Ceaușima

[1] This portmanteau term was coined in the 1980s to describe the huge urban areas of Bucharest that Ceaușescu ordered torn down during the final few years of his tenure.

Significant portions of the historic center of Bucharest were demolished to accommodate standardized apartment blocks and government buildings, including the grandiose Centrul Civic and the House of the Republic palace.

Ceaușescu considered it necessary to his program of systematization to demolish vast portions of the historic and central parts of Bucharest and other cities, and replace them with giant representation buildings and high-density standardized apartment blocks.

The latter was rooted in the ideology of "edifying the multilaterally developed socialist society" and it was considered an epitome of the Leninist formula of the "fight between old and new" (see Historical materialism).

Historian Dinu C. Giurescu writes: The urban systematization conducted by the communist regime has destroyed 29 traditional towns to 85-90% and also has heavily mutilated other 37 cities, including Bucharest.

The immediate consequences of this new urban policy were the demolition of monuments like Enei Church (founded 1611, rebuilt 1723; with murals by Gheorghe Tattarescu), the Neo-gothic Casa Cerchez or the elegant Baia Centrală public bath house and the suppression of the Authority for the National Heritage.

During that period, interventions in historical Bucharest, like rebuilding the traditional Calea Moșilor with uniform concrete apartment blocks, were still carried out respecting the pre-existing urban configuration.

[4] To realize his project, Ceaușescu brought together some 400 urban planning professionals, visiting them at least once a week during the 1980s and providing what the press called "valuable instructions" (indicații prețioase) in front of a large scale model of Bucharest.

[5] Since Ceaușescu succeeded in quelling disagreement and opposition expressed by authoritative architects, art historians and intellectuals, a coherent reshaping project never came to light.

The subsequent opening of the oversized Boulevard of the Victory of Socialism was but the consequence of architectural requirements aiming at creating a congruent perspective to the colossal House of the People.

The hill on which the Uranus city district was located, called Dealul Spirii, was radically reshaped in order to make it bear the House of the People.

Thus, the city area located south of the Dâmbovița between Podul Isvor and Piața Unirii and up to Antim Monastery was hedged in by a large triangle of standardized concrete blocks of flats.

The architecture of the area was eclectic, bearing witness to successive cultural and historical strata, which resulted in a mixture of 18th- to 19th-century edifices (inns, stores) and more recent buildings from the early 20th century.

I. Cuza College, the monumental Courthouse of the 4th District, the historical Town Hall of the former Blue Sector, several old inns and stores (underneath a UU-shaped commercial complex dating from the mid-19th century) and other characteristic edifices.

While the central part of the district has been completely bulldozed to clear the way for the Boulevard of the Victory of Socialism, its northern and southern sections suffered to a lesser extent.

In fact, the destroyed urban substance was more considerable, if isolated building clusters and town spots are added, such as the partial demolition of Știrbei Vodă street.