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Did almost half a decade of Communism rob us of our sense of beauty? Did not owing property make us lose all interest in the aesthetic of living space? Or maybe the constant worry about tomorrow makes you immune to our surroundings? These are the only arguments that somewhat comfort me for the ugliness that is all around us: buildings, window shops, streets, restaurants. People in Romania don’t seem to care much about making a space (private, public) nice.

Walking into a beautiful building or strolling on a pretty street can be so relaxing. It can take your mind off your daily troubles. It can make a trip to the grocery pleasant. It can soften the horrors of waiting in line for useless paperwork at the Mayor’s Office. But even when they have the money, people choose to erect sinister buildings. They ignore even the architectural basic issues, such as how to make the building space efficient.

Most of our neighborhood shops (whether they sell food, liquor or clothes) are badly lit rooms screaming with the burden of merchandise that seems dumped by a forklift, among various advertising cutouts in dashing colors. Their windows, which should attract customers, look more like the back of the store: dusty, obsolete, grey.

Obviously, the State has a hand in this, because it does not have clear rules about how buildings, of any type, should look on the outside. While over regulating the building process is certainly a bad thing, imposing some rules about unity of appearance should positively impact upon the look of our cities.

There are exceptions. The medieval center of Sibiu is one them (some people argue that it’s too done up, too cold, but I like it). Yes, lots of money was invested. But it was spent carefully; the works were done according to a plan and with an eye for proper restoration. The results are stunning. This cannot be said about Lipscani, the old center of Bucharest, whose glory days were in between the two Great Wars. It is more then half derelict, the “renovations” were done with plastic and aluminum. Just before I moved from Bucharest to Brasov, they started repaving the streets and actually managed to finish one of them (it looked OK). What happened afterwards? I don’t know. Maybe I will be impressed next time I visit our country’s capital.

How do we recuperate our sense of beauty? My answer is through the TV. I know that TV is the last place that you should look for education, but in this case, it might work. There are various shows on cable TV about decorating your house, all of them unfortunately in English (on BBC Prime, VH1, Travel and Living). There is also Euphoria TV, aimed at women, that broadcasts these types of shows with Romanian subtitles. If people start paying attention to their own houses, trying to improve them (from expensive solutions, to cheap and chic ones), then maybe in a decade or so they will expand their vision to the public space.