After decades of uniformity imposed upon architectural expression by means of stock-projects, of standardization and prefabrication, the time has come for individualization to take place. Dwellings are the primary spaces for the affirmation of difference: each family expresses itself by means of its interior arrangements, even in a block of flats, although the range of identities is not too large. The serially produced furniture and the several archaic types of furniture arrangement made choice considerably scarce.

            My parents? generation is the one that was high up on the wave of change. Enthusiastic about the idea of ?progress? in the ?60s and ?70s, they abandoned their houses in order to move and live in a block of flats. Considered retrospectively, their arguments seem hilarious: they would no longer bother about stove heating (central heating would save them the trouble of wood and coal provisions, of managing the ashes). They would be true townsfolk. They would finally live a ?civilized? life. This is how a massive migration to the block of flats occurred and the families deputed degrees of dwelling freedom to the state: sewerage, district heating plants, electric light. Also, they were being heavily influenced by state propaganda which, in a ?modernizing? drive, qualified the block as good/progressive, and the house as bad/retrograde. It goes without saying that the nomenklature, immune to its own propagandistic secretions, was willing to make the sacrifice of living in ?out-dated? luxury villas.

            Then my parents bought furniture by instalments. They bought a radio set. A TV set: first a Russian type (Rubin) and then an autochthonous one (Diamant). Still in instalments. Then a refrigerator. They still have them: the same old pieces. Most people arranged their interiors by merely transposing the traditional type of dwelling into spaces that were not suited to it. The flats were conceived of, in the architect?s mind and in the designs he submitted for approval, in accordance with certain types of ?optimal? furnishing schemes. In fact, they allowed for less flexibility than the peasant house, because of the numberless doors (opening ways through the parting walls or to the balcony) and because of the rigid functional scheme, which made possible only one way of usage. Yet the schemes of the moderns were not observed. No one arranged their living room in ?functional areas?. The Romanians turned the living into the ?good? room of the peasant house: the place where they kept the more valuable furniture, fit for the ?dining room? (one table-and-chairs in the middle, sideboards, glass cases), which was practically unused when there were no guests. The luster of the wood surface was conscientiously polished, macramés and kitsch framed landscapes were used as ornaments all over the place. So were the family photos, black-and-white, also framed: christening, wedding, the army, the beloved. There were also the bibelots. Many of them. Maybe some stuffed birds too. Well in sight, the few electronic apparatuses: a radio set in a wooden carcass or, later on, a TV set of white plastic, with round screen borders. In the hall, master over a pile of lace, the telephone. This is what the Romanian block of flats looks like even to this day: a country house, moved up a number of stories; yet, in the process of this ?ascent?, the country house has become a monumental slum.