I'm continuing today the Art Deco thread by posting here a view of Royal Street with the Stănescu (left) and Union (right – please note the ziggurat on its top) hotels, two buildings located at the intersection between Ion Câmpineanu Street and Academiei.
Designed by architect Arghir Culina, the two hotels were built between 1929 and 1931 and remain testament to the prosperity and eclectic architectural ideas rife in the city in those years.
Culina graduated from the High School of Architecture in 1909 and worked as apprentice to the French architects Paul Gottereau and Albert Galleron. Influenced by them, Culina designed different buildings in Bucharest, sadly some of them (such as the Splendid and the Splendid Park Hotels) do not exist anymore.
The most interesting thing about Culina's buildings is that they all marked a departure from the formal language of traditional architecture at the beginning of the century.
My research trip to Romania was made possible through a journalistic grant from the Institutul Cultural Român (ICR - Romanian Cultural Institute), Bucharest.
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