Cristofi Cerchez

Cristofi Cerchez (4 July 1872 – 15 January 1955) was a Romanian engineer and architect. He built approximately 50 buildings in various cities of Romania over his nearly 50-year career. His architecture covers a wide range of styles from traditional to eclectic to modern, as well as private, civic and religious edifices. Among the buildings he worked on were the Bucharest Palace of Justice, the State Archives wing of the Mihai Vodă Monastery, the monastery of Vălenii de Munte, and the Nicolae Minovici Folk Art Museum.

Biography Cristofi Cerchez was born on 4 July 1872, in the village of Băneasa-Herăstrău in the outskirts of Bucharest, in a family of Armenian and Circassian descent.

The first known building designed by Cerchez is the "Stătescu Villa", built in Câmpulung and owned by the liberal politician Eugeniu Stătescu. "Stătescu Villa" was declared a historic monument and is included on the List of Historical Monuments in 2004 and 2010 as an architectural monument of local importance, with classification code LMI code AG-II-mB-13521.

Between 1900 and 1901, he was employed in the technical service of Constanța. Cerchez's "Minovici Villa" was built in a style influenced by Ion Mincu's traditional Romanian architecture, but it had sculptural elements reminiscent of Petre Antonescu's style, which soon became very popular with the aristocracy of Bucharest.

Legacy In 2012, the Art History Association printed two maps and led tours to some of Cerchez's buildings in an effort to bring awareness to his work. Art Conservation Support also published a book, Cristofi Cerchez, un vechiu arhitect din București, by Oana Marinache, an art historian, with photographs and notes on his architectural vision and contributions to Romanian architecture.