Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 1
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May 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
Roma/Gypsies are not the only ones to show off through the possession of individual
monumental buildings. Instead of taking these ‘objects’ as expression of Gypsiness, as it is
done by many ethnographers, architects and the media, I argue that they must be placed in the
context of a larger claim for social recognition, by an élite which follows the old pattern of
new rich behaviour. This process can be observed elsewhere, in the United States as well as
in many newly rich countries, as for example Kazakhstan: the bigger the house one can afford
the more esteemed one will be. The use of eclectic architectural elements as well as the
references to world known historical monuments of architecture can be observed everywhere
in every revival monument. Nobility needs a remote origin to be recognized. ‘New rich
behaviour’ knows neither border nor time limit. It is on this common knowledge about newly
wealthy communities or families and my personal observations that I build my interpretation.
In this article, I have no pretension to propose more than a re-interpretation of the symbolism
of Gypsy Palaces, in a non-ethnic perspective. At this stage of my on-going research I am not
in a position to develop the comparison with new rich dwellings outside of Romania.
If informality is part of the stereotype afflicting Roma/Gypsies, housing is not the
most studied topic concerning them. The main reason is that in the social imagination of
researchers and journalists they are still nomads living in ‘informal shelters’, tents or
carriages; if sedentarized, they live in ‘miserable huts’ which do not even deserve the name of
houses (Ruegg 1991). It is not surprising either that the surveys and research about
Roma/Gypsies, particularly in Eastern Europe, are mostly devoted to topics related to their
poverty of which housing is only one aspect. Poverty goes well along with the ‘informal
economy’ they traditionally practise. Their poverty is attributed either to an adverse past
(Ruegg 2009a and 2009b), made of exclusion and serfdom, or to present discrimination.
These long-lasting stereotypes about Roma/Gypsies, which help to create their ethnic
identity, make it difficult to speak about rich Roma, as it is about those who quietly joined the
average middle class, sometimes called the invisible Roma (Ruegg and Boscoboinik 2009).
These Roma are either ridiculed for escaping their ‘true identity’, i.e. ethnic poverty, or
rejected by their communities as traitors to their ethnic group.
Moreover, it is no longer politically correct to declare that Roma/Gypsies are
responsible for their situation of poverty and discrimination, as it was the case for centuries,
when assimilation was the principal policy chosen to eradicate poverty and difference. This
policy was still applied in the 1970s in Switzerland towards the Yenish, a rather sedentarized
group of Gypsies, whose children were placed in foster families or institutions in view of
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