Call it Lipscani, call it the Historic Centre (Centru Istoric, in Romanian), call it what you like. But the area of Bucharest described in this image is more or less all that’s left of pre-World War II Bucharest. What the war didn’t destroy (and it destroyed a fair bit: allied bombing was fierce during the early part of 1944) communism did, most notably in the form of the grandiose Civic Centre project that saw almost a fifth of the total area of the city flattened to make way for Bulevardul Unirii and Casa Poporului. That anything survives at all is little short of a miracle.
(1 year and 334 days ago)