As the capital of Romania, Bucharest can be also considered the primary source of the country’s modern architecture, beginning in the second half of the 19th century and continuing throughout the 20th century. Like other major European capitals, the search to define an emblematic national character for Bucharest’s architecture developed in relationship to historical precedents as well as the contemporary milieu. The 19th century represented a period of major change for Bucharest in both political and cultural realms. The first half of the century encouraged Western European values of culture and civilization, thus announcing a massive import of several architectural currents—mainly neoclassicism and Romanticism—that progressively changed the Oriental aspect of the city. In 1859, as the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia unified, Bucharest became the capital of the new state of Romania and, in 1878, after the country won its independence from the Ottoman Empire, the capital of the...