Roman Square

The Roman Square is situated at the crossroads between 2 big boulevards of Bucharest: Lascăr Catargiu and Magheru. Dacia Boulevard cuts through the square, from east to west.

The Roman Square has become one of the key places of the city only in the beginning of the 20^th century. Initially, it was named after Lascăr Catargiu, and it had in the middle a statue of him, that was destroyed in the communist period. The name “Roman Square” came from the former appellation of the Mihai Eminescu Street – The Roman Street.

The development of the Roman Square had started in the last century, once the Palace of the Commercial Academy was raised (known today as ASE), between 1916 and 1926. A very interesting thing is the fact that the initially plans of the architects contained another building, identical with the ASE one, which was supposed to enlarge the Palace.

The square houses the statue of the she-wolf, one of the best-known statues of the country. Its’ beginnings on Romanian grounds were at the Roman Arenas, where it was taken in 1906, because of the National Exposition. The statue was a gift from the town hall of Rome, and it was moved in 3 other places before its arrival in the center of the Roman Square: in the Sfântu Gheorghe Square, on Mitropoliei Hill and in Dorobanți, coming in its’ actual place in 1997.

The 1977 earthquake has affected a large number of buildings located here. The Palladio building, a big part of the Simu block and the block where the Casata bakery was located were destroyed. However, the ASE building has resisted, losing only a big part of its’ dome. New constructions of the communist regime were built here, among them being the metro station, which had a unique design to the other stations of Bucharest. The station was constructed in record time, in just 3 months.

Today, the Roman Square is a mix of architectural styles, objectives and people. It is still one of the most important economic and commercial points in Bucharest, and hundreds of thousands of people pass by here every day.