Urbanities,
Vol. 3
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No 1
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May 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
Image 6: Romanian Palace in Cluj. Photocredit F. Ruegg
This is to me a strong argument in favour of interpreting palaces as a quest for a better
social status, a process that can be observed among all new money eéltes and that has nothing
to do with a Gypsy culture whatsoever.
Roma Palaces: A Sense of Misplacement?
Until recently, Roma/Gypsies were more or less invisible in the architectural urban landscape.
As I stated before, having no specific architecture, they tended to disappear in the periphery
of the cities or towns and villages, at least from the public conscience. They were visible only
as social actors passing through the city, as craftsmen, salesmen, beggars or musicians. They
would never dwell in the centre of cities and even less so in their historical sectors. This was
but a tacit law, enforced by the tradition and the fact that Gypsies would not have the means
to do so, nor would the authorities of the city, even in the Communist time, let them squat
these urban areas reserved for the élites. The construction of palaces and the acquisition of
important urban villas by Roma have to be linked with the advent of a free-market economy
and the lucrative deals that were done then by the former élite members of the Romanian
society who knew the rules and the ways.
As in other parts of Romania, the Roma of the Timisoara area are also building
palaces on the outskirts of the city, in so-called Gypsy districts or along the main road at the
exit of the towns. This is the case of the Palaces we have observed in Constanta (fig. 1)
Caransebes (fig. 2) or Soroca (fig. 3). This practice may be more or less tolerated or seen as
normal for a
Bulibashi
or a Gypsy King as it is the case in Buzescu, a village in the South
known as the ‘Home of the Roma Kings’ and already reported on by the National Geographic
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