On 17 April 2024, at a ceremony held in Anvers, the European Commission awarded the Romanian Athenaeum its European Heritage Label in recognition of the significant role it has played in the history and culture of Europe.
The Romanian Athenaeum, owned by the Romanian state and the home of the George Enescu Philharmonic, is a cultural and architectural treasure that combines beauty, history, and social engagement within a dynamic, constantly evolving process.
It is a symbol of national identity, inextricably linked to the consolidation and modernization of Romania as a state, a reference point for the arts and intellectual communities, and, above all, one of the cornerstones of the country’s European awareness.
The European Heritage Label, an initiative of the European Union, is a distinction that is bestowed, after a competition held once every two years, on natural and urban sites of importance, as well as on items of intangible heritage, in recognition of the vital part they have played in European history and culture and in the construction of what is now the European Union.
The European Heritage Label is aimed at bringing to public awareness, and to the awareness of young people in particular, fundamental European values and shared elements of history, culture, and heritage, which have contributed to the consolidation of feelings of belonging to the European Union and to intercultural dialogue.
The Romanian Athenaeum in the Interwar Period
A wide variety of sites are capable of embodying these values: historical monuments; natural, underwater, archaeological, industrial, and urban sites; cultural landscapes; commemorative sites; cultural goods and objects; and the intangible heritage associated with a place, including contemporary heritage, all of which share the vocation of placing the national history and culture of a country within a context of Europe-wide relevance.
The selection is made by a jury consisting of independent experts from all over Europe.
In 2024, seven sites of the sixteen pre-selected by Member States were officially awarded the European Heritage Label.
The winning sites are actively involved in co-operation at the European level, via projects such as European Heritage Days, European Heritage Stories, and European Cultural Itineraries.
As of 2024, sixty-seven sites around Europe have received the European Heritage Label, including three from Romania: the Romanian Athenaeum (Bucharest), the Palace of the European Danube Commission (Galati) and the Sighet Memorial.
The Romanian Athenaeum, 1940s
Situated at the heart of Bucharest, near the Royal Palace (now the Romanian National Museum of Art) and the Central University Library, outside which stands the equestrian statue of King Carol I, the first monarch of an independent Romania, the Romanian Athenaeum is a symbol of Romanian and European culture that came into being in the midst of the construction of modern Romania.
The foundation stone was laid on 26 October 1886, and the building was unveiled just sixteen months after building work commenced, on 14/26 February 1888, an event marked by the lecture given by Romanian writer and archaeologist Alexandru Odobescu: The Romanian Athenaeum and Circular Domed Buildings.
Construction was carried out in two phases, from 1886 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897, on the foundations already laid for a riding school, whence the building’s circular form, appropriate also for a lecture theatre and concert hall.
As the funds of the Romanian Athenaeum Society, headed by erudite intellectual and scientist Constantin Esarcu, were insufficient for the construction of the intended large-scale palace of culture, an ingenious solution was found: a nationwide lottery with the rhyming slogan ‘Dați un leu pentru Ateneu’ (Spare a leu for the Athenaeum).
Thanks to the large number of donations, the lottery was able to raise the necessary funds.
French architect Albert Galeron was invited to design the building, at the recommendation of the famous Charles Garnier, architect of the Paris Opera (1875). In partnership with Cassien Bernard, Galeron had previously designed the Romanian National Bank. Some Romanian architects also contributed to the architectural plans: Alexandru Odobescu, Al. Orăscu, Ion Mincu, Ion Socolescu, Grigore Cerkez, Cucu Starostescu.
The exterior of the building shows features adopted from ancient Greek and Roman monuments: the triangular fronton resting on Ionic columns.
The main façade of the Romanian Athenaeum in French architect Albert Galeron’s design
The main entrance is adorned with five mosaic medallions depicting Romanian rulers Alexander the Good, Neagoe Basarab, King Carol I, Vasile Lupu, and Matei Basarab. The interior combines the Neo-Classical style with features specific to the late-nineteenth-century French Belle Époque style.
The building is remarkable for its two large circular spaces, one on top of the other: the concert hall, with its large cupola, and beneath it, the foyer, with its central rotunda marked off by twelve Doric columns clad in pink stucco and its four flights of Carrara marble stairs, the work of sculptor Carol Storck. The layout of the foyer, which is beneath the auditorium rather than in front of it, as would normally be the case, was determined by a lack of space since the land where the park is laid out did not belong to the Romanian Athenaeum Society.
The ceremonial flight of stairs in the reception area has two curving ramps and is situated on the side opposite the main entrance. The interior is distinctive for its varied palette of colors and the exceptional quality of the décor, made from artificial marble produced by brothers Pietro and Giovanni Axerio, Italian master craftsmen who had settled in Romania.
The circular Grand Hall (Auditorium), the Athenaeum’s principal space, is thirty meters in diameter and has 794 seats in the stalls and boxes, arranged in an amphitheater. Along the frieze above the boxes unfolds the Grand Fresco of the Athenaeum, painted by Costin Petrescu and unveiled in 1939. The fresco depicts twenty-five scenes illustrating major events in the history of the Romanian people. Also in 1939, the concert organ built by the renowned Oscar Walcker was inaugurated, thanks to a fundraising campaign organized by George Enescu.
Sergiu Celibidache conducting the GEP Orchestra, Romanian Athenaeum, 1978
In 1889, the year the concert hall was completed, the Athenaeum became the official home of the orchestra of the Romanian Philharmonic Society, which had been founded previously, in 1868, and whose purpose was ‘to propagate the taste and culture of symphonic music and broaden the public appeal of the masterpieces of the classical composers.’ From 1907 onwards, major names in classical music from all over the world visited the Romanian Athenaeum as conductors or soloists, starting with Pietro Mascagni, followed by Siegfried Wagner and George Enescu, and then Arthur Rubinstein, Clara Haskil, Eugène Ysaÿe, and Carl Flesch.
Between the wars, Richard Strauss, Maurice Ravel, and Igor Stravinsky could be found conducting the symphony orchestra, and they were to be followed by Herbert von Karajan and Carl Böhm, George Georgescu, Ionel Perlea, George Enescu and Constantin Silvestri. The soloists who arrived as guests of the Romanian Athenaeum included Alfred Cortot, Dinu Lipatti, Pablo Casals, David Oistrach, Lev Oborin, Claudio Arrau, Karol Szymanowski, Wilhelm Kempff, Arthur Rubinstein, Rudolf Serkin, Jose Iturbi, and Béla Bartók. This constellation of major soloists expanded after the Second World War to include Yehudi Menuhin, Sviatoslav Richter, Valerii Klimov, Mstislav Rostropovich, Leonid Kogan, Josef Suk, Dmitri Bashkirov, Isaac Stern, and Radu Lupu, while the invited conductors included Carlo Zecchi, John Barbirolli, and Zubin Mehta
The Romanian Athenaeum during World War II
Major figures of Romanian culture gave lectures at the Romanian Athenaeum, names that have a Europe-wide echo: Ion Heliade Rădulescu, Bogdan Petriceicu Hașdeu, Mihail Kogălniceanu, Alexandru Odobescu, V. A. Urechia, Vasile Alecsandri, Ion Luca Caragiale, and Nicolae Iorga.
The tradition of the Athenaeum Lectures was revived in 2011, with international guest speakers including Nobel Prize winners (in Literature, Medicine, and Economics). The famous names who have given lectures here include Herta Muller, Adam Michnik, Dennis Deletant, Jean-Marie Lehn, Stefan Walter Hell, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Alain Finkielkraut, Vytautas Landsbergis, Thierry Wolton, Romanian Academician Nicolae Zamfir, Pascal Engel (director of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris) Jean-Marie Lehn (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry), historian Oliver Jens Schmitt, physician Martin S. Martin, physicist Cristian Presură, Jim Baggott, and Corneliu Bjola (Professor of Diplomatic Studies at the University of Oxford and director of the Oxford Digital Diplomacy Research Group).
The Athenaeum hosts the George Enescu International Festival and Competition, one of the most important in the world, which was founded in 1958 in recognition of Enescu’s genius.
Since 2022, the George Enescu Philharmonic has organized the Athenaeum Summer Festival, which aims to build bridges whereby to convey music to as wide a public as possible, bringing audiences closer to the George Enescu Philharmonic as an institution and to the building that is a symbol of Romania: the Romanian Athenaeum.
Trajan’s entry into Dacia. The Emperor is shown with his generals, next to the bridge over the Danube at Turnu Severin.
In 1901, forerunner Ștefan Popescu proposed to work on a three-hundred-square-metre canvas depicting the most significant events in Romania’s history as a nation. Lack of funds caused him to postpone completion of the project for many years.
After raising funds by public subscription, Costin Petrescu created a fresco depicting twenty-five significant episodes in the history of the Romanians. In 1933, he began work on the three-metre-wide-fresco, which was to cover a total of seventy-five square metres. The fresco was unveiled on 26 May 1938.
Presenting the country’s history as an open book, in which each viewer can find something of meaning and thereby meditate on the spiritual and moral values of the nation, the Athenaeum Fresco makes a decisive contribution to the symbolic character of the building.
