Brezoianu Street in Bucharest

Romanian capital city Bucharest's rich urban history

Eugen Nasta, 29.06.2024, 14:00

Brezoianu Street is one of Bucharest’s oldest and most important thoroughfares. It begins in the city’s historical center and cuts across Romanian capital city’s first boulevard, the Elisabeta Boulevard of today. It then runs near the Cismigiu Gardens Park and stretches parallel with Victoria Road. Also, it is one of the best-preserved streets, historically and architecturally.

The history of Brezoianu Street begins in the 17th century. The one who actually gave the street its name was boyar Pătrașcu Brezoianu, whom ruling price Constantin Brancoveanu endowed with a plot of land on today’s premises, in 1703.

The modernization of the area began in mid-19th century, at the same time when the swamp was drained, where the public garden or the Cismigiu Park was built later. Nevertheless, the name of the street’s founding father seems to have fallen into oblivion. His name was taken for the name of actor Iancu Brezeanu.

Art historian Oana Marinache explains:

“It is one of the most often encountered errors in the streets’ classified registry. In time, the memory of several personalities of that time overlapped, and this somehow erroneous resemblance was made possible. We’re first of all speaking about an actor, Ion (Iancu) Brezeanu and another personality of our culture, a schoolteacher, a reformer of the education system named Ion Brezoianu. And, to add another twist to the story, I should really like to reminisce the name of the real character, Pătrașcu Brezoianu, who, in the early 19th century, rebuilt the church bearing his name.

Therefore, if the two aforementioned characters, the actor and the reformer, did not necessarily have a house in the area, the one who should have really given the name of the street was boyar Pătrașcu Brezoianu. He was the one who rebuilt the place, a worship place that was quite close to the Palace Hall building of today.

The area’s being systematized and the bombing caused the loss of the church. Generally speaking, these old slums in the center of our city were formed on plots of land that were granted through an embatik ( a long-term lease), being formed nearby a worship place. What we know is that a wooden church used to be there, which, in the uncertain times of the 17th and 18th centuries, caused the loss of the worship place which was rebuilt in stone in 1710. The church lasted until about 1959, until the communist age, yet it went through the big tremor of the 1940 and the 1944 shelling, so it would not have been in a very good condition anyway.

Quite unlike the worship site around which the slum evolved, an appreciable number of the important heritage buildings survived to this day. One of them is the Post Office Customs Palace, actually lying on Lipscani street, right where Brezoianu street begins, a building designed by architect Statie Ciortan. Then there was the Universul Palace, the headquarters of the daily newspaper bearing the same name, designed by Paul Smărăndescu, it lies at the crossroads with another street which once used to be teeming with newspaper offices. These building and other buildings survived, although the infrastructure of the place has always raised problem.

Oana Marinache explains.

“Since it was quite a long street, running parallel with Mogosoaia Bridge or today’s Victoria Road, having great names of then the boyar families among its inhabitants, teeming with architecture monuments of the mid-19th century, the authorities were always keen on modernizing, on changing, paving, straightening.

It still has slight bumps and, in various ages, it started from Lipscani street in the old city center and of course stretched all the way down to the thoroughfares bearing the name of ruling price Stirbey Voda. A problem of the area related to the Cismigiu public gardens and the former swamp there had to do with the flooding, with the nasty stench, with the water discharged from the underground and with the overspills that happened there.

Also preserved were letters of that time, belonging to the grandees who lived there and among whom painter Tatarascu holds pride of place, painter Tatarascu’s house lying quite close to Brezoianu street. He also was a prominent voice of the community and took affirmative action all the time, asking the authorities to find a solution to level or straighten the slope of the street and also stop the floodings that brought a nasty stench with them, as well as diseases.

Today we do not have such problems. As for the traces of the past, they are well preserved on Brezoianu street which runs close to the National Military Circle, the Capsa Cafeteria and the former Royal Palace, today’s National Art Museum.