Opened August 2005 Architect Alexandru Ghilduş | Created August 2005 | |
Address Piața Revoluției, București 030167, Romania Hours Open today · Open 24 hoursSaturdayOpen 24 hoursSundayOpen 24 hoursMondayOpen 24 hoursTuesdayOpen 24 hoursWednesdayOpen 24 hoursThursdayOpen 24 hoursFridayOpen 24 hours Similar Revolution Square - Bucharest, Kretzulescu Church, Statuia ecvestră a lui Carol I, Monument to the Heroes of, Bucharest Telephone Palace | ||
Bucharest memorial of rebirth
The Memorial of Rebirth (Memorialul Renaşterii in Romanian) is a memorial in Bucharest, Romania that commemorates the struggles and victims of the Romanian Revolution of 1989, which overthrew Communism. The memorial complex was inaugurated in August 2005 in Revolution Square, where Romania's Communist-era dictator, Nicolae Ceauşescu, was publicly overthrown in December 1989.
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The memorial, designed by Alexandru Ghilduş, features as its centrepiece a 25-metre-high marble pillar reaching up to the sky, upon which a metal "crown" is placed. The pillar is surrounded by a 600 m² plaza covered by marble and granite.
The memorial cost 5.6 million lei (RON 5.6 million, ROL 56 billion, approximately €1.5 million). Its initial name was "Eternal Glory to the Heroes and the Romanian Revolution of December 1989" (Glorie Eternă Eroilor şi Revoluţiei Române din Decembrie 1989). The memorial's name alludes to Romania's rebirth as a nation after the collapse of Communism.
Controversy
Despite a commonly acknowledged need for a memorial commemorating Romania's 1989 revolution, the monument sparked a significant amount of controversy when it was inaugurated in 2005, mainly to do with its design. Many artists stated that the memorial, especially its central pillar, was devoid of any symbolism, being too abstract, and thus didn't adequately represent the suffering and magnitude of the 1989 revolution, which claimed around 1,500 lives.
Others stated that they personally didn't like the aesthetics of the design; the mayor of Bucharest, Adriean Videanu, stated, "It's a question of taste. I personally don't like it. I don't understand its symbolism." There was also controversy because the designer, Ghilduş, was an applied artist, designing objects like chairs and lamps, rather than a sculptor.
The art critic Mihai Oroveanu said, "[Alexandru Ghilduş] doesn't have the qualifications to undertake such a work, since he is a designer, not a sculptor". The Memorial of Rebirth has been described as "a potato skewered on a stake", an "olive on a toothpick", "the potato of the revolution" and "the vector with the crown".
The placement of the memorial was also criticized and the Urbanism Committees of both the 3rd Sector and of Bucharest rejected the design, but their role is officially only as consultants and the memorial was erected anyway.
Vandalism
Owing to its relative unpopularity, the monument is guarded round-the-clock. Despite this, on the night of 12 May 2006, it was vandalized with a stencil graffiti figure representing the fictional revolutionary character "V" on the side facing the National Museum of Art.
In 2012 the monument was defaced a second time with a splash of bright red paint that was delivered just at the bottom of the monument's "potato" by an unknown person. This caused the monument to look as though it is bleeding. The paint is so inaccessibly high that it has remained in place since it was placed there.