Palatul Telefoanelor
Encyclopedia
Calea Victoriei
Calea Victoriei is a major avenue in central Bucharest. It leads from Splaiul Independenţei to the north and then northwest up to Piaţa Victoriei, where Şoseaua Kiseleff continues north....
in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
. It serves as the headquarters of Romtelecom
Romtelecom
Romtelecom is the largest telecommunications company in Romania; the majority of shares are held by the Greek telecommunications company OTE . The Romanian state also has a minority stake of 45.99% in the company. The company had a monopoly for the provision of fixed telephony services until...
.
Bucharest
Palatul Telefoanelor in Bucharest is an art decoArt Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
style building. Until 1956, the 52.5 meter building was the tallest building in Bucharest.
The Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
that began with the Wall Street Crash of 1929
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
strongly impacted the Romanian economy. The Romanian government decided to take a loan from the American trust, Morgan, which obtained from this transaction the granting of a 20-year monopoly on Romanian telephony to the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation
ITT Corporation
ITT Corporation is a global diversified manufacturing company based in the United States. ITT participates in global markets including water and fluids management, defense and security, and motion and flow control...
(ITT), which then formed the Societatea Anonimă Română de Telefoane (SART, "Romanian Telephone Company, Ltd."). The aim was to modernize Romanian telephony and to construct the Telephone Palace.
Designed on behalf of SART by the Romanian architect of Dutch origin Edmond Van Saanen Algi
Edmond Van Saanen Algi
Edmond van Saanen Algi was a Dutch-born Romanian architect, painter, and stage designer.-Career:He was the author of major architectural works in Bucharest: the Academy of Economic Studies building , the Istrate Micescu villa overlooking Cişmigiu Gardens, and Palatul Telefoanelor Edmond van...
and built over the course of about 20 months in 1931–1933, it was the first major modernist building on Bucharest's Calea Victoriei
Calea Victoriei
Calea Victoriei is a major avenue in central Bucharest. It leads from Splaiul Independenţei to the north and then northwest up to Piaţa Victoriei, where Şoseaua Kiseleff continues north....
, 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…" It was constructed on the former site of the Otetelesanu Mansion, which had been, since the turn of the century, home to a terrace bar (Terasa Otetelesanu), a coffee house and a beer saloon, competing with Casa Capşa
Casa Capsa
Casa Capşa is a historic restaurant in Bucharest, Romania, first established in 1852. At various times it has also included a hotel; most recently, it reopened as a 61-room hotel 17 June 2003....
for the custom of Bucharest's elite from its location next to the old Romanian National Theatre.
Resita
' is a city in western Romania and the capital of Caraş-Severin County, in the Banat region. Its 2004 population was 83,985.- Etymology :The name of Reşiţa, might comes from the Latin recitia, meaning "cold spring", as the great historian Nicolae Iorga once suggested, presuming that the Romans...
. The building was inaugurated in 1934 in the presence of King Carol II
Carol II of Romania
Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...
. The building was extended (both vertically and horizontally) in 1940 and 1946, and survived earthquakes in 1940, 1977, 1986 and 1990 and bombing in 1944 by Allied Forces during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. With the advent of the Communist era
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
, 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. The 1989 Revolution
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
resulted in the establishment of the independent ROM-POST-TELECOM, reorganized as Romtelecom in July 1991.
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. Works included reconstruction to duplicate the original façade, as well as structural reinforcement. The reconstruction design was made by Romanian architecture office Proiect Bucuresti. The whole Project, which ultimately employed 700 people, was the largest architectural reconstruction project ever undertaken in Romania. It cost roughly €1 million, and lasted until 2005.