My project Traces of Fantasy is looking for present traces made by the ideological practices that underlay the development of the Romanian urban space during the communist era.
The state’s desire to transform the Romanian agrarian society into an industrial one, the depopulation of the villages and filling the new created cities with people, are the main instruments used by the government to concretize the utopian concept “The New Man.”
Architecture during the communist period becomes an instrument conditioned by the political discourse. The urbanization of the country had a very important role, because a community is much easier to control by the state if the people live in a city.
“The New Man” fantasy is based upon a projective model given that those who conceive it delineate it totally from the historical reality that they lived and which they considered damaged.
The belief that the equality between individuals must be primordial showed forth through the architectural equability. In this way were built the “bedroom neighborhoods.” The architecture became an instrument conditioned by political discourse.
— Dani Gherca, Bucharest, Romania
