Before the Romanian Revolution in 1989, the relocation and demolition of buildings were a common occurrence around the Eastern Bloc, especially in Romania. In order to provide space for a brand-new, contemporary socialist way of life, communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu was infamous for his aggressive urbanisation and redevelopment plans across the country.
Building relocation in Romania became a crucial task for engineers to do in order to reduce costs and appease the dictator. Ceaușescu didn’t care what happened to his targets; all he wanted was for them to be gone or out of sight. His most infamous targets were places of worship since the communist doctrine and the church were always fighting for influence over the public.
During the Romanian communist regime, large-scale demolitions and massive reconstruction projects of villages, towns, and cities began to take shape throughout Romania. In 1974, communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu expanded his objectives and development plans to transform Romania into a “multilaterally developed socialist society.” The initiative, executed six years later, envisioned a thorough countrywide demolition, relocation, and reconstruction campaign.
The severe earthquake of 1977 in Bucharest set in motion systematisation because most of the structures impacted were constructed before World War II, whilst the communist-era buildings survived. The communist leadership took this as proof of its supremacy over the pre-war administrations, leading to a fundamental shift in its urban development strategy. For his systematisation plan, Ceaușescu deemed it necessary to obliterate vast sections of Bucharest’s historic and central districts and other cities, replacing them with enormous concrete shelves of high-density housing complexes.
“I could see the roofs collapsing, there were only the empty walls, like skulls where there was no life left, there was rubble everywhere. You could see how your own being is destroyed, because every man has a family, some landmarks, which when they disappear you remain like a leaf beaten by the wind, which no longer knows from which tree it came off.”
Historian Dinu C. Giurescu
Unfortunately, the destruction did not end in Bucharest, as the Romanian rural systematisation program was a social engineering project carried out predominantly at the end of the 1980s by Nicolae Ceaușescu. This program’s ultimate purpose was to eradicate the contrast between urban and rural areas by razing about a quarter of Romania’s 13,000 villages and relocating their population into hundreds of new “agro-industrial towns” by the year 2000. The attempt to move the entire rural population of over 11 million people from single-family homes and private property to apartment blocks as tenants, as well as the nearly total destruction of traditional urban constructions and their replacement with apartment blocks, were all consequences of systematisation. Without considering the significance of Romanian history and culture, some sought to erase the past and alter the appearance of all villages, towns, cities, and the entire country in an effort to modernise it as quickly as possible. The communist authorities sought to homogenise the society’s members so they would be easier to manage and politically control.
The world’s perception of the Romanian dictatorship was negative, and the international press criticised it more often. “Tragedy allegations” filled the Hungarian press about Transylvania during the spring of 1988. By June, 50,000 people gathered in Budapest, Hungary, to protest against the Romanian Government as some of the thousands of villages they planned to wipe out were ethnically Hungarian. It was the largest organised protest in Hungary after the 1956 Hungarian Uprising.
The Belgian-based organisation“Opération Villages Roumains” was also created to establish twinning agreements between Western towns and Romania’s most vulnerable villages due to the potential magnitude of the demolition planned by Ceaușescu. The Council of Europe severely denounced the eradication of the settlements at its session in March 1989 and urged the Romanian Government to stop the destruction. Shortly afterwards, King Charles III, then Prince of Wales, openly condemned this approach in a BBC broadcast speech.
“The urban systematisation conducted by the communist regime has destroyed 29 traditional towns to 85-90%, and heavily mutilated other 37 cities, including Bucharest.”
Historian Dinu C. Giurescu
Romanians are well-known for joking about their troubles, and the Ceaușima was no exception. Ceaușima is a sarcastic wordplay in Romanian that compares the aggressive way in which Ceaușescu erased entire communities to make way for his megalomaniac projects with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Ceaușima was also used to refer to Ceaușescu’s other activities, such as the severe pollution in the Transylvanian city of Copșa Mică. The town is most known for being among the most polluted in Europe during the 1990s due to the emissions of two factories.
Ceaușescu travelled personally across towns, making decisions about the fate of whatever structure he desired to redevelop in his selfish quest for the perfect socialist state and society’s way of life. There were enormous residential structures erected throughout Romania, and in 1987, the intention was to extend a grand boulevard (Transylvania Boulevard) through the city of Alba Iulia, but there was a problem. One of the soviet-style monstrosities got in the way, and the solution was either relocation or demolition. A residential block with a length of 100 metres was situated perpendicular to Transylvania Boulevard, a significant urban ensemble of Alba Iulia. As it was less expensive to relocate than to tear it down and start from scratch, the block was separated into two twin buildings that could be moved independently. With a combined weight of 7,600 metric tonnes, each body was supported by a frame and a concrete platform before being lifted using presses, mounted on wheels, and pushed by hydraulic equipment. Only the families on the ground level had to leave their flats for the transfer, which took about 6 hours, and the other residents could observe the entire process from their balconies. The structure, travelling on a 33-degree incline axis, was shifted roughly 56 metres from its original location.
“Dozens of tenants went out on the balconies, quietly drinking coffee or a beer. A more inspired housewife placed a glass full of water on the edge of the balcony, demonstrating that the movement was so smooth that the glass did not spill.”
Sebastian Truța – Ziarul Unirea (27 May 1987)
The project required highly skilled engineers to finalise it safely without causing any disruptions to the 80 families still inside the apartment block. Having saved several buildings prior, it would be an ambitious challenge for the engineer who developed this brilliant technique to relocate and rescue buildings instead of demolishing them.
Eugeniu Iordăchescu, the creator of the “concrete tray,” who took inspiration from “the waiter who carries glasses on a tray without spilling a drop,” was not concerned about an accident occurring despite the block being connected to the electricity, water, and gas networks, and this was because nobody deviated from his plans. There have been no issues with the structural integrity, and the building is still strong and inhabited 35+ years later.
The project was incident-free, opening the way for the famous and beautiful Transylvania Boulevard, which reveals the path towards the Bell Tower of the Coronation Cathedral of Alba Iulia. A historically significant landmark of Romanian culture and history.
Ceaușescu’s mad actions and decisions caused many bright minds in Romania to stand up to him through intelligent choices and innovation. Many unsung heroes were among the terrible communist ideologies that tormented an entire nation, its culture, and its people for decades. Also known as “the engineer of heaven”, Eugeniu Iordăchescu is one of the heroes and masterminds who saved approximately 30 buildings, including a dozen churches, a bank, a hospital, and many residential buildings.
Whether Ceaușescu agreed to relocate buildings to cut costs or to serve as propaganda to boast about the state’s achievements, the invention of the “concrete tray” and relocation of buildings during the communist regime in Romania was a phenomenal engineering feat and defiance of systematisation by the engineers.
Bibliography
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Galmeanu, A. (2016). Filmul Demolarii Bisericii Enei – Aprilie 1977. Muzeul De Fotografie.
Gillet, K. (2016). The Great Escape: How Bucharest Rolled Entire Churches to Safety. The Guardian.
Historia (2016). Opération Villages Roumains: Un Model De Solidaritate europeană. Reacția Împotriva Proiectului Comunist De Sistematizare a Satelor (1988-1989). Historia.
Manolescu, I. (2010). Erasing the Identity of the Past. Effects of the ‘Systematization’ Process in Nicolae Ceausescu’s Communist Romania. Caietele Echinox, (19), pp.338–342.
Redactia Ziarului Unirea (2012). Mutarea Blocului A2 Din Alba Iulia, Cu 80 De apartamente, În Greutate De 7.600 De Tone. Ziarul Unirea.
Reuters (1988). Hungarians March to Protest Rumanian Plan. The New York Times.
TATEZAKI, M., HANAZATO, T. and MIYAKE, R. (2021). REMOVAL OF ORTHODOX CHURCHES AND MONASTERIES IN BUCHAREST IN LATE CEAUŞESCU PERIOD. Journal of Architecture and Planning (Transactions of AIJ), 86(783), pp.1601–1611.
