Why was the Great Theater, a symbol of Bucharest, demolished. Although the imposing building on Calea Victoriei was bombed, it could be saved
Until 1947, Bucharest had a magnificent space dedicated to art. Today, only a copy of the neoclassical portico from the old National Theatre, today the entrance to the Novotel Hotel, reminds of this vanished emblematic place of the city.
It was a building that “could stand next to the most beautiful theater in Vienna”, as foreign travelers appreciated.
Built after endless delays and obstacles and with great financial efforts, the National Theater was inaugurated with a performance for the benefit of the poor, on December 31, 1852, on New Year's Day.
For the first time in history, the people of Bucharest had a national theater, with plays spoken or written in Romanian, a heritage building designed in an eclectic style with neoclassical influences, inspired by the architecture of the Viennese imperial theaters.
The Great Theater represented the first building in Bucharest designed as a modern cultural space and marked the transition of the eastern city to a Capital that dreamed of the West.
Read, on B365.ro, why the communists put him to death.
