Horia Teodoru. Key Figure of the Romanian School of Restoration

In 2014, the National Heritage Institute initiated a cycle of cultural projects entitled "Romanian Restorers", aimed at reconsidering and highlighting the work of the Romanian restoration school's prominent representatives, architects who worked within the Historical Monuments Commission and the Directorate of Historical Monuments. The first of these projects was dedicated to the architect Horia Teodoru.

Architect Horia Teodoru was born on June 28, 1894 in Ploiești. He graduated from the Gheorghe Lazăr High School in Bucharest. From 1914, he studied at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, in the studio of the architect professor Gustave Umbdenstock. Among the subjects he studied were the history of architecture, ornamental drawing, modeling, stereotomy, perspective, descriptive geometry, statics, physics and chemistry, and ^building law.1 Between 1916 and 1919, he interrupted his studies, concentrating his studies. He completed his studies in Paris in 1925, obtaining a diploma in architecture. From 1925 to 1927 he attended the Romanian School in Rome, where he studied archaeology and the restoration of historical monuments. Here, in addition to his theoretical training, he followed the restoration sites set up by Italian specialists, thus acquiring a solid practical training.

Returning to the country in 1927, he worked in the Technical Service of the Historical Monuments Commission - C.M.I., until its dissolution in 1948, working alongside architects Sterie Becu, Ioan Atanasescu, Emanoil Costescu, Ștefan Balș, Vasile Moisescu, under the coordination of engineer Gh. Balș and architect Nicolae Ghika-Budești. He thus joined the body of highly professional specialists who had the task of founding, coordinating and controlling interventions on historical monuments. In 1939 he became chief architect of the Technical Service, taking over from Nicolae Ghika-Budesti.

Among the valuable medieval monuments restored by Horia Teodoru during this period are: the churches "Sf. Treime" from Siret, "Sf. Onufrie" from Mănăstioara, "Sf. Ioan Botezătorul", "Învierea Domnului" and "Sf. Dumitru", all from Suceava, "Sf. Nicolae" of the Probota Monastery, "Buna Vestire" - Curtea Veche in Bucharest, "Sf. Ilie" in the village of Sântilie, Suceava County, the bell tower of the "Sf. Ioan cel Nou" Monastery in Suceava, the ensemble of the Goleștilor Court in Golești. Among the interventions carried out after 1950, the following can be listed: the restoration of the Colțea Church in Bucharest, to which he rebuilt the bell tower on the pronaos and the systematization of the reliefs of the Adamclisi Monument.

In addition to the specific documentation that underpins and accompanies the restoration work: historical studies, in situ research, surveys, reliefs, memoirs, reports, reports, preliminary measurements and estimates, execution details, site orders, special conditions and ^rules2, Horia Teodoru also draws up general regulations, designed to regulate the field, such as: rules for the execution of maintenance, consolidation and conservation works of historical ^monuments3, instructions for moving wooden ^churches4, fire prevention measures in monasteries that are historical ^monuments5, recommendations for the protection of historical monuments in the systematization plan of ^Craiova municipality6 and.a.

From 1924 to 1971, he published specialized studies in the Bulletin of the Historical Monuments Commission - B.C.M.I. and the Bulletin of Historical Monuments - B.M.I. Between 1942-1945, he was a member of the editorial board of B.C.M.I. His historical-architectural object studies or dedicated to architectural programs, comparative studies, scientific communications, reviews are valuable documents of architectural history and theory, in which his solid knowledge of ancient Romanian architecture and scientific rigor are coupled with a fine capacity for interpretation.

Between 1948-1952, between the time of the disbanding of the C.M.I. and the founding of the State Committee for Architecture and Constructions - C.S.A.C., Horia Teodoru was head of the Technical Section "Monuments of Art" of the State Committee for Art of the Council of Ministers.

Between 1952-1975 he was a member of the commissions in charge of the approval, guidance and control of interventions on historical monuments, structures of high scientific level that functioned within newly created institutions: the Historical Monuments Section and then the General Directorate of Historical Monuments within the C.S.A.C., which became, in 1955, the General Directorate of Architectural Monuments. In 1957, the C.S.A.C. became the Department of Architecture and Town Planning, and in 1959 it was renamed the State Committee for Construction, Architecture and Systematization - C.S.C.C.A.S., and the Directorate of Architectural Monuments becomes the Directorate of Historical Monuments - D.M.I. In the approval commissions he is a colleague of the architects Grigore Ionescu, Duiliu Marcu, Ștefan Balș, Emanoil Costescu, Richard Bordenache, Paul Emil Miclescu, Virgil Bilciulescu, Octav Doicescu, Gheorghe Curinschi, Adrian Gheorghiu. Horia Teodoru participates in the advisory meetings, including the commission's travels in the territory, having an important say in the adoption of restoration solutions. He formulates proposals for the protection of historical monuments in the systematization plans, elaborates regulations for the execution of design, protection and restoration works of historical monuments, regulations for archaeological excavations around or inside historical monuments. Together with Grigore Ionescu, she supports the work of the R.P.R. Academy's commission for the elaboration of the list of historical monuments in ¹⁹⁵⁵⁷.

Among Horia Teodoru's work as a designing architect, it is worth mentioning his winning the public competition for the Dalles Foundation building, organized by the Romanian Academy in 1930. The modernist building with exhibition, concert and conference halls was inaugurated in 1932. The building's structure was designed by engineers Aurel Beleș and Dumitru Marcu, and executed by engineer Emil ^Prager8. In 1960, the building designed by Horia Teodoru was incorporated into an eight-storey residential block, set in the front of the buildings bordering the current Magheru Boulevard.

In parallel with his work in the field of the protection and restoration of historical monuments and as a designing architect, Horia Teodoru was a substitute professor at the Department of Perspective and Principles of Architecture of the Academy of Arts, which later became the "Nicolae Grigorescu" Institute, from 1931. In 1942, he became permanent professor of descriptive geometry and artistic perspective. From December 1955 to February 1957 he was director of the ^institute9. Author of a university treatise on perspective (1953, 1958).

A gifted draughtsman and graphic artist, dedicated to the art of lithography, he is a member of the Union of Visual Artists and has had several solo exhibitions and group exhibitions.

He was married to the architect Ioana Teodoru, née Golescu, and is the father of Radei Teodoru, a renowned art historian. He died on June 21, 1976 in Bucharest.

Leading light of the Romanian school of restoration

Horia Teodoru made important contributions to the crystallization of the theoretical and practical system of the protection and restoration of historical monuments, an advocate of historical restoration versus the concept of unity of style, of preserving all the valuable constructive stages in the life of the monument and of marking the interventions of the restorer, with the limitation of the works of rebuilding or reconstruction in order to achieve formal continuity, based on analogy or innovation.

We present some of the important interventions carried out by Horia Teodoru as architect of the Technical Service of the C.M.I., restorations that are still relevant today.

In 1928, the newly hired architect Horia Teodoru was entrusted with the restoration of the Curtea Veche Church in Bucharest. Although he initially proposed to maintain the neo-Gothic additions, he was forced to abandon the position of historical restoration at the request of the Commission and adopted the solution of restoring the plastic unity of the monument by reintegrating the original volume. The added neo-Gothic bodies on either side of the pronaos are removed and marked in the pavement. The proscomidia and the diaconicon are restored on the original foundations. They remove the decorative neo-Gothic decorative covering of the church, restoring the apparent brick facing. The historical stages through which the monument has passed are marked on the facades and the floor. He devotes extensive historical studies to the medieval ensemble of Curtea Veche, studies that were later extended to the inns that have disappeared from the historic center of the capital. Ten years after the restoration work, he designed the new buildings of the parish house and the bell tower in the Curtea Veche Church, an admirable intervention designed to enhance the historic monument by creating an appropriate setting.

Beginning in 1928, for more than ten years, Horia Teodoru restored Petru Rareș's foundation, the "St. Nicholas" Church of the Probota Monastery: he freed the original openings of the porch and the pronaos, which had been bricked up, restored and completed the stone frames, marking the intervention with simplified profiles, and highlighted the original parament, preserving the layers of painting. In the spirit of historical restoration, he preserved the church's 18th century baroque roof. On this occasion, he surveys and surveys the ruins of the Church of St. Nicholas in Poiană - Probota Veche, the foundation of Stephen the Great.

In 1934, the Church of St. Nicholas - Rebegești, Ilfov County, a historic monument from the 17th century, endangered by the systematization of the lakes around the capital, was saved thanks to the intervention solution adopted by the architect: the monument was raised by mechanical means 3.5 m above its original level to be placed above the level of the lake and an island was created around the church. The architect worked with engineers Emil Prager and Dumitru Marcu, and the actual erection took 15 days, using 44 hand cranes.

Through studies, reports and memoranda addressed to the authorities, Horia Teodoru fights to save the Moruzi-Cantacuzino-Crețulescu house - "The House with Chains" - from demolition, arguing that it is a monument of exceptional historical value, being the last example of an old manor house of this type still standing and that it does not constitute an obstacle to the implementation of the plan for the systematization of the Capital. He proposed a solution for a minor alteration to the route of the planned traffic artery: an over-widening with the creation of an island that would not only preserve the monument but also enhance it by displaying all its monumental ^façades10. Unfortunately, he was unable to save the monument, which was demolished in 1943.

Between 1937 and 1940, Horia Teodoru restored the Church of the Holy Trinity in Siret. By underpinning the foundations and strengthening the plinth, the danger of collapse was removed. The excavation of the foundations revealed the presence of pilasters flanking the interior side apses. The walls and vaults were consolidated and restored. The church's apparent facade is freed of plaster, and the old glazed ceramic decoration is restored and enhanced, and painstakingly retouched. The bell tower is restored to its original openings.

The I.N.P. archive shelters in its collections numerous documents that bear witness to the work carried out by Horia Teodoru in the field of protection and restoration of historical monuments throughout his life. Historical studies, memoirs, reports, preliminary measurements and estimates, site orders, special conditions and rules, sketches, restoration plans, photographs accompanied by detailed comments and explanations by the author, minutes of the approval meetings were inventoried and digitized, together with his specialized articles, within the cultural project "Romanian Restorers: The architect Horia Teodoru - 120 years since his birth", beneficiary of a grant from the Romanian Union of Architects, from the "Timbrul Arhitecturii" Fund in 2014, making up the "Horia Teodoru" digital archival digital archive, accessible on the website www.horia-teodoru.ro

Summarizing the criteria that characterized Horia Teodoru's restorations and that clearly differentiated them from previous works, they were:

A thorough initial documentation.

Careful research work on the monument in order to find the constructive or decorative elements in the event of subsequent transformations.

Strict preservation of all these elements, without any aesthetic altering interpretations, as "the concern for beauty should not be part of the restoration work".

Ștefan Balș

(Professor Horia Teodoru at 80, R.M.M.-M.I.A., 1974.)

"From 1927, when he returned from Italy, Horia Teodoru admirably led the Technical Service, according to the principles of historical restoration, according to which nothing is removed except what deforms, but you leave all the stages, to see how the mentality has evolved. If he hadn't been such a conscientious head of service, he would have published a lot more, because he wrote very beautifully, but in his clerical and supervisory work he was too honest to run away. As a restorer, he was of extraordinary conscientiousness and drew divinely. His projects today are models of historical restoration, for example: the Church of St. Anton in Curtea Veche, the church in Siret, etc.

I met Horia Teodoru after 1954, at the Monuments Commission, he was a professor at the Institute of Fine Arts. He was active at the Monuments Commission, where he was very categorical, and as he was generally a short character with a very bulging chest, he said everything with a tone of cassation. Otherwise, he was a very pleasant man."

Eugenia Greceanu

NOTES:

1 Ioana Ardelean, The training process of Romanian architects at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris between 1877-1925, forthcoming.

2 A significant number of documents realized by Horia Teodoru are in the I.N.P. archive and photo library, C.M.I. fonds.

3 I.N.P. archive, C.M.I. fonds, file no. 2889.

4 I.N.P. archive, C.M.I., file no. 2111.

5 I.N.P. Archives, C.M.I., file no. 3120.

6 I.N.P. Archives, C.M.I., file no. 137.

7 The minutes of the meetings are in the I.N.P. archive, D.M.I. fonds; the minutes of the meetings held between 1952-1955 are published by arh. Eugenia Greceanu in B.C.M.I., between 1995-2000.

8 Emil Prager, Betonul armat în România, Vol. I, Editura Științifică, Bucharest, 1979, p. 256-257.

9 UNArte 150 de ani, Editura UNARTE, Bucharest, 2014, p. 124.

10 I.N.P. Archives, C.M.I., file no. 663.