Enchanting Views: Romanian Black Sea Architecture of the 1960s-70s

A 2014 exhibition at Bucharest's Sala Dalles, curated by Kaliopi Dimou, Sorin Istudor, and Alina Șerban, examined the modernist seaside architecture of Romania's Black Sea coast from the 1960s and 1970s. The show, part of a larger project including a 2015 book edited by Alina Șerban, focused on the visual culture of socialist tourism. It highlighted how architects like Cezar Lăzărescu used Western modernist principles—transparent facades, roof terraces, and framing of nature—to create resorts such as Eforie Nord, Mamaia, and Olimp. Despite a lack of archival documents, the curators used period photographs, films, postcards, and models to convey the architecture's utopian and escapist dimensions. The resorts served as a stage for a 'Potemkin-like reality' where East met West, offering affordable leisure to Romanian workers. International praise came from publications like Architectural Forum, which noted the 'startling sophistication' of the Perla Mării restaurant. The exhibition argued that this architecture was both a tool of communist propaganda and a genuine modernist achievement, anticipating societal transformations.