Gold for the nostalgic souls

Some twenty or twenty five years ago, together with other journalists, I pleaded for an extremely useful book… The book finally comes out now, due to an Architect, Dan Manea, who is, as I found out, one of the best known architects within Prahova Valley region, a man who restored many things there… Anyway, we are talking of an album, “Sinaia. The City of the Elites”, which pictures almost 130 villas, together with their history. The buildings are larger or smaller and belonged to famous historical personalities like George Enescu, Iorga, Take Ionescu, I. G. Duca, Kogălniceanu, Simu, Boierescu, Slătineanu, Oteteleşanu, Romanov, Bibescu, Lascăr Catargiu, Boliac, Carol Davila, Urechia, Argentoian, Parhon, Caragiale, Nicolae Grigorescu, Alexandri, Grigore Alexandrescu, Vlahuţă, Coşbuc, Eminescu, Cincinat Pavelescu, Sadoveanu, Noica.

Here is virtually everything! History, administration, architecture, entrepreneurship, the Casino, Enescu’s villa in Cumpatu, Iorga’s villa where the Legionaries took from…

Here is a surprise for you. What does the book written by Mr. Architect include? There is this map! Pure gold for nostalgic souls… We have the whole city map. I can picture myself and my wife walking on all streets, on Aosta, on Carol Boulevard, in order to decipher the locations of these villas and houses, and to talk about them further on. There is the map on the back and – here we go! – the huge poster on the front, with 127 houses pictured from a city which is the city of our youth, our adult age and our old age. A truly royal city!

Read below the transcript of the whole broadcast.

The transcript of the broadcast:

Some twenty of twenty five years have passed by since, together with other brothers’ journalists, I pleaded for the appearance of an extremely useful book. Some two or three years ago I could see Andrei Pippidi able to coordinate such a book, and even under sumptuous circumstances, because I felt it was unacceptable for us to walk through Sinaia and find all sorts of villas (without knowing whom they belonged to – our note). A city where the whole high-life had its own villa since Carol the First built Peles Castle. And, finally, due to a certain mister architect, Dan Manea, whom I found is one of the best known architects within Prahova Valley region, Mai mult →

The most comprehensive book on Sinaia since Gheorghe Nistorescu’s monography was launched on March 19^th at Casino Sinaia. “Sinaia, Oraşul Elitelor” is written with the soul by a declared lover of Sinaia. Carrying the aroma of old chronicles inside it, the book tells the extraordinary growth story of the city that would receive the important role of Romania’s summer capital. Readers are suggested a recourse to the values of the past; they are offered landmarks for a corresponding future. More than 1,000 old and new pictures, many of them showed for the first time, graphically crown the stories about people and remarkable events. Coming out after 20 long years of documentation research, the book lies on the border between a monography, a travel book and a photo album. “Sinaia-Oraşul Elitelor” is signed by Dan Manea, a connoisseur of this city history, a man who loves Sinaia, a mountain passionate and a pioneer for many of the actions taken in order to restore the true value of the buildings and historical monuments alongside Prahova Valley.

“This book is an invitation for anyone to travel through the halls of this huge open space museum called Sinaia: The Pearl of the Carpathians, the capital of Romanian tourism, the holiday resort with two Royal railway stations where the famous Orient Express stops, the Royal residence city or the summer Capital of Romania, as the city was called in time. One cannot see the true value unless he or she knows the motto that guided me in my wish to unveil for all those wanting to discover, beyond what anyone can see, what this city truly means and the unique way it enriches the universal patrimony,” Dan Manea says. Mai mult →