ion Popescu Argeșel, op. cit., p. 165; Câmpulung Muscel, ieri și azi..., p. 211.

15 Ziarul Universul, Wednesday, May 9, 1934, p. 12.