Marta Ramos and Atanas Damianov ask, if architecture could, as an image of certain culture be a proof of European identity... Von Marta Ramos, Atanas Damianov.
Marta Ramos and Atanas Damianov ask, if architecture could, as an image of certain culture be a proof of European identity... Von Marta Ramos, Atanas Damianov.
Since the "beginning of time" architecture is not only a "refuge", but also a representation of a civilization. Imagine that a Bulgarian boy meet a girl from the opposite part of Europe, for instance from Portugal, for instance in Vienna! During a walk through the city, they reach the Grand Parliament building of Vienna. Built in the end of nineteenth century It is a mix of Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Classic-Greek architecture. The fronton has eight columns and is well decorated with human sculptures. The front face of the building is organized in central semetry and different elements are put in clear rhythmic order. Suddenly the Bulgarian boy shouts: "Oh, the parliament look like a building in Sofia!" and the girl from Portugal answer: "Are you sure? Because, in Lisbon there is a theatre that looks similar like the parliament, too!"
So the Bulgarian starts to described "his" building in Sofia. It is the National Theatre. It is influenced - as many other buildings from the end of the nineteenth century - by Renaissance as in many Western European Countries. But the difference is that some of these countries have original renaissance architecture. We, in Bulgaria, don’t. The theatre has a fronton with four columns at the entrances. The faces and the interior are rich in decoration familiar to the Renaissance.
The Portuguese girl mentions that when the Vienna Parliament would be naked from its decoration and would have a smaller scale, it could be the "D. Maria II´s Theatre" in Lisbon. She remembers the statue above the fronton in the middle. It is a sculpture of the so called father of Portuguese theatre, the medieval dramaturge Gil Vicente. She remembers also the six ionic coloms, actually taken from a church destroyed in a Earthquake in 1968. This kind of natural phenomens happens very often in Lisbon. The Bulgarian and the Portuguese think: "What a funny thing! A parliament that looks like a theater! But why not? Is a parliament not actually a show?!"
The two visitors start a discussion. Why is the architecture in this three countries so similar?
The Ottoman occupation in Bulgaria stopped in nineteenth century, then the Bulgarian Renaissance started. Anyway, after the liberation, architects from Western Europe introduced the Neo-Renaissance to Bulgaria. Meanwhile, in Portugal, the gothic style stayed longer than in the other countries and Renaissance came later with the influence of Portuguese architects that studied in Italy. After all the Bulgarian boy and the girl from Portugal think: "What does all this mean to us?"
Different countries are closer to each other at least as they think. Can Europe be connected by such memories? Yes. This similarities make us different from the other continents and give us own european image.