Cultural Landscapes in Historical Cartography: Landscape Gardens in the “Green” Bucharest of 1789

Abstract

At the end of the 18th century, Bucharest, the capital of Romania, was a “green” city (having large orchards, vineyards and even patches of wood), which apparently was in no need of landscape gardens. However, historical cartography and the written documents testify their existence. The study relies on large-scale historical maps (1:2000 – 1:7250), which were processed in a GIS Open Source Environment (QGIS software). The Purcel map (1789) shows the existence of eleven landscape gardens totalling an area of 8.63 ha. The retrieval of their exact location may serve as a starting point for a future web page meant to offer virtual travels and to bring back to light the old townscapes through paintings, vintage photos, testimonials of foreign travelers, documents, etc. All these can prove to be very useful for understanding the emotional geography of the old Bucharest, which arouses a particular interest, as shown by the results of a questionnaire applied on 134 subjects.