Vatra Luminoasa: Constructing a district, building a community (1933 - 1945)

Andrei Razvan Voinea

Andrei Razvan Voinea Ph. D Candidate at the University of Architecture and Planning "Ion Mincu", Bucharest. He holds a B. A. in History (Major) and English (Minor) and two M. A., offered by the University of Bucharest (British Cultural Studies M. A Program) and Central European University (Budapest)

Keywords: social housing, allotments, Casa Autonoma a Constructiilor, Vatra Luminoasa

Abstract

This article investigates the construction of the working class district "Vatra Luminoasa" in Bucharest between 1933 and 1945 using two complementary methods of analysis. On the one hand, the research in the haze of archives and magazines from the forties redeems the chronological chain of events that led to the construction of the dwellings and the institutional structures involved in this act. On the other hand, the social aspects of the everyday life in the district can't be researched only by the references to the files in the archive, but by adopting a different perspective which consists of oral interviews with the old lodgers of the neighborhood. The four interviews that I will refer, conducted starting 2012 on the streets of the district, on phone or in separate meetings with the lodgers recompose a social life framed by the constructed environment and determined by the urban and architectural composition. The article shows the process in which the lodgers appropriated their dwellings and their district and how the architect's and urban planners' plans determined the life in the district.