Telephones Company Building

[2] The worldwide Great Depression that began with the Wall Street crash of 1929 also affected Romania, strongly impacting the Romanian economy.

[5] Designed on behalf of SART by the Romanian architect of Dutch origin Edmond Van Saanen Algi and built over the course of about 20 months in 1931–1933, it was the first major modernist building on Bucharest's Calea Victoriei,[6] the street of which Tudor Octavian wrote, "this is how the whole of Bucharest would look if we had been allowed..., if its builders had been clever enough..."[7] It was constructed on the former site of the Oteteleșanu Mansion, which had been, since the turn of the century, home to a terrace bar (Terasa Oteteleșanu), a coffee house and a beer saloon, competing with Casa Capșa for the custom of Bucharest's elite from its location next to the old Romanian National Theatre.

[9] The building was extended (both vertically and horizontally) in 1940 and 1946, and survived earthquakes in 1940, 1977, 1986, and 1990, as well as bombing in 1944 by Allied Forces during World War II.

[10] With the advent of the Communist era, the building passed into the hands of the Romanian government, along with SART itself, which was nationalized as a division of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.

[11] A 1993 study revealed structural problems (the roof was never designed to support microwave antennas, but only a coffee shop); before a major reconstruction project could be started in 1997, engineers had to begin by redrawing building plans, as the originals had been lost.

Telephone Palace in 1935