A Recollection

We were free, available for all kinds of experiences, we were the first Romanian generation not conditioned by a historical goal to achieve.

Mircea Eliade

I was fourteen in the first half of 1957, when a group of architects, friends of my parents, came to our house. Dinu Hariton, my mother’s second husband, was an architect. The architects were: Tedy Economu, “Patronul” (Chief), as he was called, Gipsy Porumbescu with Liliana Dinescu, his wife, Ştefan Gane, Mimi Droc, Dan Rădulescu, Virgil Niţulescu, a gifted and very talented architect who was my superior and mentor after I graduated from faculty, at Proiect Bucureşti, where I had been allocated.
The result of the competition for the Sydney Opera, the first big architecture competition organized by UIA¹, won by Danish architect Jorn Utzon (1918-2008), was announced at the end of January. It was the main topic of the heated discussions taking place in our house at least 4 or 6 times a year, when the above g