Ana Davila

Based on the same 1914 convention, the Municipal Comapny also started building the houses of  the third lotissement, designed on the land purchased from the Davila and Cuțarida heirs.

Approval chronology and lotissement history

In August 1914, the Municipal Company requested the Town Hall’s authorization for the lotissement near the Cotroceni Palace. This lotissement brought about the opening of two streets, parallel to the boulevard located in front of the Palace and perpendicular to Ana Davila Street: Dr. Stefan Capșa to the east and Dr. Zaharia Petrescu to the west. The lotissement was named after the second wife of Dr. Carol Davila, who, together with Iacob Felix, laid the foundations of the modern Romanian medical system. The Nomenclature Commission named the streets very swiftly, in March 1915, “given the repeated complaints that the streets in the Cotroceni neighborhood, opened in the lotissement of the Davilla heirs, approved by the Municipal Council, have no official name, which causes many inconveniences for the inhabitants, especially regarding the mail, the telephone and the telegraph ”. The second name under which the lotissement of Ana Davila can be found in the archives or literature of the 1920s is “Officers Park”. In August 1914 The Technical Commission of the City Hall approved the lotissement plan signed by Mohor and Ioachimescu, but requested the Company to widen the Ştefan Capșa street as a condition for approving the construction of houses, and also asked that the construction of houses on the plots from the boulevard would be delayed, “until a  final decision is taken with respects to the opening of this boulevard ”.

Construction

The Municipal Company built only one house in 1915 in the lotissement, a fact confirmed by the inscription of the year on its main façade, stopping the works in the summer of 1916. After the war, between 1922 and 1924, the Company continued the construction of buildings under the leadership of engineer N.I. Georgescu and of the architect Ion D. Trajanescu. As the second name and the convention of 1914 suggest, the houses were distributed to the officers. Ultimately, the Company resumed the works for the Ana Davila lotissement in 1923-for the Ministry of War, this time based on the plans signed by Ioan D. Trajanescu and N. I. Georgescu. In April 1923, the Municipal Council approved the construction of houses and the opening of a new street. It was followed by the approval of the Ministry of Interior Affairs and, subsequently, of the Superior Technical Council in June 1923. The lotissement plan, comprised of 24 plots, as well as the housing plans were signed by Ioan D. Trajanescu, including the eight houses already planned in 1915. The new type signed by Trajanescu continued, broadly, the neo-Romanian style proposed ever since 1910. The land was divided into 24 lots, but only 20 were built upon(in total 10,000 sqm) and four more were kept in reserve (2,500 sqm). Sfințescu mentioned that the new type signed by Trajanescu as “better developed, each house having two apartments on each floor (one was for rent), this being the model with two grouped houses […], i.e.: each apartment, having 4 rooms, a bathroom and service stairs, had a surface of about 98 sqm […].The model [with] each apartment occupying 125 sqm and one room in addition to the previous one was designed on the same principle. This model was executed for the Ministry of War in the officers district, on Ana Davila Street.” The model had a triple surface when compared to the average surface of the houses in other lotissements, such as the ones from Steaua.