Independenței

On the basis of the May 3, 1927 “Law for the encouragement of housing construction”, a Directorate of Construction was established within the Ministry of Labor one year later, to whom, through the May 22, 1928 Journal of the Council of Ministers an extraordinary fund for the construction of houses was made available. From this fund, the Board purchased from Florin Procop Dumitrescu a plot of land located between Independenței boulevard (today, Eroii Sanitari boulevard) and Sf. Elefterie Street, with an area of ​​24,000 square meters. On this field,

the Directorate of Constructions started mapping out the construction of an apartment building, in which they invested part of the aforementioned fund. Another consequence of the 1927 law took place three years later, when the Autonomous Construction Company (from 1933 onwards named The Construction Company) was established on the basis of a special normative act promulgated on May 30, 1930. The Company received the land from Independenței boulevard, as well as the extraordinary fund allocated in 1928. Since its first year of existence, the Construction Company has initiated the necessary steps to start the construction activity in the capital city. In this respect, on September 6, 1930, it concluded an agreement with the Società Imprese Italiane all Estero in Milan, specifying a work schedule for 300 homes in Bucharest. Of these, the Italian company only executed 75 and the rest of the funds were reallocated in 1931 to the construction of other buildings, deemed necessary by the ministry and which were to be built through the Construction Company. Fifteen of the 75 dwellings were built on land owned by various residents. All the houses built by the Company in this campaign were low cost dwellings, especially intended for civil servants. The other 60 homes were built on the land purchased by the Ministry of Labor in 1928 and today form the Independenței lotissement. Even if the intention to build the multi-family housing project was taken over by the Construction Company, its execution was postponed, and eventually abandoned. The land on which it had been mapped out was plotted in 1933 and planned for the construction of single-family homes. Through the new lotissement plan, four more plots were obtained, located at the intersection of the Eroii Sanitari with Eroilor boulevard (the western front). They have been sold to the beneficiaries since April 1933, but, most likely, the houses on these lots were not built by the Construction Company, but by the owners of the lots, on their own. A similar situation can be observed in the case of two plots from the initial allotment, as in the Independenței lotissement 62 lots were projected, but only 60 were built by the Company.

The houses from the Independenței lotissement were built from the working capital of about 20 million lei (received by the Company in 1930), to which another 5 million was added, in the form of a loan contracted from the Italian company. According to a 1944 report, the construction of the houses in the lotissement had been completed by 1931 and the public works were finalized in the following year. However, according to a report written by the inhabitants, it is shown that the Italian company failed to execute the works during the time stipulated into the contract. Moreover, the minutes of definitive reception were only signed by the beneficiaries for 53 of the dwellings by January 25, 1933, the others mentioning construction or furnishing irregularities. An Independenței lotissement plan contained in a file from 1938 (the plan is not, however, dated) indicates a different situation from the one that can now be observed on the ground, which suggests the existence of subsequent modifications of the project.

While having been initially projected with standardized housing units, these were modified at the request of the owners: “The plans of the types of houses that were presented to us were possible to accepted by us only with numerous modifications and additions”, about 1,300 modifications for all the houses built by the Construction Company through the Italian company. For example, the type “IV.a Regular”, used on 58-60 Elefterie street was executed on the same street at no. 62, on G-ral Dr. M. Butoianu street at no. 1 and 3, on Nanu Muscel street at no.10, on Eroilor boulevard at no. 6, 8, 12, 20 etc. The housing project on 10 Eroilor Boulevard was also used for the lot from no. 14 on the same street. In the case of the houses on 34, 36, 44, 64  Sf.Elefterie street single type of house (“IV Regular”) was used, as in the case of houses on 38-40  Sf. Elefterie Street and on 5 Nanu Muscel street  the “V.b Regular” type was used.