#alba iulia

[scavengedluxury]

Apor Palace, Alba Iulia, 1986. From the Budapest Municipal Photography Company archive.

[sozeugs]

Die katholische Kathedrale von Alba Iulia, Rumänien.

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Jahrbuch_MZK_Band_03_-_Kirchliche_Baukunst_in_Siebenb%C3%BCrgen_-_Dom_von_Karlsburg

[cgcosmo]

Monument of Horea, Cloșca and Crișan. Alba Iulia, Romania.

[nobeerreviews]

Don't forget - no one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories that you have to tell.

-- Charles de Lint

[septentrrional]

[mostly-history]

A 7,600-ton apartment building is moved to create a boulevard as part of Ceaușescu's program of Sistematizarea (Systemization) in Alba Iulia (Romania, May 27th, 1987).

Nicolae Ceaușescu visited North Korea in 1971, where he was impressed by the ideological mobilization and mass adulation in the Juche philosophy of total self-reliance, as well as Kim Il-sung's cult of personality.  In 1974, the program of Sistematizarea began. Demolition and reconstruction were carried out in existing cities, towns and villages, in whole or in part.  The goal was to turn Romania into a “multilaterally developed socialist society”.

In Alba Iulia, the Transylvania Boulevard was to be widened, but an apartment building was in the way.  It was cheaper to reposition the structure than to demolish and rebuild it from scratch.

The civil engineer Eugeniu Iordăchescu was the mastermind behind the project.  Iordăchescu saved dozens of buildings, including churches and monasteries, from demolition in Romania.

The apartment building was split in half, and one half was moved to the other side of the boulevard.  Workers dug under the building, inserted railways and wheels underneath it, and moved it 55m away, taking 5 hours and 40 minutes for the whole operation.  The two halves were moved apart on a 33° inclined angle.

Incredibly, this was done without disconnecting the building from any utilities.  Urban legend says that dozens of residents were able to go out on their balconies to watch their own home being moved while still in it, and that one housewife placed a glass of water on the edge of her balcony and it didn't spill even a drop.

The seventh and eighth photos show a network of hydraulic jacks being placed under the framework and controlled by a unified jacking system, in order to elevate the structure off its foundation.  The last photo shows the completed boulevard.

[officialromaniantranslatiuni]

[long-lost-day-dreams]