Thematic file

A century and a half of architectural competitions. 1859-1990

Thematic dossier

A CENTURY AND A HALF OF
ARCHITECTURAL COMPETITIONS
1859-1990

Text, photos, scans: Alexandru PANAITESCU
Archival research: Iuliana MIRCEA

The concern to promote architectural values through a permanent competition between architects, including the support and organization of professional competitions, has a tradition in Romania going back more than a century and a half. The practice was taken over from Western experience, including that of the schools of architecture, especially the famous Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris, and became commonplace towards the end of the 19th century, when the first representative public buildings were built. Initially experienced foreign architects were called upon, soon to be joined by Romanian architects who had been educated first abroad and then at the School of Architecture in Bucharest and who were naturally eager to assert themselves.
As far as is known, the first public competition with international participation was initiated in 1859 for the realization of the Palace of Justice on the site of the former Constantin Voda Inn (where the Central Post Office Palace - MNIR - is now located), but due to lack of funds the winning project by the architect. Alexandru Orăscu could not materialize. Finally, without competition, towards the end of the century, on another site on Independence Square, the realization of the Palace of Justice was entrusted to the architect Albert Ballu, who, for the direction of works and interior design, collaborated with the architect. Ion Mincu.
By a parliamentary decision of 1873, a competition was organized in 1879 for the construction of the Palace of the Chamber of Deputies, but without a conclusive result, only the second prize being awarded to the project signed by Alexandru Săvulescu. The 1890 competition, this time for the palaces of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, aroused even more interest a decade later. Thirty-seven projects were submitted for the first building, and the winner was the architect Dimitrie Maimarolu, who did not realize the construction until after 1906, in a different form and on a different site on the Mitropoliei Hill. In the case of the Senate Palace, where 16 projects were submitted, the response was not satisfactory, and the award of the work would be decided two decades later, in another competition. This took place in 1911, when the site of the Senate Palace was set on the right bank of the Dâmbovița, at its intersection with Calea Victoriei, for which the new building would have become a monumental perspective. Dimitrie Maimarolu and Ernest ^Doneaud1 won the competition. Construction was this time started on the winning architects' designs, but due to lack of funds (the eternal problem) the work was halted during the inter-war period at foundation level, only for a tower block to be built on them in 1959 (architect Constantin Moșinschi).
In 1890 competitions were also organized for the National Theatre in Iași and the Administrative Palace in Brăila.
It is significant to mention, perhaps not by chance, that the founding on February 26, 1891 of the Society of Romanian Architects (SAR) was made on the occasion of the banquet honoring Ed. de Joly and Paul Wallot, two of the jury members of the 1890 competition for the palaces of the Chamber of Deputies and Senate. It was on this occasion that the initiative was launched to set up a new professional association of architects, which, compared with other ^attempts2, has since proved its longevity and above all its great usefulness, and has continued to exist to this day, despite the upheavals, transformations and difficulties it has undergone.
In addition to the advantages and fairness of awarding public works by competition, there were also some reservations at the time about the danger of applying the system in a less than honest and strictly professional manner. Ion N. Socolescu, in an unsigned article it is stated that "... the system of putting the projects of important public buildings out to competition has been used in our country for a very long time, but unfortunately it has never given satisfactory results, apart from one or two exceptions, because the organization of the competitions was not very well thought out. More often than not, the voice of special people is drowned out by the majority of those who are neither professionals nor are they concerned with the bad consequences of a badly organized competition, which compromises the system, causes enormous expense and a very great waste of time...", some of the observations remain still relevant today.
Among the landmark competitions of that early period of modern Romanian architecture, it is worth mentioning a few, due primarily to the importance of the building for which the competition was organized, but also to the spectacular nature of many of the solutions presented, even if they were not materialized.

From Central Station to the University Citadel

In 1892, an international competition was organized for the Central Railway Station, on a vast plot of land between Elisabeta Boulevard, Calea Plevnei, today's Mircea Vulcănescu Street and Independence Spaniard, and the first prize was awarded to the project signed by the architects. Louis Blanc and Alexander Marcel. The hesitations of the Directorate of Railways for various reasons, especially financial, will postpone for a long time the intention to move the station more towards the center, and eventually, in the 1920s, it will be abandoned in favor of the development of the North Station. In the mid-1930s, on the initiative of King Carol II, on the basis of an extensive project by the architect. Petre Antonescu, the construction in this area of the University Citadel, greatly extended along the Dâmbovița, up to the Grozăvești area. From this project will be built only two objectives, the Faculty of Law, on Elisabeta Boulevard, and a building of the Students' House (during the communist period known as "Grigore Preoteasa"), on Calea Plevnei. The desire to build a large university center was maintained in the early 1950s, but in a different form, with a realist-socialist expression, conceived by a team led by arch. Duiliu Marcu, which also included the new opera building, and arch. Octav Doicescu, built in 1953.

Communal Palace (Town Hall)

This building, which for more than half a century was intended to be erected on the land in University Square, specially purchased by the municipality between the current Carol I, Balcescu and Batiștei avenues, has also had a turbulent history. In 1899 the project was entrusted to the architect Ion Mincu, who proposed a solution in 1900, after Giulio Magni, George Sterian and Louis Blanc had been the only ones to submit proposals in 1895, out of the eight architects invited to a design competition, which failed due to the change of mayor. In 1912, Mincu's project was also abandoned due to his death and the work was entrusted to Petre Antonescu, who presented a ^{neo-Romanesque} design3. The subject was then taken up again in 1926 by another competition to which 23 projects were submitted, and the initiative and the results were contested by Petre Antonescu, the author of the 1912 project, who did not even take part in the competition.
Another competition on the same subject and site was also held in 1935-1936, with a project, this time in a modernized classical style, also by Petre Antonescu, winning by a landslide, but also not implemented.
The subject seems to remain topical until the mid-1950s, when at the end of 1956 a last competition on the subject was organized, but only for the systematization of University Square (then Nicolae Balcescu) to define the solution for the location of a city administration headquarters. The results were not convincing, and the first and second prizes were shared between the teams formed by arch. Titu Elian, Constantin Frumuzache, Aron Solari Grimberg, Pompiliu Macovei (then chief architect of the Capital), Aurel Teodorescu and the team composed of arch. Victor Aslan, Carol Hacker, Dan Ioanovici. Towards the end of the 1950s, the subject was closed with the assignment of the former Palace of the Ministry of Public Works (1910, architect Petre Antonescu) to the City Hall (then the People's Council of Bucharest). In the late 1960s, the National Theater and the Intercontinental Hotel were built on the site in University Square, which had been reserved for several decades for the realization of the Communal Palace.

The SAR calls for public works to be put out to tender

However, at the beginning of the 20th century, several important works in Bucharest and in the provinces were awarded through public tenders, including the projects for the Stock Exchange Palace (1907, architect Ștefan Burcuș), the Geological Institute, today a museum (1905, architect Victor Ștephănescu) and the Cathedral of Galati (architects Petre Antonescu and Ștefan Burcuș).
On the occasion of the celebration of a quarter of a century since the establishment of the SAR, at the first Congress of Romanian Architects on February 25-26, 1916, several requests were made to the state authorities in order to ensure the proper practice of the architectural profession. Although in many cases public projects were awarded by competition, the practice was not generalized and lacked a clear and, above all, uniform legal basis, which is why the first motion adopted by the Congress called for the introduction of an obligation that all state architectural works be awarded only by national public competitions, in which foreign architects could participate in addition to Romanian architects, provided they had been established in the country for at least five years. In the explanatory memorandum on this subject, arh. Ștefan Burcuș concluded that "public works are to be carried out by competition, because this is the only way to put all the elements to the test, giving young architects the opportunity to work, which will make them masters of their profession, and architecture in general will progress with the help of everyone".
Also in 1916, on the occasion of the opening of the competition for a building of the "Niphon Metropolitan" settlements, the SAR published in the magazine Arhitectura 2/1916 a "Program for the establishment of public competitions" which briefly included very clear specifications on the conditions for holding an architectural competition, such as: setting the timetable, how to compose the theme, the scale of the drawings, ensuring the anonymity of the projects, awarding the work to the winner, etc.

Proposals for the regulation of architectural competitions were also put forward during the inter-war period on various occasions, such as the architects' congresses of 1924 and 1928, but all remained without a concrete legal solution. However, in 1920 and then on 4 February 1921, the SAR adopted a Regulation for the organization of public competitions, which, even if not mandatory, was used by many public authorities organizing architectural competitions, proving its great usefulness.
Also in the inter-war period, right after the First World War, it is worth noting that many buildings were built according to projects selected by public architectural competitions, as was the case with the Mausoleum of Mărășești (1923, arch. George Cristinel), the Cluj Cathedral (1920-1930, arch. George Cristinel, Constantin Pomponiu), the Timișoara Cathedral (1936-1941, arch. Ion Trajanescu), the Balti Cathedral (arch. Constantin Joja), the churches of Satu Mare, Madona Dudu in Craiova (arch. Ion Trajanescu, Sterie Becu), Sf. Mihail și Gavriil - Parcul Domenii - Cașin (1937-1939, arch. Dimitrie Ionescu Berechet) etc. For various reasons, mostly financial, imprecise or/and administrative-organizational, the results of some competitions did not materialize, such as those for the systematization of the Romei - Sf. Gheorghe in Bucharest, the Orthodox Cathedral in Brăila, various palaces for the prefectures, three TBC sanatoriums, a hotel in Balcic, etc..
Particularly after 1936-1937, the Romanian Architects' Corps - CAR, an organization founded in 1932 by the SAR and which managed the architects' right of free practice, participated in the organization of important public competitions, such as those for the 8 June Square (today's Union Square), the Communal Palace in Bucharest (mentioned above) or for the Romanian Pavilion at the Universal Exhibition - Paris, 1937, King Ferdinand's monument in Chernivtsi.

Churches - in competition and controversy with the Patriarchate

An interesting situation is that of two competitions for the Domenii Park Church - Kashin, the first one organized in 1936, with the involvement of CAR, which was won by Ion I. Berindei, but the result was contested by the church authorities as beneficiaries. In the end, the work was entrusted to Dimitrie Ionescu Berechet, who was awarded the project after a second restricted competition was organized in 1937, with only three invited participants, by the parish alone. However, the second competition was contested by the CAR, which reacted by sanctioning Ionescu Berechet, suspending his right to practice for two years, a very drastic measure, but very quickly annulled under pressure from Patriarch Miron Cristea through the Minister of National Education (!!!^)4.

Hard times... ambitious competitions

During the Second World War, between 1941-1943, in difficult economic conditions, unsuitable for building, or perhaps precisely because of a lack of works, several competitions for important works were initiated. Even if in their organization it was appreciated that the recommendations made by the SAR and the CAR were not fully respected, they always had representatives in the jury together with those of the Faculty of Architecture, and the attractiveness of the competitions was confirmed by the participation of many architects.

The 1936 competition for 8 June Square (today's Unirii Square), second prize ex aequo, arch. Alexandru Zamfiropol

For the construction of an Orthodox cathedral in Odessa, a city conquered in the autumn of 1941, a competition was organized the following year in which the jury headed by Horia Creangă awarded ex aequo ex aequo the projects of Tiberiu Niga, as well as the team of Constantin Joja and Ion Teodorescu. In 1943 Tiberiu Niga would also receive the first prize in the competition for the administrative buildings of the UCEA defense factory. In the same year, 16 projects participated in the competition for the university campus intended for faculties with an agronomic profile, the first prize being won by Alexandru ^Zamfiropol5.

An important competition was also held in 1942 for the systematization of the Victoriei Square, occasioned by the completion of the Foreign Ministry Palace (today the seat of the government), for which it was proposed to demolish the Sturdza Palace, with its sumptuous eclectic architecture, which would eventually disappear due to the bombing damage in August 1944.

The 1943 competition for the Royal Palace Square, which sought to find a solution to the thorny problem of how to arrange the square following the reconstruction of the palace and the major demolition of valuable buildings in the area, in order to open up as wide a perspective as possible for the new royal edifice, which was much larger than the previous one.

The solutions put forward, including that of the architect Alexandu Zamfiropol, who was awarded first prize, proposed monumental spaces, more or less alveolate, which, as in the previous solution by Nicolae Nenciulescu, the architect of the new Royal Palace, involved significant demolitions, including the Carol I University Library. The results were publicly contested, primarily by some members of the ^jury6. Ion Davidescu, from the Higher Commission for Architecture and Urban Planning, challenged the hierarchy of the prizes and in particular the quality of the Zamfiropol project, the winner of the competition. Much more critical, however, was Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș, director of the "Carol I" Foundation, who first of all contested the intention to demolish the University Library, a valuable work by the architect Paul Gottereau, and in general the quasi-demolitionist character promoted to obtain solutions of a forced monumentality, which would disappear the main urban space, but especially cultural monument, of the time of King Carol I, concluding that we must "... not to commit the sacrifice of destroying the most personal of the works of the founder of the Romanian Kingdom".

The concepts underlying the solutions proposed in the 1930-1940s were to remain constant and were to be found in the 1959 proposal, made by a team coordinated by Horia Maicu, Nicolae Bădescu and Duiliu Marcu (who won third prize in the 1943 competition). A completely different urban planning concept, marked by respect for the existing built heritage, will dominate the solutions of the competition on the same theme held in the spring of 1997. All these hesitant attempts, which were not applied to the end, have meant that the urban layout of the Palace Square, today's Revolution Square, has been chaotic and haphazard since the end of the 1930s.

In 1945-1946, shortly after the change of political regime, a first competition was organized to rebuild the National Theatre, damaged by the German bombing that followed immediately after 23 August 1944, on the original site in Calea Victoriei. Initially, two structural surveys of the building concluded that it could be repaired, but the new pro-communist government, through the Minister of Culture, Mihai Ralea, eventually ordered the demolition of the theater in 1945, and what was left of the sets, props and stage equipment was taken over by the Soviet occupiers as part of the war reparations. The competition, which was finalized on March 31, 1946, probably a propaganda ploy to soften the shock of the demolition of the Grand Theatre, an emblematic building of Bucharest, did not, however, have a decisive result. In the end, it was decided to merge the first, second and third prizes, awarding three prizes ex aequo to the following teams: Nicolae and Pascal Georgescu; Alexandru Zamfiropol, Valentin Iorga, and the team of Margareta and Eugen Dumitriu, Haralamb Georgescu, Mircea Lecca, with the teams working together to find a common ^solution7, a recommendation that would postpone sine die the achievement of a project that could be implemented. In addition to the proposals that received honorable mentions, among the interesting projects was also the one signed by Victor Ștephănescu. As none of the projects was put into operation, in fact, a period of long and sterile discussions on the subject began, which would last until the mid-1960s.

Is the architectural competition only an architectural issue?

It should be emphasized that until the 1940s, in a free economy, the main means considered, at least in theory, to be fair and open for awarding a project was undoubtedly the public architectural competition. Even if the application of this procedure did not always comply with the rules fully agreed by the architects, i.e. the SAR and the CAR, and it not infrequently happened that the results were also vitiated by various interests outside the profession, so that in some cases, as in any competition, passions were aroused, as we have seen above. On the whole, however, architectural competitions played a well-appreciated role in choosing architectural solutions that met the requirements of the time, playing an important role in promoting a good quality architectural product, and by this period many buildings, including some important ones, were built from designs or had architects appointed by public competition. These tended to be a natural alternative to the direct award of design work, which would, however, be the practical way of entrusting projects for private investment, especially private dwellings, villas, residences etc.

A political solution

The dramatic political, social and economic changes at the end of the 1940s, following the establishment and rapid consolidation of the communist regime, which was supported by and in line with the model imposed by the Soviets, also disrupted the work of architects. Between 1947-1949 the SAR and CAR were dissolved and disappeared, design offices were closed due to a lack of orders and after 1948, following the nationalization of the economy, including the construction industry, architects lost their self-employed status. In January 1949 the IPC, the first institute for building design, was set up, which was to be the nucleus and model for the formation of a series of other design institutes or centers, generally with a technological focus, which would soon include architects, but only as employees. In these difficult conditions, in the early 1950s, there was no longer any question of organizing competitions for the few works that were initiated and designed exclusively by the new state design units.
In November 1952, work in the field of architecture and urban planning was also to be organized in a spirit of subordination to the objectives set by the socialist development programmes of society, in a centralized economy directed by the directives of the Communist Party and the five-year plans. By a decision of the CC of the PMR, implemented by HCM no. 2447 of November 13, 1952, a veritable Ministry of Construction and Architecture, the State Committee for Architecture and Construction - CSAC, was set up with very broad powers in this field. Also, among many other measures, on this occasion the professional reorganization of architects was carried out through the formation of the Union of Architects - UA of the RPR (since August 1965, RSR), with "...state support and control...", exercised mainly through the CSAC, including the financing of the organization mostly by the state "...to help [architects] raise their ideological level, their artistic mastery and technical knowledge in order to be able to make the greatest possible contribution to the work of building socialism".
Among the many tasks of the CSAC and the UA established in 1952 was the organization of architectural and systematization competitions. Later on, depending on the possibilities and the conjuncture, the UA will increasingly support the participation of Romanian architects in international competitions, with relatively more cases in the 1980s, including for student architects. In addition, for activities complementary to the profession of architecture, especially in the first two decades of its operation, UA will also be concerned with the organization of architectural painting, graphics and photography competitions, with prizes, associated with fine arts salons of architects.

In contrast to the pre-war period, as seen above, when the awarding of projects for construction, usually important, was often also done through public competitions, after 1954, with the resumption of architectural competitions organized by the UA, as far as we know at the present level of documentation, there were no state works (others practically did not even exist) that were entrusted to the state for design and then built on the basis of public architectural competitions organized by the UA, even though they were quite numerous until the mid-1970s. Moreover, it should be pointed out that, practically without exception, the competitions were very well organized by the UA, following meticulous and well-defined procedures, and some of the provisions are still to be found today in the methodologies developed by the OAR for the organization of architectural competitions.
In hindsight, we believe that the lack of a practical purpose of competitions in this period inevitably had its origins in the general framework of a supra-centralized economy, including in the field of construction and its design, in which competition was effectively excluded and was replaced by strict planning. Architectural competitions, declaratively, aimed to find with the help of architects optimal solutions to topical problems in the field and were organized, through and with the logistical support of the UA, only by state institutions, CSCAS/CSCAS, as the case may be in cooperation with local administrations (councils/people's councils) or other interested state institutions, but architects participated in them in their personal names, this being the main contradiction of the competitions at that time. The competitions were open to any architect or student-architect, provided that the latter was a member of a team of which at least one architect was a UA member, with paid membership fees. However, the competition regulations did not explicitly state that the laureate would eventually be commissioned to design the work and whether he or she had the necessary means to realize it (a situation ruled out by the non-existence of architects' design offices). In fact, these competitions were only of an advisory nature, their application was very vaguely expressed and practice has shown that it was entirely illusory. The architects, employees of various design units, usually with no direct interest in the problem at issue and its solution, participated in the competitions in their own name and generally worked for them in their spare time. There are no known cases of architects taking part in a competition as representatives or on behalf of a state design unit, which after winning the competition could take over the work. In fact, the procedures for a possible application of the winning projects was very hazy and practically impossible, if it was not included in the production plan established by a design institute. The prize-winning or juried projects eventually became the property of the state institutions that had initiated or had been obliged to initiate the competitions, but which turned out to be reluctant to use them for various reasons.
Nevertheless, competitions played a not inconsiderable role in animating the professional landscape and were very attractive to architects, especially young ones. They offered them, first and foremost, the opportunity to get closer to more diverse themes than those common in design institutes, especially if they were technological, where they were salaried. They were also a very important form, together with the AU Awards, of assertion in the professional environment and of establishing values, especially for architects at the beginning of their career, but not only. Last but not least, at a time when architects' incomes were precarious, the competitions also offered the hope of earning additional income or at least the possibility of appearing in the magazine Arhitectura, which usually published all the projects entered in a competition.

Socialist competition for mass architecture

Between 1954-1955, in keeping with the topical themes of the time, the UA and the CSAC organized a large number of architectural competitions, now seemingly insignificant, such as those for a cultural dormitory, public bath, district people's council (town hall) headquarters, rural dispensary, canteen, village store, middle school (high school), birthing house, SMT (station of machinery and tractors), etc.a. Even if most of the themes were minor and the winning projects were not implemented, the organization of these public competitions allowed the maintenance of a certain state of professional emulation, carried out relatively freely, outside the closed framework of the new design institutes.
Reflecting the interest in giving a monumental aspect to ultra-central areas of Bucharest, the competition finalized in December 1954 for the systematization of the square in front of the National Military Circle (then the Central House of the Army - CCA) should be noted. The competition was primarily initiated in order to find a solution to the front on Calea Victoriei, between Bdul Regina Elisabeta (then the boulevards of the Republic - 6 March) and Edgar Quinet ^Street8, opposite the Military Circle. As the result was not satisfactory, only the second prize was awarded, won by the project by architects Alexandru Zamfiropol and Alexandru Hempel. Without exception, all the projects that were presented were strictly subject to the requirements of Stalinist socialist realism, which still marked the architecture of the time, proposing excessively monumental architecture with rich classical decorations, and many of them, including the prize-winners, envisaged brutal interventions, sacrificing important buildings in the area, such as the Bulevard, Capitol and Casa Capșa hotels. A common feature of most of the projects presented was the provision of porticoes on the ground floor of the proposed buildings, a trend accepted at the time and which was to be found in many buildings realized in the city center in the late 1950s. Shortly afterwards, unrelated to the results of the competition, Project Bucharest designed on this site the former Romarta Copiilor building (architects Constantin Moșinschi, Dan Slavici and others), completed in 1959.
Also, the 1956 competition for the systematization of Nicolae Bălcescu Square (University), which sought to find solutions for it in order to build the City Hall Palace, will not have a concrete outcome. The proposed solutions, like those for the Cercului Militar Square, were either tributary to socialist realism or took the form of modernized classical forms and were soon forgotten. The consultation concluded a more than half-century-long debate on the planning of the area, which was mentioned in more detail above.

In connection with the continuation of the North-South axis in Bucharest, through the crossing of the boulevard today called Dimitrie Cantemir, an interesting competition was organized in 1959 for the Unirii Square, proposing solutions that, without exception, reflected the modern-functionalist orientation that already dominated, without appeal, the architectural practice in Romania, and the first prize was awarded to the team of architects Adriana Ciortan, Mihai Enescu, Mircea Enescu and Alexandru Popescu-Necșești.
In the same period, the concern to modernize and clean up some important urban centres will lead to the organization of several competitions with such themes. We mention the competitions for the reconfiguration of the Unirii Square in Iași (I-II prizes ex aequo were won by the teams arh. Gabriela Bertumé, Sena Farb and Constantin Săvescu, Gabriel Cristea and Romeo Belea) and the one for the city center of Ploiești (the first prize was not awarded and the second prize was won by arch. Constantin Săvescu, Gabriel Cristea, Romeo Belea and Dinu Gheorghiu). 1961 also saw a competition for the systematization of Timișoara city centre, with 55 designs. The jury was unable to pick a clear winner, and in the end awarded a record 12 prizes and mentions, of which three were I-II ex aequo, two III prizes and seven mentions, so that the results were unclear and, in practice, unenforceable, as in other competitions of the time.
The concern to realize buildings according to standard projects, which was very topical in those years, was also reflected in the organization in 1960 of a competition for cultural hostels and houses of culture, structured in three categories, according to size. It attracted the participation of a large number of architects who entered 71 projects, most of which, however, were of unspectacular architectural value.

Big competitions

Around 1960, two other competitions were held, but with a particularly high stakes, for the national theaters in Craiova and Bucharest which, as usual, were not followed by the award of the design of the works to the winners.
The first, at the end of 1958, was the competition for the Craiova National Theater, in which 45 projects were entered and the jury chaired by Duiliu Marcu, assisted among others by architects Ascanio Damian, Valentin Iorga and Ion Berindei, awarded first prize to the team of George Filipeanu and Leon Strulovici. Today, the project by architects Tiberiu Ricci and Anton Dâmboianu, which was awarded third prize ex aequo, still stands out for its well personalized architectural expression. The prize-winning projects stood out, first and foremost, for their modern architectural approach and their renunciation of the pseudo-classical forms promoted in previous years as a result of the imposition of Stalinist socialist realism. More than a decade later, around 1970, without any connection with the 1958 competition, the National Theatre in Craiova was to be built according to the design of the architect Alexandru Iotzu, an exceptional work that is considered one of the successes of post-war Romanian architecture.
A much more important competition, with 38 projects submitted, was held in the first half of 1961 for the construction of the National Theatre in Bucharest on the site of the University Square, where the Town Hall was to be built in the first half of the 20th century. Similar to the Craiova competition, the requirements were complex, requiring both the details of the new theatre's location and the circulation in the area, and its functional, including its plastic-architectural solution. In the end, the jury, whose members included architects Ascanio Damian, Tiberiu Niga, Tiberiu Ricci and actor Costache Antoniu, did not award the first prize, but two second prizes ex aequo, to the team of Anton and Margareta Dâmboianu and to the team of George Filipeanu and Leon Strulovici, who had also won the Craiova competition on the same theme. At the same time, five other mentions were awarded, the first of which went to a large team made up of architects Romeo Belea, Nicolae Cucu, Dan Aurel, Valentin Iorga, Sebastian Moraru, Iulian Nămescu, Heinz Novac, Ignace Șerban, Ion Ștefan, Spiridon Spirescu and Aurel Teodorescu, led by Horia Maicu, Bucharest's chief architect between 1958 and 1969. After 1965 he was in charge of the works, coordinated the systematization of the University Square and was in charge of the project for the National Theatre, supervising all the design work, including the Intercontinental Hotel, the parking lot and the underground passage, realized around 1970, assisted, among others, by some architects who made up his team from 1961, without calling on the architects who had won the competition. Without further comment, it should also be noted that the 1961 results for the TNB were not published in the journal Arhitectura, as was generally the case with competitions organized by the UA, and the projects presented are not known to date. It should also be said that, somewhat surprisingly, the Decision of the Council of Ministers establishing the competition for the TNB also stipulated that, immediately after the winning projects had been chosen, the design task was to be taken over by the IPB, which was to establish a team to design the theater in a short time, without reference to the role of the competition ^winners9.

Competitions for city centers and beyond

During the 1960s-1980s, urban planning competitions for city centres predominated, such as the one for the Red Bridge Square in Iasi in 1964 or a competition with a general theme relating to the planning of a housing district. Also related to the issue of new housing estates, in 1968 there was a competition for the center of the Titan district in Bucharest, won by arch. Costin Pastia, Ștefan Perianu, without the results of the competition making any concrete contribution to resolving the issue, which is still topical today.
It should be pointed out that in all the competitions of this period, as in those of the following years, their formal, strictly orientative and purposeless character, with a consultative role at most, is also revealed by the almost common practice of avoiding establishing clear-cut results. In some cases no first prize was awarded or ex aequo prizes were frequently awarded, often with the recommendation that a solution should be found by merging several of the projects submitted, which was difficult or even impossible. It should be noted that the assessments refer exclusively to public competitions, not to some ad hoc competitions/competitions of a strictly internal nature, organized by chance in each design unit, among the architects employed by it, for the finalization of an architectural solution and/or for the appointment of a design team.
In the eighth decade, under conditions also favored by the administrative reform of 1968, the development of many urban centers was imposed as a necessity, by promoting a program for a new civic center, primarily in the capitals of the re-established counties. Preferably the new center, almost without exception, revolved around a generous square, intended for large public gatherings, grouping the main public facilities of the locality, such as, from case to case, an administrative headquarters, a house of culture with a performance hall for about 500 spectators, a general store, a hotel all of which would be part of a residential complex with shops on the ground floor and an architectural appearance that was required to be representative, but which had to be achieved with the same standard apartments, with strictly standardized facilities and surface areas, as in the case of ordinary residential districts, which at most had better finishes.

In a brief enumeration we mention the competitions in 1971 for the center of the municipality of Petroșani and for the center of the resort of Sovata, in 1973 for the area of the National Theatre in Iași, in 1974 for the new center of Bistrița, the central area of Văleni-Olt and the center of Râmnicu Vâlcea, in 1975 for the urban planning study of the resort of Costinești, in 1976 for the center of the municipality of Alba Iulia, in 1979 for the center of the Lunca Bârzavei district of Reșița or another competition, in 1980, also for the center of the municipality of Petroșani, etc.It is interesting to note that most of these competitions were dominated by a team consisting primarily of architects Constantin Dobre, Victor Ivaneș and Toma Olteanu, who were frequently joined by arh. Radu Tănăsoiu, sometimes also arh. Zoltan Takacs, rarely others. They regularly won the main prizes, without all these achievements bringing them any involvement in the actual design of the works (except for a hotel in Costinești), their case being a sad proof of the formal nature of the competitions of that era.
In 1981 another "... very sporting professional confrontation..." with the launch of a competition for a youth cultural center, which was supposed to be consultative in nature, and which probably also aimed at possible typification, at least at the level of detail, given that the program was expected to be carried out much in the years to come. The solutions presented do not shine by anything special and are of a banal architecture compared to those of works with the same purpose, built or under construction in Târgu Jiu, Tei Complex, Slatina, Râmnicu Vâlcea. As in other competitions, there is no clear result. Of the 46 projects that actually took part, out of the 270 intentions initially expressed, five of those drawn up by architects received ex aequo mentions, and another 10 mentions were awarded ex aequo to student architects, who were also able to take part in the competition independently.

100 years of Romanian architects in international competitions

In 1922, the first Romanian architects took part in an international competition for the systematization of the city of Belgrade, through Roger Bolomey and Ion Davidescu.
As far as is known, in the post-war period, the first attempts by Romanian architects to participate in international competitions date back to the second half of the 1950s, when they submitted a project to the competition for the Romanian Pavilion at the 1958 World Exhibition in Brussels, and then to the competition for the City Hall in Toronto, through the proposal of the team of architects Ion Mircea Enescu, Radu Patrulius, Petrache Carp, Violeta and George Morariu, and from the memoirs of Ion Mircea Enescu it appears that they participated on their ^own10.
In the last two decades of the communist period, the gradual increase in the participation of Romanian architects in international competitions, especially in the 1980s, including student architects, should be particularly noted, and towards the end of the period, Romanian architects often began to win some distinctions in foreign competitions.
Given that in the relatively limited space of a single article it is not possible to develop exhaustively the extent of Romanian participation in international competitions, we will mention only a few cases that are considered significant.
A large number of entries from Romania was submitted to the 1969 competition for the Beaubourg Center, which as a whole attracted an impressive number of projects, 681, of which 190 from France and 491 from other countries. The final competition brochure lists 13 projects from Romania, including those by the teams of Octav Doicescu, Ascanio Damian, Horia Hudiță, Horia Maicu, Virgil Nițulescu and Ion Mircea Enescu, among others. As is well known, the winning project was by the team of young architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, which would go on to produce a remarkable building. In the same year another major international competition was held for a headquarters in Vienna for UN institutions, and among the Romanian projects that took part was that of the team of architect Ascanio Damian.
In 1977 a theatre architecture competition for student architects was held in Paris organized by a specialized UNESCO institution. After the pre-selection 90 teams from 15 countries were shortlisted and 10 prizes and 28 mentions were awarded. Five projects from Romania took part, three were mentioned by the jury, one of which also received a prize (the team of Cristina Ene, Cristian Ionescu, Ștefan Mănciulescu, Mihai Pienescu and Constantin Berechet).

The 1979 Forum des Halles Forum des Halles competition, arh. Ștefan Lungu, Viorel Hurduc, stud.-arh. Mihai Rădulescu, Niculae Grama, Mihai Pricop, Mihai Beleiu, Cristian Iacob

1981 competition for the anniversary poster of the magazine ARHITECTURA, prize stud.-arh. Dan Marin, Valentin Săhleanu

In 1979, for the completion/design and finalization of the highly controversial Forum des Halles complex, which had recently been built on the site of the former Parisian halls, a broad consultation was held for which a selection of about 200 projects was made, exposed to public debate at the Grand Palais, including six from Romania. As the arch. Mircea Lupu, the editor-in-chief of Arhitectura magazine, it was clear that the Romanian proposals stood "...alongside any of the winning projects. However, competition has its own rules, among which training and routine have a difficult say [...], which is why we affirm that, as our participation in the various competitions increases, we will be able to demonstrate more clearly the preparation and capacity of Romanian architects", conclusions that remain valid ^today11.

Among the notable successes of Romanian architects in international competitions is that of the team of Dan Bolomey and Matei Lykiardopol who, in a prestigious company, received one of the 10 additional prizes awarded in addition to the first prize in the 1986 competition for the Dock Museum in London. We should also mention Romania's participation in the 1986 competition on the theme "Bastion of Resistance", initiated by Japan architect magazine, in which 378 projects from 26 countries, including seven from Romania, were entered and the team formed by Marius Marcu Lapadat and Horia Gavriș was awarded an Honorable Mention. In the same year, architects Horia Hudiță, Cristina Moscu, Radu Drăgan and Dan Agent took part in the Warsaw Confruntările. In 1988 the team formed by arh. Arpad Zachi, Daniela and Radu Drăgan will receive the special prize at the competition organized in Minsk (USSR) with the theme "Housing Neighborhood in a Large City", and in 1989 at the International Design Competition in Osaka, with the theme "Fire", two Romanian participations out of 33, the architect Florin Biciușcă and the team of arh. Constantin Petcu, Doina Petcu and Mircea Bozan were among the 97 finalists out of 1,009 entries, and Romania came 10th out of 53 countries.

Since 1990, the stakes and parameters of architectural competitions, which will continue to be a constant preoccupation of the Romanian Union of Architects, will inherently change under the influence of and in line with the new economic conditions and interests of a society in a long and complicated transition, a subject that requires a different analysis.

NOTES

1 For details, see Nicolae Lascu, Bulevarde bucureștene, până la Primul Război Mondial, Editura Simetria, București, 2011, p. 97-99; Nicolae Noica Palatul Patriarhiei, Editura Cadmos, București, 2008.
2 In 1876, a short-lived "Society of Engineers and Architects" was founded under the presidency of the architect Alexandru Orăscu.
3 For more details on the first stage of the realization of the Communal Palace in University Square see Nicolae Lascu, op. cit. p. 104-108.
4 It should be noted that Dimitrie Ionescu Berechet worked as the architect of the Patriarchate, where he was highly appreciated, including by the Patriarch. For details, see Ștefan Ionescu Berechet, Dimitrie Ionescu Berechet (1896-1969), arhitectul Patriarhiei Române, Basilica Publishing House, Bucharest, 2019, p. 24-26.
5 Alexandru Zamfiropol (1898-1977), a prestigious architect active especially in the 1930s, was, among other things, a consistent participant in the main competitions between 1935-1956, often, as will be seen below, being a regular name among the main prize-winners, but without ever being able to be attributed with a work that was the subject of a competition in which he participated.
6 See the journal Arhitectura 1943-1944, pp. 28-30.
7 See Bulletin of the Society of Romanian Architects, 7/June-July 1946, pp. 13-14.
8 On this site were the buildings that had housed the Liberal Club and the Cartea Românească bookstore, which were destroyed by bombing in the summer of 1944.
9 According to the documents in the file on the organization and jury of the competition for the TNB in the UAR archives.
10 According to Ion Mircea Enescu, Arhitect sub comunism, Editura Paideia, Bucharest, 2006, p. 232-233. A very poorly legible heliographic copy of the project can be found in the UAR Archives.
11 See Arhitectura magazine 5/1980, p. 44-53.