ARCHITECTURE AND POWER (1992) Grand Prize at the Architecture Film Festival FIFAL Bucharest-1994 International Housing and Planing Award Senday, Miyagi, Japan-1996 duration 52 min. documentary media DVD-Video NTSC order/buy from AMAZON.COM directed by Nicolae Margineanu audio English, German, French, Romanian features Chapter Search stock in stock

Benevolent dictators, malevolent dictators and their architects.

At the beginning of the 20th century, named Paris of the Balkans, the city of Bucharest, founded in 1459 by the legendary Vlad the Impaler is being transformed by force by powerful dictators.

King Carol II influenced the “look” of the city in the 1930s, when the architects of the day competed to satisfy the royal wishes. The result shaped the main avenues giving them a modern look.

After WWII, the communists ruled the country with an iron fist and used architecture to leave their indelible mark on the city. Ceausescu, the real Dracula of Romania, destroyed churches and historical buildings, entire neighborhoods, to build a gargantuan North-Korean inspired building (second largest in the world), the People’s House.

Outstanding camera work reveals the size of this building, much too large for the city below, a cinematographic reflection on the uneasy balance between architecture and power.