Petre Antonescu

Petre Antonescu (June 29, 1873 – April 22, 1965) was a Romanian architect. Over the course of a career that spanned the first half of the 20th century, he established himself as a leader in the field within his country, helping define a national style of neo-Romanian architecture.

Biography Born in Râmnicu Sărat, he completed high school in Bucharest and entered the law faculty of the University of Bucharest. While there, he became close to important artists who were then grappling with the problem of how to define a specific Romanian art. By 1893, his new passion led Antonescu to abandon law and head to Paris to study architecture. In 1899, he obtained a degree in the field from the École des Beaux-Arts. He obtained six medals while a student and drafted the plan for a Romanian pavilion at the 1900 Exposition Universelle.

In 1900, Antonescu was made honorific professor at Bucharest's School of Architecture, rising to full professor in 1903. He taught the history of architecture from 1900 to 1938, and was the school's rector from 1931 to 1938. According to a former student, he drew beautifully and spoke in short, clear, carefully chosen phrases. Antonescu was active in the realm of conserving and restoring historic monuments, participating in numerous projects during the interwar period. Together with Gheorghe Balș and Nicolae Ghica-Budești, he formed part of the historic monuments committee, helping create a scientific template for restorations. He was granted the State Prize in 1952 for rebuilding and expanding the , and in 1958 was awarded the Order of the Star of the Romanian People's Republic, first class. In 1927, he was made a corresponding member of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome.

Passionate about architecture, Antonescu designed over forty projects, most of which are historic monuments today. A student of Julien Guadet and a disciple of Mincu's, he helped shape the classical form of the national style. He sought and discovered valuable old monuments, recalling them in collections of sketches, watercolors and studies. While training under Guadet and Edmond Paulin, he began his career in the classically oriented academicism prevailing at their school, designing several important works in this spirit. Near the end of his life, Antonescu divided his own work into classical and Romanian architecture. He was the first to apply the neo-Romanian style at a monumental scale, for multilevel buildings with complex functions, defining his efforts as the start of a "local original style".

The first book in which Antonescu presented his work was the 1913 Clădiri. Studii. Case. Biserici. Monumente. Palate. Încercări de arhitectură românească și clasică. His monumental 1963 Clădiri, construcții, proiecte și studii is an ample presentation of his architectural record. Renașterea Arhitecturii Românești. Stilul Regele Carol al II‐lea appeared in 1939, under the National Renaissance Front regime. In Biserici nouă – proiecte și schițe (1942, re-edited 1943), he presented theories on the history of church architecture and the foundations of the Byzantine style.