HUMAN GEOGRAPHIES – Journal of Studies and Research in Human Geography (2010) 4.1, 5-16 www.humangeographies.org.ro

RECONFIGURING SOCIALIST URBAN LANDSCAPES: THE ‘LEFT-OVER’ SPACES OF STATE-SOCIALISM IN

Duncan Lighta*, Craig Youngb

a Department of Geography, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, United Kingdom b Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom

Abstract: The end of state-socialism has produced complex processes of urban change in East and Central Europe including the reshaping of urban identities and urban cultural landscapes in post- socialist cities. The geographical literature focusing on changes in the cultural landscapes of post- socialist cities has emphasized discontinuity from the state-socialist period. The removal and renaming of elements of the built environment and accompanying symbolic forms have been taken to be emblematic of the change of political and social system from state-socialism. While not denying the importance of these processes, this paper argues that such analyses overemphasize the degree and speed of change in the built environment and cultural landscape during the transformation from state- socialism to post-socialism. In particular, it emphasizes the importance of the persistence of elements of the cultural landscapes of ‘socialist cities’ after 1989 through a study of three such elements in Bucharest, .

Key words: Urban landscapes, ‘Left over’ socialist spaces, Bucharest

Introduction

The end of various forms of state-socialism discontinuity of these landscapes. The across the former Eastern Europe and Soviet removal of elements of the built environment Union from 1989 ushered in a period of and accompanying symbolic forms has been complex changes in the geographies of cities taken to be emblematic of the change of in the region. Geographical research has political and social system from state- sought to understand a variety of these socialism to various forms of emerging processes including changes in urban capitalism. However, in this paper, while not governance, de- and re-industrialisation, the denying the importance of these processes, we privatisation of urban land, property and argue that often such analyses overemphasize housing, the rise in urban retailing functions, the degree and speed of change in the built suburbanisation and the changing identities environment and cultural landscape during and cultural landscapes of post-socialist cities the transformation from state-socialism to (see Stenning 2004; Czepczyński 2008). Much post-socialism. In particular, we focus on the of the geographical literature which has persistence of elements of the cultural focused on the issue of cultural landscapes in landscapes of ‘socialist cities’ after 1989 post-socialist cities has emphasized the through a study of three such elements in Bucharest, Romania. *Corresponding author: Email: [email protected]

DUNCAN LIGHT, CRAIG YOUNG

Political change and urban cultural This was certainly true of the extensive landscapes physical remodelling and renaming of central Bucharest, especially during Ceauşescu’s reign Human geography has developed a (see Cavalcanti 1992, 1997; Light et al. 2002; considerable interest in the relationship O’Neill 2009). between power and the organisation of urban Post-socialist transformation in East and space and urban landscapes (for overviews see Central Europe (ECE) involves a further Hubbard 2006; Wylie 2007). Studies have remaking of urban space and identity to traced how the organisation of the urban built legitimate new political and economic environment and cultural landscapes of cities trajectories and to reshape cities as suitable for integration into regional and global can be expressive of the ideals of a dominant networks and flows. As the geographical political regime. As Lefebvre (1991) notes every literature demonstrates, such is the society produces its own space or landscape, relationship between space and political order while Levinson (1998: 10) argues that “those that any change in that order will result in a with political power within a given society remaking of space and landscape. Levinson organize public space to convey (and thus (1998:10) notes that “Changes in political teach the public) desired political lessons.” regime…often bring with them changes in the Mitchell (2000: 109) develops the link between organization of public space” (see also power and urban landscapes when he notes Lefebvre 1991). This is particularly true of that “Landscape[s]...are incorporations of urban areas, particularly capital cities, in ECE. power...They are made to actively represent As Sezneva (2002: 48) suggests, “the rush to who has power...but also to reinforce that rename and remake cities signals the power by creating a constant and unrelenting centrality of urban space in the construction symbol of it.” Landscapes are thus ideological of post-socialist identities.” Among other in Mitchell’s (2000) argument. Though this authors, Verdery (1999) notes powerful does not mean that landscape meanings processes of “reconfiguring space”, changing cannot be contested, landscape in this view is the meanings attached to it, under conditions “a way of carefully selecting and representing of post-socialist change - “Raising and tearing the world so as to give it a particular meaning. down [socialist] statues gives new values to Landscape is thus an important ingredient in space (resignifies it), just as does renaming constructing consent and identity...for the streets and buildings.” (39-40). projects and desires of powerful social However, in this paper we argue that interests” (Mitchell 2000: 100). this process of remaking urban space and The organisation of space in state- landscape under post-socialism is not as socialist cities is a good example of this comprehensive as is sometimes portrayed in broader point. For socialist regimes the the literature. While some changes are quick shaping of urban space was an important and easy to achieve and have a high symbolic element of political projects aimed at creating impact - such as pulling down statues or new forms of society (French and Hamilton, renaming streets and buildings - other 1979; Stenning, 2004; Dawson, 1999; Crowley changes are much more difficult to make. and Reid, 2002; Sezneva, 2002). As Verdery Large factory complexes and public buildings (1999: 39-40) argues: remain in the urban landscape, sometimes still in use. Vast areas of socialist-era housing “...among the most common ways in which schemes still make up a high proportion of the political regimes mark space are by placing housing stock in many ECE countries. Socialist particular statues in particular places, and statues and iconography can still be found in by renaming landmarks such as streets, many cities throughout the region, often in public squares, and buildings. These provide situ or resituated in museum spaces, and contour to landscapes, socializing them and mundane spaces of socialism such as old shop- saturating them with specific political fronts and public parks persist in the everyday values...”. urban landscape. For post-socialist national

6 HUMAN GEOGRAPHIES – Journal of Studies and Research in Human Geography, (2010) 4.1, 5-16 RECONFIGURING SOCIALIST URBAN LANDSCAPES and urban governments other factors, such as 1991), ambiguous spaces which are neither social welfare, employment and the economy, relevant to the (no longer existent) socialist may be higher priorities than the eradication regime nor incorporated into the new socio- of the socialist cultural landscape, a process political order. which in any case may be too time consuming In this paper we wish to emphasize the or too expensive. Large public buildings, persistence of such ‘left-over’, ‘loose’ or housing areas and factories may privatised ‘liminal’ spaces deriving from state-socialist and/or take on new functions rather than urban cultural landscapes and their continuity being destroyed. Furthermore, there is not in complex ways under conditions of post- necessarily consensus over the destruction of socialism. We do so in order to bring a more the socialist era cultural landscape, as the nuanced understanding to the reconfiguration population may have different views from of post-socialist urban space by considering elites about the preservation of such the different trajectories and lives of elements landscapes and different everyday of the urban landscape which persist from the relationships to it than were intended by socialist era, rather than focusing on those socialist and post-socialist regimes. People’s that were removed. To this end we present an everyday memories and practices may adhere account of three such ‘left-over’ spaces of strongly to such landscapes, such as the socialism in Bucharest, Romania. The analysis continued use of socialist-era street names reveals what they tell us about the even after they have been officially renamed. relationships between urban space and A few authors have documented the political order during times of significant social and political struggles over large-scale political change and explores the diverse fate remnants of socialist cultural landscapes, such of the material l and symbolic legacies of as Warsaw’s Palace of Science and Culture state-socialism. (Dawson 1999) or the socialist new town of Nowa Huta (Dawson 1999; Stenning 2000), or have analysed how the socialist identity of Case Study 1: the “Circuses of Hunger” certain cities cannot simply be erased (Young and Kaczmarek 2008). Czepczyński (2008) During the 1980s Romania’s socialist leader notes the persistence of many public buildings Nicolae Ceauşescu undertook a large-scale and other features of socialist cultural physical and symbolic remodelling of centre of landscapes. He suggests that in addition to the the capital city, Bucharest, in order to reflect removal of such landscape elements, other his particular blend of the ideals of possible strategies to deal with these Communism, his cult of personality, and his potentially awkward landscape elements version of Romanian nationalism (see include their renaming, rededication or reuse. Cavalcanti 1992, 1997; Light et al. 2002; O’Neill However, Czepczyński also notes the 2009). One aspect of this reshaping of urban existence of many ‘left-over’ spaces of form was the construction of standardised socialism, spaces which have not been subject ‘agro-alimentary complexes’ based on the to removal or reuse, but which persist in the Western hypermarket model (Jurnalul landscape, no longer functioning as parts of Naţional 21 Jan 2005). They were planned as the cultural landscapes of state socialism, but places for intensive, collectivised food not destroyed or altered to fit the demands of retailing, but would also contain canteens post-socialist states and cities either. This may serving standardised menus. This was a be because they are geographically peripheral typically totalitarian approach to the or the city authorities are unable to deal with centralisation and regularisation of both the them. Here we would argue that, in addition purchase and consumption of food. Six such to Czepczyński’s (2008) categorisation, other complexes were planned, each serving an former socialist spaces may now also be entire sector of the city. They were extensive classified as ‘loose spaces’ (Franck and Stevens structures, built to a standardised design and 2006), abandoned and neglected or used in characterised by a large glass dome on the top alternative ways, or as ‘liminal’ spaces (Shields of the building. At a time when Bucharesters

HUMAN GEOGRAPHIES – Journal of Studies and Research in Human Geography, (2010) 4.1, 5-16 7 DUNCAN LIGHT, CRAIG YOUNG faced severe food shortages these structures plunder, they also offered shelter to quickly became the object of mockery and Bucharest’s increasing numbers of homeless were sardonically nicknamed “Circuses of people. They were, after all, large, solid hunger” (Circurile foamei). structures that provided ample shelter. They Only two of these structures were became play spaces for children. They were complete by the time of Ceauşescu’s also claimed by the city’s rapidly-growing overthrow in 1989. The rest were partially population of stray dogs. The abandoned finished. They comprised a three or four ‘circuses of hunger’ turned into dangerous, storey concrete frame, with completed interior marginal places that most Bucharesters floors and partial roofing. The metal frames avoided or passed by without a second for the crowning domes were also complete. thought (Photo 1). However, in 1990 building work stopped These structures were to remain in this abruptly. These buildings were associated with state for many years. However, as a market a collectivised social agenda that was now economy established itself they came to be repudiated. There was no future prospect of reappraised for their real estate value. They the buildings being used for the purpose for were large, solid buildings, usually surrounded which they were originally designed and by large areas of open space and so were neither the new government nor the city ideally suited to a range of possible new uses. authorities had any desire to resume building In 1999 one of these structures at Vitan in work. The buildings remained in state was converted into Bucharest’s first ownership but the state had no further use for shopping mall. The city needed new retail them. Hence they were abandoned in a half- spaces and the half-finished structure was completed state. These were not industrial ideally suited for conversion into a large retail ruins comparable to those created by complex. It was also an appropriate way of successive cycles of capitalist industrialisation changing the meaning of the building: a and deindustrialisation (Edensor 2003). former ‘factory’ of regularised and Instead, they were remnants of a now- collectivised food retailing was turned into a discredited political order, frozen at the stage temple of individualised consumption. As of construction reached at the time of Nicolae Verdery (1999: 40) notes “Another form of Ceaușescu’s overthrow. They were stranded in resignifying space comes from changes in an indeterminate, liminal state, suspended property ownership, which may require between past and future, between socialism adding...markers to differentiate landscapes and capitalism and between use and rejection that socialism had homogenised.” This model (cf Edensor 2005). For Bucharesters they were was followed elsewhere in Bucharest. A similar unwanted symbols, physical reminders of a structure in in was period of austerity and deprivation that also converted into a mall (Plaza Romania) everyone wanted to forget. They were left- which opened in 2004. Another, in in over spaces, landscapes created by state , survived in an overgrown and socialism which had no place in post-socialist derelict state for 16 years after the overthrow Romania. of Ceauşescu until it was demolished to make Once they were abandoned these way for a new mall (Liberty Center Mall). structures were quickly robbed of anything of These left-over socialist spaces have now been value. They were then left open to the fully claimed by capitalism: the former elements and began slowly to deteriorate. ‘circuses of hunger’ have disappeared from the They were also quickly reclaimed by landscape of Bucharest. However, while they vegetation, which progressively shielded the no longer exist in material form they persist in lower levels from public view. However, popular memory among the generation of although abandoned, this did not mean that Bucharesters who lived alongside these they were without use (see Edensor 2003). structures and despised them for that political Along with offering possibilities for theft and order that they represented.

8 HUMAN GEOGRAPHIES – Journal of Studies and Research in Human Geography, (2010) 4.1, 5-16 RECONFIGURING SOCIALIST URBAN LANDSCAPES

Photo 1: The abandoned ‘circul foamei’ at Rahova (sector 5) in September 2006. It was demolished shortly after this picture was taken

Case Study 2: the The new landscape of the Centrul Civic was distinctively totalitarian and utterly Bucharest’s Centrul Civic (Civic Centre) is one unlike the historic architecture that it of the starkest and most notorious replaced. It central axis was Bulevardul illustrations of the relationship between Victoria Socialismului (Victory of Socialism landscape and totalitarian power. The Centrul Boulevard), an avenue 120m wide and 3.5km in Civic has its origins in a state visit made by length that was intentionally longer and wider Nicolae Ceauşescu to China and North Korea than the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in . in 1971. The landscape of Pyongyang – in The Western end of the boulevard ended in a particular its monumental buildings, large large semicircular open space (said to be large enough for half a million people to gather) ceremonial squares and boulevards - made a above which stood, on a low hill, a huge deep impression on Ceauşescu who returned monumental building – Casa Republicii to Romania intent on remodelling Bucharest (House of the Republic), the defining in a similar manner. In 1977 an earthquake in materialisation of Ceauşescu’s cult of Bucharest caused considerable damage and personality (Oţoiu 2009) and practice of this gave Ceauşescu the opportunity to governance (O’Neill 2009). At the opposite ‘modernise’ and systematise the landscape of end of the boulevard was a similarly large the city centre. In order to build a new open space (Piaţa Alba Iulia), while socialist Civic Centre it was necessary to approximately mid-way along the boulevard eradicate the previous symbolic order (Salecl was a large square (Piaţa Unirii) around which 1999) and destroy what was already standing a massive shopping complex was built. The th (largely an area of 19 century housing, which section of the boulevard between this square also included a range of other historic and Casa Republicii was lined by large 10 buildings including churches and storey apartment buildings, intended to house monasteries). In total an area of five square the Party and state elite. Between Piaţa Unirii kilometres was razed, necessitating the and Piaţa Alba Iulia various monumental forcible relocation of 40,000 people buildings were planned including a national (Cavalcanti 1992, 1997; O’Neill 2009). library and a vast cultural centre (Cântarea

HUMAN GEOGRAPHIES – Journal of Studies and Research in Human Geography, (2010) 4.1, 5-16 9 DUNCAN LIGHT, CRAIG YOUNG

României). There were many other huge but not fully usable, yet were too large to be structures scattered around the margins of the demolished. They had been intended for Centrul Civic, including a House of Science different functions but were now obsolete. In and Technology, a ‘Radio House’ and a this indeterminate state the various building building intended as a hotel. The Centru Civic sites were again plundered for anything of also included buildings intended to be value (see Ionescu 1990). For Romanians this government ministries, embassies and was both a way of protesting against the apartments (Cavalcanti 1992, 1994). project and receiving some sort of repayment Most of the Centrul Civic project was for the hardships they had suffered under unrealised at the time of Ceauşescu’s Ceauşescu. Once abandoned the various overthrow. The central boulevard was buildings, like the Circuses of Hunger, were complete and the apartment buildings at the utilised by the homeless and stray dogs and western end were almost finished. However, slowly reclaimed by vegetation. most of the remaining buildings were still It was not until the mid 1990s that the under construction. Some were substantially new regime turned its attention to completed externally, while others had reconfiguring the landscape of the Centrul progressed little beyond foundations. Casa Civic. Initial attention was focused on Casa Republicii was about 70%-80% complete Republicii. Demolition of such a structure was (Amariei 2003). The 1989 Revolution brought impossible so the government was faced with an immediate halt to construction work and trying to re-use the building. Various Ceaușescu’s vision for remaking Bucharest was alternative uses were suggested, including a widely denounced (Leach 1999). For casino, a museum of totalitarianism, a theme Bucharesters it was a reminder of a park and a shopping mall (Ioan 1999). totalitarian past that they wanted to forget, However, the government eventually decided while for those whose homes had been that the building would become the home for destroyed by construction work the project Romania’s post-socialist parliament and was associated with personal trauma. resumed building work. The building was Romania’s post-socialist political leaders had formally renamed Palatul Parlamentului (the other priorities, particularly consolidating Parliament Palace) and the lower chamber of their hold on power and preparing for the Romanian parliament moved into the elections and economic reforms to introduce a building in 1996. Since the building had market economy. The Centrul Civic was so swiftly become Bucharest’s biggest tourist large a problem that there was no obvious attraction a part of it was opened to visitors answer to the question about its future. None (Light 2001). of the possible options – removal, renaming, At a later stage attention turned to the rededication or reuse (Czepczyński 2008) – abandoned landscape of the rest of the Centrul could immediately be implemented. The Civic. In 1996 an international architectural easiest course of action was therefore to do competition – ‘Bucharest 2000’ – sought nothing. proposals for the reconfiguring of the entire Thus the various construction sites were area around the central boulevard. This was abandoned and the whole landscape of the an attempt to address the unfinished Centrul Civic was ‘frozen’ in an ‘in-between’, landscape of the Civic Centre as well as liminal state. This was most apparent in the opening Romania to international currents in numerous tower cranes which simply stopped architecture and urban planning after years of moving after 1989 (România liberă 7 isolation (Barris 2001). The winning proposal September 2002). Like the ‘circuses of hunger’ by a team of German architects proposed to this was another unfinished and ‘left-over’ negate the symbolic impact of Palatul landscape of socialism. It had been conceived Parlamentului through the construction of in an entirely different political context. Yet, tower blocks around it. It also proposed to there was no consensus regarding what to do break up the central axis of the boulevard by with the ensemble in the post-socialist era. creating a lake in the central square. This The various structures were half-completed project would have enabled Romania to

10 HUMAN GEOGRAPHIES – Journal of Studies and Research in Human Geography, (2010) 4.1, 5-16 RECONFIGURING SOCIALIST URBAN LANDSCAPES demonstrate its allegiance to international barely changed in appearance. They include architectural styles as well as creating a new the principal boulevard, with the monumental business space for the rapidly growing market Palatul Parlamentului situated at one end. economy. It was a form of “symbolic re- Similarly, many of the huge buildings – such appropriation” (Leach 2002) that reworked the as the unfinished National Library and the totalitarian landscape created by Ceauşescu to House of Science – have changed little since create a new space orientated around the 1989. At the site of Cântarea României almost workings of a post-socialist capitalist nothing has changed since 1989 except that economy. the tower cranes have been removed and the However, like many other proposals in site has been reclaimed by vegetation – this is post-socialist Romania, Bucharest 2000 came a truly left-over space, abandoned at the end to nothing. The project would have required of the socialist era (Photo 2). On the other around US$18 billion of investment (Ioan hand some parts of the complex, particularly 2006). Faced with numerous other demands around Piaţa Unirii and Piaţa Alba Iulia on its budgets the state was unable to spare demonstrate how a totalitarian landscape has such resources. Similarly, there was little been reclaimed by private sector investment prospect of the private sector providing such to create a distinctively modern and capitalist investment. As a result the Bucharest 2000 townscape. The Centrul Civic complex project was quietly abandoned after a change demonstrates the difficulty in reconfiguring of government in late 2000. However, there the vast landscapes created by state socialism. was no attempt to put anything in its place. Individual buildings have been completed Once again, the task of remaking the with state funds and the private sector has landscape of the Centrul Civic had proved claimed the buildings that are of use to it. beyond the central and local state. However, However, the state and local authorities have parts of this area were transformed by private lacked both the funds and the vision to capital. The eastern end of the main produce a coordinated plan to remake this boulevard developed as an informal banking landscape. At a time when post-socialist and finance district, largely due to the regimes have numerous other priorities some relatively plentiful office space. The central landscapes inherited from socialism are simply square (Piaţa Unirii) emerged as a key too large for the state to tackle. Hence, these retailing centre while the apartments around socialist spaces persist for much longer than the area soon became the most expensive real might be expected. estate in Bucharest. One huge building behind Palatul Parlamentului was purchased by Marriott and turned into a hotel which Case Study 3: The Communist opened in November 2000. A further proposal Mausoleum, for a massive development on the Cântarea României site was launched in 2004. Named After taking political control of Romania at ‘Esplanada’, it proposed to create a mixed the end of December 1947 the Romanian development of offices, hotels, and retailing Communist Party acted swiftly to consolidate space as well as two iconic towers (Adevărul 22 its rule. As one means of legitimating and March 2004). This is to be a public-private partnership and once again it seeks to institutionalising the new political order the reconfigure the ‘left-over’ space of the socialist Party was eager to celebrate its own history Centrul Civic by creating an iconic urban and heroes. Thus in 1948 a museum dedicated landscape made in the image of global to the history of the Romanian Communist capitalism. However, as of Spring 2009 Party was opened in Bucharest (Berindei and building work was yet to commence. Bonifaciu 1980). A decade later the leadership Twenty years after the fall of Ceauşescu took the decision to build a huge mausoleum the landscape of the Civic Centre is a curious in Bucharest dedicated to the memory of the hybrid. Some features clearly testify to the activists who had struggled to bring the totalitarian origins of this project and have socialist state into being.

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Photo 2: The unfinished foundations for the Cântarea României building on (September 2008)

The location chosen was Parcul Libertăţii new memorial complex necessitated the (Freedom Park) in the south of Bucharest. The dismantling of the tomb in 1958 and its topography of the park was ideally suited for removal to a new location at Mărăşeşti this purpose, since the elevated plateau at its (Stoenescu 1997). It its place arose a striking southern end allowed the construction of a new landscape. Its central feature was a monument that would dominate the park but mausoleum intended for the top leadership of also be visible from throughout the city. This the Party. Entitled Monumentul eroilor luptei was also a way of reconfiguring the meanings pentru libertatea poporului si a patriei, pentru of a public space that was closely associated socialism (Monument to the heroes of the with the pre-communist regime. Until 1948 struggle for the freedom of the people and of this park had been named Parcul Carol I the motherland, for socialism) it featured a (Carol I Park) after Romania’s first monarch. central rotunda, with space inside for 14 It was also the site that in 1906 had hosted the coffins. Above the rotunda five semicircular Expoziţia Generală Română (Romanian arches, faced with red granite, rose to a height General Exposition), a grand and extravagant of 48m (Photo 3). Surrounding the celebration of nation, commerce and industry mausoleum was a semicircle of graves, each (Teodorescu 2007). The construction of a large faced with a black marble slab. These were monument in the park was a way of erasing intended for Party activists and politicians. the symbolic and material legacy of the earlier This, in turn, was surrounded by a single-story political order and stamping a distinctly hemicycle intended for the deposition of socialist set of values onto this landscape. burial urns of party activists. The whole However, Parcul Libertăţii was already complex was set in a ceremonial plaza and was established as a place of collective memory. the focal point of a broad ceremonial axis The high plateau of the park had, since 1923, running the length of the park. The hosted Romania’s Tomb of the Unknown construction of the memorial complex radically Soldier. Therefore, the construction of the transformed the landscape of the park.

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memorial regularly hosted ceremonies on the anniversaries of the deaths of the people interred there. Access to the memorial was not restricted but the presence of a permanent guard at the mausoleum deterred many people from venturing close. This was now a ‘Party space’, a material and symbolic statement of the constant presence of the Party that the users of the park would have been unable to ignore. The status of the monument changed dramatically after the 1989 Revolution. The Romanian Communist Party was discredited and was declared illegal on 12 January 1990, and its former leaders and activists were disavowed. The monument was suddenly redundant. Moreover, as a place intended to honour and commemorate the activists of Romanian socialism the monument embodied narratives of remembrance that were starkly at odds with Romania’s new political orientation. However, short of demolishing the structure there was little that could be Photo 3: The communist mausoleum in done with the site. Consequently, in common Parcul Carol I (May 2004) with the other case studies considered in this paper, the response of the post-socialist The mausoleum complex was administration was initially to do nothing. At inaugurated with great ceremony on 30 some stage in the early 1990s (Pipiddi (2000) December 1963, to coincide with the 14th states that it was in 1992) the bodies of Groza, anniversary of the proclamation of the Gheorghiu-Dej and Parhon were removed Romanian Peoples’ Republic. To mark the from the rotunda of the mausoleum and occasion the coffin of Dr reburied in cemeteries elsewhere in the (Romania’s first Communist Prime Minister country. However, this appears to have been who had died in 1958) was moved from a less a deliberate attempt to reconfigure the cemetery elsewhere in Bucharest and interred meaning of the mausoleum and more a within the mausoleum. Similarly, the coffins deference to the traditions of the Romanian of two early socialist activists (Ion Frimu and Orthodox Church which considers that a Ştefan Gheorghiu) were reburied in the graves ‘proper’ burial is below ground in a cemetery. surrounding the central mausoleum (Scînteia However, the graves surrounding the central 31 December 1963). The Party now had a rotunda were undisturbed and their black dedicated space to honour the memory of its marble headstones remained in place. Little own activists and the memorial was else changed at the site (although the park periodically ‘activated’ following the death of itself returned to its original name of Parcul senior Party figures. The coffin of Gheorghe Carol I in 1993) and the mausoleum survived Gheorghiu-Dej (General Secretary of the as an impressive piece of socialist architecture Romanian Workers’ Party between 1944 and that was now without any obvious use or 1965) was interred in the central mausoleum function in the post-socialist era. It was in 1965 and was later followed by that of another ‘left-over’ space of socialism. Constantin I. Parhon (titular head of state The first serious proposal regarding between 1948 and 1952) in 1969. Other party reconfiguring the mausoleum space did not activists and senior leaders were buried in the appear until 2004. Unusually this came not graves surrounding the mausoleum. The from the state but from the Romanian

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Orthodox Church. Rather than attempt to In 2006 the Romanian Ministry of reconfigure the monument so as to change its Culture issued proposals to comprehensively meaning the Church proposed to demolish it reconfigure the Carol Park memorial. The altogether. This proposal had its origins in the plans involved retaining the physical long-standing plans of the Church to build a structures at the site but giving the entire Cathedral of National Salvation (Catedrală complex a new meaning by turning it into a Mântuirii Neamului) in Bucharest (Stan and monument dedicated to the ‘Heroes of the Turcescu 2006). The elevated site in Carol Nation’ (Memorialul Eroilor Neamului). The Park that the mausoleum occupied was seen first stage involved reinstating the Tomb of as an ideal location for such a cathedral. the Unknown Soldier in approximately its Moreover, demolishing the mausoleum and original (1923) location (in 1991 the Tomb had replacing it with a church would have been a been returned to Carol Park but was placed in way of symbolically reconfiguring the site a different location on the principal avenue of through erasing the material legacy of the park that leads to the mausoleum). socialism and erecting a structure that Subsequently, between 2006 and 2008 the asserted the resurgence of Christian values in coffins of the activists and politicians buried in Romania. the graves around the central mausoleum However, although the government were removed and reburied in cemeteries transferred the land on which the mausoleum elsewhere in Romania. The final stage will stood to the Church, the cathedral project did involve the conversion of both the hemicycle not proceed. Civil Society leaders organised a and central rotunda into a museum presenting protest against the Cathedral arguing that it the history of the activities of the Romanian would destroy one of the few remaining pieces army in the 1877 War of Independence and the of green space in Bucharest. Moreover, 14 First and Second World Wars. This project years after the end of state socialism attitudes will transform the complex from a site towards socialist architecture had softened so dedicated exclusively to the Romanian that there were many calls to preserve the Communist Party to a place of collective mausoleum for its architectural merits. memory for the whole nation. Moreover, from Others argued that a society could achieve being dedicated to the elite of the Party and little in dealing with an unpleasant past by the socialist State, the memorial will now simply demolishing a monument associated commemorate the ordinary soldiers who with that period. Instead, there were calls to fought and died for Romania. This innovative reuse or reconfigure the monument in some strategy of rededication and reuse way, perhaps turning it into a memorial for (Czepczyński 2008) illustrates how the the victims of communism (ibid). The strength physical structures of socialism can be of opposition was such that the proposal to retained but inscribed with entirely new build the cathedral in Parcul Carol I was meanings that are appropriate for a post- eventually abandoned with a new location for socialist country. the cathedral being offered behind Palatul In common with the other two case Parlamentului (the Parliament Palace). studies considered in this paper, the Carol However, what is significant about this event Park mausoleum illustrates how the process of is that it demonstrates that the left-over remaking space after a revolutionary change landscapes and monuments of socialism are in political order can be a longer term process. not always the focus of public distain. Indeed, It took the socialist regime 10 years to set in this case there was considerable popular about comprehensively remodelling Carol support for the preservation of the mausoleum Park so that the landscape accorded with the by those prepared to acknowledge its new ideology. However, two decades after the architectural and aesthetic value, and in the revolution which overthrew Nicolae post-socialist period there is more scope for Ceaușescu very little has changed at the the contestation of the projection of the values memorial complex in the park. The and desires of political elites into the monument still looks substantially as it did landscape. during the socialist era and it persists as a

14 HUMAN GEOGRAPHIES – Journal of Studies and Research in Human Geography, (2010) 4.1, 5-16 RECONFIGURING SOCIALIST URBAN LANDSCAPES socialist landscape in a post-socialist city. protracted and contested. And it should be Moreover, the monument is still widely added that here we have mainly considered known as the “communist mausoleum” by the the material component of these persistent people of Bucharest. This demonstrates the socialist urban landscapes. Research should persistence of socialist spaces, both as physical also consider memories of socialist spaces and entities in the landscape and also in the how everyday practices are influenced by popular memory of Bucharesters. personal relationships to place, such as the continued use of socialist street names which have been changed. Overall we would call for Conclusion a more nuanced approach to the reconfiguration of post-socialist urban space In this paper we have analysed the which focuses on specific cities in different reconfiguration of post-socialist urban space contexts and considers the full diversity of in Bucharest. Our purpose has been to trace change – or lack of it – in socialist urban changes in the urban cultural landscape landscapes. associated with post-socialist transformation. However, in our analysis we have also sought to explore the extent to which regime change brings about a complete reconfiguration of Bibliography space. We do not deny that in many post- socialist cities there have been extensive Amariei, R 2003, The spirit of Ceausescu, reshapings of the urban landscapes of 'Transitions Online', 10 October 2003. socialism in order to create a new space, a new Downloaded from www.tol.cz on 25 May 2005. landscape appropriate for a post-socialist Barris, R 2001, Contested mythologies: The political order. However, we wish to bring a architectural deconstruction of a totalitarian more nuanced understanding to the literature culture, Journal of Architectural Education, 54 on the reconfiguration of post-socialist urban (4), pp 229-237. space by considering the different trajectories Berindei, D, Bonifaciu, S 1980, Bucureşti: Ghid Turistic, Editura Sport Turism, Bucureşti of elements of the urban landscape which Cavalcanti, M 1992, ‘Totalitarian states and their persist from the socialist era, rather than just influence on city-form: the case of Bucharest’, focusing on those that were removed. Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 9 In the case of the built environment of (4), pp 275-286. Bucharest a series of ‘left-over’ socialist spaces Cavalcanti, M 1994, ‘Ceausescu’s Bucharest’, have been identified which persisted for Planning History 16 (4), pp 18-24. significant periods of time in the urban Cavalcanti, M 1997, ‘Urban reconstruction and landscape after 1989 before they were altered. autocratic regimes: Ceauşescu’s Bucharest in its These spaces subsequently underwent a historic context’, Planning Perspectives, 12, pp 71- variety of changes, including Czepczyński’s 109. (2008) processes of removal, renaming, Crowley, D, Reid, S E 2002, Socialist Spaces. Sites rededication or reuse. However, we also of everyday life in the , Berg, Oxford. identified spaces which had a life as ‘loose’ or Czepczyński, M 2008, Cultural Landscapes of Post- Socialist Cities, Ashgate, Aldershot. ‘liminal’ spaces, or which were simply Dawson, A H 1999, ‘From glittering icon to…’, abandoned and marginalised, and which Geographical Journal, 165, pp 154-60. persist in the urban cultural landscape of Edensor, T 2003, Industrial Ruins: Spaces, Bucharest today. Such left-over landscapes are Aesthetics and Materiality, Berg, Oxford. more common than often supposed. Edensor, T 2005, ‘The ghosts of industrial ruins: Remaking space is not quick and ordering and disordering memory in excessive straightforward. After a few dramatic, space’, Environment and Planning D: Society and rhetorical, proclamative changes which are Space, 25, pp 829-849. relatively easy to achieve (such as pulling Franck, K A, Stevens, Q 2007, Loose space: down statues or renaming streets) the process Possibility and diversity in urban life, Routledge, of creating a new space or landscape is London.

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