Well Designed and Built

Some more images from my recent trip in Romania. This time the subject is the landscape along the road from Oradea to Cluj-Napoca, in a beautiful sunny day. I know it’s too many pictures for a post, and you can find much better ones on Google streetview, but what can I do? These are my pictures and I like them all!  

The first images are taken driving out of Oradea, out of the Jugendstil city centre, through the socialist housing complexes of the suburb, some already refurbished, most of them still waiting.

Out in the industrial periphery, cities looks all the same: car dealers, outlets, building  sites, budget hotels, office buildings, logistic centres etc.

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Spare monuments from the socialist past and new capitalist developments in the background. Romania has gone its own way to sprawl and real estate blind speculation after the change. The economic crisis just stopped it, preventing the little Rumanian bubble to burst, but it hasn’t solved the situation at all.

Out of town the landscape becomes rural, single family houses in vernacular style stay aligned along the straight roads.  I remember them from a trip in the mid eighties, when the country was still under Nicolae Ceausescu. Nowadays more homes have been built along the street, in the second and third row. Some of the old ones are renewed, others not. Somehow I like them.

Cables, cables from one electricity pole to another. All these cables along the roads (this phenomenon is much more radical in the cities) are due to the success of cable TV. They do not have the permission or the time or the money to dig under the pavements, they sell subscriptions. Once you buy in very short time you get it at home. In Italy we had satellite dishes instead, another statement of individual freedom.

A stork nest on a concrete electricity pole. A flock of sheep. A gasoline station.

After the political change a lot of new churches were built all over the country. Orthodox, catholic, protestant… in every shape, colour and material. They stay very bold in the landscape as a landmark of revenge after many decades of oppression. Unlikely the results are mostly poor and the resources poured into these churches are not always for the benefit of the community.

This village features large villas with flamboyant roof, door, windows and balconies decorations in shiny metal cladding. Every home has bold round shapes in a naive castle style. At the beginning you think it must be a peculiar guy. But then you see it is a mass phenomenon! Amazing!   

The same housing blocks we left back in Oradea are in the suburbs of Cluj. To reach the airport we have to cross the whole city, right through the central square.  

The bigger city, the more cables are along the street.