I wrote before about where I find inspiration for my articles. One of my favourite features recently was on the threat posed to Romania’s historic industrial architecture.
The idea for the story entered my head when I set off south from Piata Unirii to the annual expat fair at The Ark exhibition centre. I never had much cause to go south, except to visit hardware stores when I was doing up my flat, since everyone I know lives in north Bucharest.
The road to The Ark took me from the Communist era apartment blocks around Piata Uniri, past beautiful but dilapidated old houses, then into an industrial area where it was hard to tell which of the factories – many of them also attractive old buildings – were in use and which had been abandoned.
Romania’s industrial heritage
This got me thinking about Romania’s industrial heritage, and arriving at The Ark – Bucharest’s former commodities exchange and storage depot, now an office and exhibition space – only made me more excited about the topic.
I had the opportunity to interview several interesting and knowledgeable people as I delved into the subject, learning how many of the city’s oldest industrial buildings had been left to rot (or even hastened into dereliction) by their owners, who wanted to develop the land.
Under Romanian law, you can’t pull down a historic building unless it’s judged to be unsafe. For the same reason, palaces and historic homes have also been left to collapse – the reason why the old town is full of warning signs saying “cade tenicula” or “falling debris”.
The World Monument Fund (WMF) has even added Bucharest to its list of 50 global sites at risk.
I talked to The Ark’s programme coordinator Dorothee Hasnas, who showed me some of her collection of hundreds of pictures from when it was in the midst of a thriving industrial area.
Urban exploration
I spent one Sunday on a tour of the mostly derelict Chimphar factory complex led by Sergiu Bogadan, a former street child who now runs tours for the Interesting Times Bureau.
During my research I also had to leap up by the wall outside the Assan Mill, which is supposed to be one of the earliest industrial buildings in Bucharest, holding my iPad in the air to snap photos of the compound.
There have been efforts to address the situation. The Ark and Halele Carol, an exhibition and event space, are just some of the sympathetic re-developments of old buildings, the Metropol Centre in a former printing press being another.
Within the city, the Save Bucharest Association is campaigning for architectural heritage to be preserved.
But my fear is that by the time the authorities really wake up to the problem, it’s already going to be too late.
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