The new, the old, the modern : architecture and its representation in socialist Romania, 1955-1965

This dissertation examines how the architectural culture of postwar Romania participated in the socialist regime's attempt to construct a new and collectivist environment. The dissertation works from a close reading of examples drawn from three different domains of architectural practice: the architectural and urban design of the Floreasca housing district in Bucharest; the writings of the architectural historian Grigore Ionescu; and the photography of architecture in the magazine Arhitectura. A consistent set of aesthetic and discursive practices emerged from the interrelation between words, images, and actual buildings in each of these examples: the city as new unit of production, standardization, an attack on subjectivity and individualism, technological essentialism, and abstraction were all attributes of the architecture enlisted by the socialist regime in order to establish and consolidate its ideological identity. The dissertation challenges the received descriptions of the postwar artistic context of the Soviet Bloc as one dominated by anti-modernist tendencies, as well as the complementary assumption that, in Romania, the thriving modernism of the interwar years was brought to an end by the postwar socialist regime.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Maxim, Juliana, 1970-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Stanford O. Anderson.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37451

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37451