Travel theme: Architecture

Little Trianon of Romania
The palace that nobody lived in…

Conservative politician Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino (nicknamed The Nabob for his fortune), member of the Cantacuzino family, a family with a long-standing history in Romania, decided to build a palace in Floresti, 80 km north outside Bucharest, at his niece’s wish, Alice.
Inspired from Paris-Versailles palaces, the shape and height of this palace are similar with Petit Trianon palace, while the style and decorations are similar with Grand Trianon palace.
Construction started around 1907. During World War I, when the exterior was coming to a completion, the roof was damaged, the reasons still remain unknown.
Little Trianon had 365 bedrooms, one for each day of the year and 7 ballrooms.
Gheorghe Cantacuzino died in 1913 without seeing the palace completed. The objects to decorate the interior were stored in the basement, and were never set up. They were stolen along the years. After the death of the magnate, no one took care of the castle, and no one ever lived in it. Princess Alice left to live abroad, and her uncle’s gift, the Princess’ Palace, as it was known, went into oblivion, and still lies forgotten.
At the start of World War II, impressed by the beauty of the palace, German soldiers set a guard around it. German general von Paulus even said that “the Prahova Valley, apart from oil and Peles castle, has one other immeasurable treasure: the Little Trianon palace, better made and grander than the one in Paris”.
But its fate is cruel. In 1944, the Soviets stole some Ionic columns from the building. The 1977 earthquake also took its toll. After the fall of the Communist regime, locals started ruining the exterior Baroque, neo-Classical, and Renaissance decorations, using the marble and granite to embelish their stables and pigpens.

Is it to late to restore it to the glory it deserves?

http://s1294.photobucket.com/user/ileana31ro/library/Little%20Trianon?sort=3&page=1

http://www.stelian-tanase.ro/micul-trianon-al-nababului-cantacuzino/

Travel theme: Architecture