Marcel and Jules Janco's first moment of cultural significance took place in October 1912, when they joined Tzara in editing the Symbolist venue Simbolul, which managed to receive contributions from some of Romania's leading modern poets, from Alexandru Macedonski to Ion Minulescu and Adrian Maniu.

[6][26] The two brothers were soon joined by younger Georges Janco, but all three were left without any financial support when the war began hampering Europe's trade routes; until October 1917, both Jules and Marcel (who found it impossible to sell his paintings) earned a living as cabaret performers.

[30] Ball found the young painter especially pleasant, and was impressed that, unlike his peers, Janco was melancholy rather than ironic; other participants remember him as a very handsome presence in the group, and he allegedly had the reputation of a "lady-killer".

[33] He was a major contributor to the cabaret's events: he notably carved the grotesque masks worn by performers on stilts, gave "hissing concerts" and, in unison with Huelsenbeck and Tzara, improvised some of the first (and mostly onomatopoeic) "simultaneous poems" to be read on stage.

[58] As a result, Janco was made a member of Das Neue Leben faction, which supported an educational approach to modern art, coupled with socialist ideals and Constructivist aesthetics.

[60] Janco was even affiliated with Artistes Radicaux, a more politically inclined section of Das Neue Leben, where his colleagues included other former Dadas: Arp, Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling.

[61] The Artistes Radicaux were in touch with the German Revolution, and Richter, who worked for the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, even offered Janco and the others virtual teaching positions at the Academy of Fine Arts under a workers' government.

Although this never saw print, the preparations placed Janco in contact with the representatives of various modernist currents: Arthur Segal, Walter Gropius, Alexej von Jawlensky, Oscar Lüthy and Enrico Prampolini.

[66] Janco was probably in Béthune for a longer while: he was listed as one of those considered for helping to rebuild war-affected French Flanders, redesigned the Chevalier-Westrelin store in Hinges, and was perhaps the co-owner of an architectural enterprise, Ianco & Déquire.

[81] However, by 1923, the journal became increasingly cultural and artistic in its revolt, headlining with translations from van Doesburg and Breton, publishing Vinea's own homage to Futurism, and featuring illustrations and international notices which Janco may have handpicked himself.

It hosted samples of works by leading modernists: the Romanians Segal, Constantin Brâncuși, Victor Brauner, János Mattis-Teutsch, Milița Petrașcu, alongside Arp, Eggeling, Klee, Richter, Lajos Kassák and Kurt Schwitters.

[96] The exhibit included samples of Janco's work in furniture design, and featured his managerial contribution to a Dada-like opening party, co-produced by him, Maxy, Vinea and journalist Eugen Filotti.

[106] Heralding the change of architectural tastes with his articles in Contimporanul, Marcel Janco described Romania's capital as a chaotic, inharmonious, backward town, in which the traffic was hampered by carts and trams, a city in need of Modernist revolution.

The structure simply follows the curved line of the corner lot, the severe elevations devoid of decoration, enlivened only by a triangular bay window and balcony above, and a scheme of different colours (now lost) applied to the three wall areas differentiated by slight variations on depth.

The Florica Chihăescu house on Șoseaua Kiseleff (1929) is surprisingly formal with a central porch below strip windows, and also marks collaboration with Milița Petrașcu from the 1924 exhibition who provided some statuary (now lost).

Another project was a house for his Simbolul friend Poldi Chapier; located on Ipătescu Alley and finished in 1929,[71] this is occasionally described as "Bucharest's first Cubist lodging", even though the Villa Fuchs was two year earlier.

[120] At that junction, the magazine triumphantly published a "Letter to Janco", in which the formerly traditionalist architect George Matei Cantacuzino spoke about his colleague's decade-long contribution to the development of Romanian functionalism.

[71][121] Beyond his Contimporanul affiliation, Janco rallied with the Bucharest collective Arta Nouă ("New Art"), also joined by Maxy, Brauner, Mattis-Teutsch, Petrașcu, Nina Arbore, Cornelia Babic-Daniel, Alexandru Brătășanu, Olga Greceanu, Corneliu Michăilescu, Claudia Millian, Tania Șeptilici and others.

"[130] These developments created a definitive split in Romania's avant-garde movement, and contributed to Contimporanul's eventual fall: the Surrealists and socialists at unu condemned Vinea and the rest for having established, through Marinetti, a connection with the Italian fascists.

[71] Some months after, the National Renaissance Front government prevented Janco from publishing his work anywhere in Romania, but he was still able to find a niche at Timpul daily—its anti-fascist manager, Grigore Gafencu, gave imprimatur to sketches, including the landscapes of Palestine.

Janco himself was a personal witness to the violent events, noting for instance that the Nazi German bystanders would declare themselves impressed by the Guard's murderous efficiency, or how the thugs made an example of the Jews trapped in the Choral Temple.

[190] His assimilation of Expressionism has led scholar John Willett to discuss Dadaism as visually an Expressionist sub-current,[191] and, in retrospect, Janco himself claimed that Dada was not as much a fully-fledged new artistic style as "a force coming from the physical instincts", directed against "everything cheap".

[186] The style was ridiculed at the time by traditionalist poet George Topîrceanu, who wrote that, in Antologia poeților de azi, Ion Barbu looked "a Mongolian bandit", Felix Aderca "a shoemaker's apprentice", and Alice Călugăru "an alcoholic fishwife".

[215] After 1930, when Constructivism lost its position of leadership on Romania's artistic scene,[83][216] Janco made a return to "analytic" Cubism, echoing the early work of Picasso in his painting Peasant Woman and Eggs.

[222] His experiment on Trinității Street, with its angular pattern and multicolored facade, has been rated one of the most spectacular samples of Romanian modernism,[71] while the buildings he designed later came with Art Deco elements, including the "ocean liner"-type balconies.

"[6] As he recalled, these works were not well received in the post-war Zionist community, because they evoked painful memories in a general mood of optimism; as a result, Janco decided to change his palette and tackle subjects which related exclusively to his new country.

[55][154] Anthropologist Susan Slyomovics argues that the Ein Hod project as a whole was an alternative to the standard practice of Zionist colonization, since, instead of creating new buildings in the ancient scenery, it showed attempts to cultivate the existing Arab-style masonry.

[124] In addition, Janco was dedicated a poem by Belgian artist Émile Malespine, and is mentioned in one of Marinetti's poetic texts about the 1930 visit to Romania,[238] as well as in the verse of neo-Dadaist Valery Oisteanu.

[174] Janco's paintings still have a measurable impact on the contemporary Israeli avant-garde, which is largely divided between the abstractionism he helped introduce and the neorealistic disciples of Michail Grobman and Avraham Ofek.

[181] The sale of such property happened at a fast pace, reportedly surpassing the standardized conservation effort, and experts noted with alarm that Janco villas were being defaced with anachronistic additions, such as insulated glazing[243][245] and structural interventions,[134] or eclipsed by the newer highrise.