In the north part of Bucharest predominantly but not limited to it, there are intensive construction works in progress as the city is rapidly expanding. When developers market the new residential areas flowering in the outskirts of Bucharest , they often emphasize core features like safety, property values, community spirit, services and living standards similar to the western style of living, they claim.
"A bit of Paradise " is the official slogan, or something that sounds very similar to this.
One of the sites that stands out in the area is Baneasa Residences, which is announced to be one of the biggest residential projects in South Eastern Europe, planned as a multifunctional complex containing a commercial area , a business park and a residential area with sport facilities, medical services, schools and churches. “The place where each of us would like to live, work, and spend their spare time”, Baneasa Residences is planned as a city within a city, functioning with a set of community rules and security measures that will assure its inhabitants a “safe and healthy climate”.
Mainly built for the upper-class, the apartments in the area are incredibly highly priced, even if they are merely homogeneous housing solutions, luring its future residents with promises of an exclusivist neighborhood.
While a sense of social decline can drive people into these communities, their quality is questionable; even though residents have moved to select areas believing that they would find their nostalgic idea of community, they have not. In fact, these communities promote privacy within privacy. It is merely a short term answer that simply avoids the problems of social tension and economic disparity; a symptom of urban pathologies, among which social exclusion is considered to be preeminent.
What I did was to simply walk through the area and write verses from the Ode to Joy on glass surfaces around the neighborhood.
The Ode to Joy was written by the German poet Friedrich Schiller as a celebration of the brotherhood of man and it is best known for its later musical setting by Ludwig van Beethoven in the fourth and final movement of his Ninth Symphony. The final movement of the Symphony became to be also the national anthem of the European Union, in order to celebrate the values the Member States share and their unity in diversity.
It is also said that at the time it was written, Schiller’s friends set it to music and it quickly became very popular as a drinking song. In later life, the poet was contemptuous of this popularity and dismissed the poem as typical of "the bad taste of the age" in which it had been written."
Here.
