Getting Global, Staying Local The Turmoil of the First Steps towards Scientific Urban Planning – the Case of Cincinat Sfințescu

The movement created by the international congresses of the International Federation of Housing and Town Planning and of the Union Internationale des Villes in the interwar period is the most notable candidate for a moment in history when a clean and strong international campaign aimed at creating the urban planning discipline. Those were the early forms of a knowledge platform that influenced the entire world. The extent of those events is to be assessed in this article through the local effects they generated, by shifting the perspective from the focus on the internal and political affairs of the organizing bodies to the message of the Congresses as it was perceived through the eyes of the participants.

The movement created by the international congresses of the International Federation of Housing and Town Planning and of the Union Internationale des Villes in the interwar period is the most notable candidate for a moment in history when a clean and strong international campaign aimed at creating the urban planning discipline.Those were the early forms of a knowledge platform that influenced the entire world.The extent of those events is to be assessed in this article through the local effects they generated, by shifting the perspective from the focus on the internal and political affairs of the organizing bodies to the message of the Congresses as it was perceived through the eyes of the participants.
The engineer Cincinat Sfințescu (1887-1955) was the only Romanian representative who constantly participated in this complex international series of events.This, of course, had a strong impact on his career, and through him, on the Romanian urban planning discipline as well.In fact, Romanian urban planning can be seen as an indirect result of that international effervescence.In that respect, this article is a cross-view between the international reception and effects of the Congresses and Sfințescu's acknowledgement of and reaction to the professional turmoil he was part of.
Taking into consideration the immense leap of the discipline they engendered and the effect they had on the great mass of participating specialists, we argue that the Congresses gradually became an authority almost independent of the organizing associations.Of course, these bodies (International Federation of Housing and Town Planning and Union Internationale des Villes) were not exactly "silent parents", but the Congresses for sure outshined them.There is also a significant difference between the assumed mission of those events and their effectiveness; the Congresses became almost self-sustained events, through the number and quality of the participating professionals bringing their reports and ideas into debate and taking back home all the urban planning lessons learned there.Sfințescu was one of those specialists.An assessment on the close connection between his professional career and accomplishments in Romania, on the one hand, and the course of urban planning sustained by these Congresses, on the other, can open up future interpretations and research directions on the evolution of Romanian urban planning.

The International Context
The two distinct stages in Cincinat Sfințescu's international connection were, in fact, part of the same commitment: the early stage of self-education in Berlin (1910-1912) and his professional maturity, ranging between 1926 and 1939.He started his career with a two-year scholarship awarded by the Romanian Academy to study urban planning in Berlin-Charlottenburg.In 1912, he became a member of the German Garden Cities Association and went on a study trip to England, visiting the garden cities.Those "Berlin years" had a long lasting impact on his urban planning philosophy and on his entire career.At the time, the urban planning discipline was shaped by a few major forces: the active promotion of the German model, the organized international outburst of the garden cities idea (which peaked in 1910 with the "international congress in London which called itself the First International Conference on Town Planning" 1 ), and the overall internationalism that followed the era of great events philanthropically financed "which helped to sustain an international discussion on the future of life in large cities." 2 Later on, in 1926, Sfințescu revived his connection to the international scene of urban planning.By then he was a mature urban planner, with a strong and growing portfolio.Meanwhile, the European urban planning world was animated by, in Sfințescu's own words, the "two international associations with the aim at promoting and spreading the knowledge on how modern agglomerations are developing and how to be guided: Union Internationale des Villes (UIV) -the International Union of Cities, based in Brussels, that brings out the local administrative issues, and the International Federation for Town and Country Planning and Garden Cities (IF), based in London, that brings out the urban planning issues with a special focus on technical elements." 3e Union Internationale des Villes (UIV) was founded at the Congres International de l'art de construire les villes et l'organisation de la vie municipale, at the 1913 International Exhibition in Ghent (Belgium), which is acknowledged as "the first genuinely international conference encompassing both town planning and municipal government." 4Building upon an existing series of international events on urban planning, the participants, "united in their desire to found a new body which would harness their energies and articulate their ideas" in town planning and administration, 5 concluded upon the establishment of the Union Internationale des Villes. 6e International Federation of Housing and Town Planning, the former International Garden Cities and Town Planning Association or International Garden Cities and Town Planning Federation (IFHTP or IF) came into existence after a slight change of interest of the British Garden Cities Association, the founding body of the garden cities initiative.The scope of the association gradually changed, from 1909 to 1926, when it finally got its name, International Federation of Housing and Town Planning, reflecting its attachment for internationalism.IFHTP was "an International Society to promote and coordinate throughout the world the study and practice of housing and of regional, town and country planning and development with a view to securing higher standards of housing, the improvement of towns and cities and a better distribution of the population." 7It soon became "the most important platform for internationalization of (professional) urban planners between the Wars," 8 "an 'international milieu' of urban planners, embodied in international congresses, exhibitions, competitions, periodicals, translations of key publications, correspondences and (professional) friendships before World War I." 9 Between 1923 and 1939 there was an intertwined series of congresses of the UIV and IF.While the "UIV Congresses seem to have been more frivolous, at least in the sense that their publicity put more emphasis on recreational events and social networks," the IF congresses "very soon took on propagandist, scientific and didactic colours, strongly favouring architects, planners and other technical experts filled with the ardour of scientific objectivity,"10 as Sfințescu noticed as well: "the activity in the beginning was merely propagandistic, then it became doctrinaire, to bring out the urban planning discipline from what appeared as groundless -important only for the urban design -and to define it as an applied science." 11e assessment of the Congresses from an international perspective highlights the dimension of a true and powerful knowledge platform: -continuity and regularity of the meetings: starting in 1920, the Federation established an agenda of yearly events, which led to a sequence of 13 congresses, held over a period of 20 years.The UIV held 9 congresses.It is even more impressive if looking at the huge effort to organize and to participate in such an event, these being usually two or three weeks long; -world experts: there was a strong core of contributor experts that regularly attended and presented their work: Raymond Unwin, Ebenezer Howard, Clarence Stein, Joseph Stübben, John Nolen; the Congresses attracted almost all the leading planning personalities of the time; -mission pursued: although the housing and garden cities alternatives remained the major themes of each congress, IF succeeded in maintaining and defining an impartial view and focus on urban planning and its tools.The Congresses remained a neutral professional scene that could host almost any planning theory and example from the interwar period.
-political attention: being such important events for the host countries, the Congresses were a perfect opportunity for promoting and discussing the countries' planning efforts.Therefore, hosting political leaders usually fostered the events.The associations' leaders were a strong political group as well: Emile Vinck, Henri Sellier,12 Auguste Bruggeman, G. Montague Harris and F.M. Wibaut, who held cross-membership for the IFHTP and the UIV, were active socialists and democrats, holding high positions in their countries and acting as political triggers behind the major (social) housing developments.
-scale: the participant's condition of belonging to a professional body actually came to guarantee the highly specialized status of the Congresses.Equally, the fact that the majority of participants held cross-membership for the IF and the UIV secured a large and compact mass of participating specialists.The Congresses were in fact great events, which involved an active media campaign, international publicity and had tremendous effect on the organizing town and country.
-themes of debate were imposed by the existing international situation: all Congresses were evolving around three major set themes: housing (garden-cities), urban planning (and reconstruction) and regional planning; later on, traffic became a set theme as well.

Sfințescu's Position on the International Scene
Cincinat Sfințescu, a significant example for the type of specialist attending the international congresses between the wars, was an enthusiast, self-educated professional that aimed at and succeeded to introduce, mostly on his own, the discipline of urban planning in Romania.He was the first Romanian specialist particularly educated in urban planning to maintain an appropriate career in this field afterwards.
He had a good intuition in choosing the causes he acted upon.First in Berlin, as a young specialist, and then, immediately after World War I, from Bucharest, at the very start of his career, he connected himself to two powerful organizations, where he remained an active member for over 20 years.Those were the early forms of the IF and UIV, which were to become generators of ideas throughout his entire career.He participated in eight congresses (five with the IF and three with UIV); he sent over 20 country reports to be included in the congress sessions or final reports; he sent several papers to be published in the Bulletin of the IF and in the Tablettes Documentaires Municipales of the UIV and, finally, he was an active debater in the discussion groups.
The first international event in which he actively participated was the congress of the UIV held in Paris, in 1925, being part of the Romanian official delegation, along with a few political figures and the mayor of Bucharest.Later on, at the congress of the IF held in Vienna in 1926, the Romanian delegation gained some importance on the international congress scene (supported by H. Sellier and A. Bruggeman), as the mayor and Cincinat Sfințescu were elected as vice-president, and, respectively, member of the congress committee, thus inaugurating a long series of active participation of Romanian representatives.
C. Sfințescu was elected as a member in the Congresses' committees in 1926, 1928, 1929, 1931,  1939, practically in every congress he attended.He was also elected as one of the vice-presidents of the Congress committee in 1931, in Berlin.Even though those distinctions were just honorary labels, since the main mission of the federation was to enhance the popularity of urban planning among specialists, we can assume that these non-decisional positions were a kind of reward aimed at maintaining the interest and commitment of the most active and enthusiastic participants.
C. Sfințescu chose to follow the international urban planning trends, being seduced by the kind of instruments able to establish a new order, as both the Federation and the Union were.This choice shaped his professional approach.For instance, he brought up the idea of "superurbanism" at the 1929 Congress in Rome,13 as regional planning under all aspects had been a major theme of the Congresses since Göteborg, 1923. 14 In 1929, the topic of national planning was only slightly touched.In 1930 it flourished in the discussions; Sfințescu noted that "the national plan appears to have gained some supporters … few reports mentioning the evolution toward national planning."15However, after the 1939 Congress in Stockholm, when regional planning was even more deeply analyzed together with its potential as a powerful remedy for traffic problems that had begun to consume most of the cities, he (sadly) observed that regional planning actually remained just a theoretical idea, since no country had the legislative tools to operate regional plans. 16In 1929 he published his first study on "superurbanism" in relation to rural development,17 but it was only in 1941 that his comprehensive thesis on this subject appeared,18 after a long and careful research on international theory and trends.Thus, we can see him grasping the idea, shaping it into a concept, circulating it and then waiting for it to come together and to mature by itself.Only then he transformed it into a valuable tool.It had taken him 13 years.
The country reports as a research and working method was a tool that Sfințescu adopted from the Congresses.He was engaged in international professional correspondences even before 1925, and in fact wrote his first country report on urban planning in 1921, for the first conference of the Romanian Engineers Association (AGIR).This approach had a certain effect on Sfințescu's professional development as a modern researcher; it developed his obsession for data gathering, refined the use of the comparative method, stirred a need to constantly verify or search for approval and enhanced the ability to understand and create an accurate and complex image on any topic.All these qualities defined his entire work, especially the major theses -Urbanistica generală [General Urban Planning], Urbanistica specială [Special Urban Planning] and Superurbanismul [Superurbanism] -which were the ultimate scientific syntheses of his career.This method also served another goal, as Sfințescu conceived the relation of the Romanian Union of Cities with its members through regularly reports based on his questionnaire.That too was actually an older idea that he presented in 1912 and 1920, 19 and which led to an archive from 1923 onwards.
His own position with regard to his profession was that he always saw himself as an engineer and never as an urban planner, a stance that can be analyzed from two points of view.Firstly, there were the Romanian popular perception and the strong message of the respected professions of engineering and architecture versus the urban planning specialization, non-existent as a profession.He was influenced by the recent force and importance engineering gained with the industrial wave of the late 19th century.Sfințescu became a member of the powerful Romanian Polytechnic Society20 in 1910, as soon as he finished his university studies; he was among the first members of the popular Romanian Engineers Association,21 when it was established in 1919.Both professional bodies edited scientific periodicals, where C. Sfințescu remained a constant contributor throughout his entire career.Secondly, since he was self-educated in urban planning, only on the international scene could he comfortably place himself as such.For the great mass of specialists, the "affiliation to the IFHTP provided a sense of belonging -the affiliated individuals and organizations became part of an international housing and planning community." 22And for the outside world there was that "elite of self-educated experts" […] "moving in and out of government, between positions in the world of social reform, publishing, and academic life, they (the attendees) were the 'self-taught experts' working on the intellectual margins of imperfectly professionalized fields." 23Cincinat Sfințescu was exactly that type of an expert.But the authority of a self-educated specialist was not accepted in Romania, even if validated by strong international authorities.The Romanian society was not yet fully prepared for the mutations that modernity triggered, self-educated or proclaimed specialists counting as one of those mutations.

Contribution to Urban Planning Discipline
The professional model he acted upon worked on many levels, encompassing the construction of a body of knowledge and works, the training of a critical mass of specialists and the establishment of a transparency and certain popularity of urban planning discipline.
First of all, C. Sfințescu understood the major responsibility of the urban planner only as civil servant.This innate Romanian feature was strengthened by his former contact with the German culture in matters of planning and his close connection with the UIV and its leaders.He published detailed research articles on this topic since the beginning of his career.In 1912 he started with the classification of all the possible needed works in a city, 24 which then he combined with the new social mutation and the emergence of new intellectual professions25 and tried to assign a role to the civil servant in each category of city works.Then he drafted a scheme for a new administrative national level, in 1921. 26But the most significant leap of his understanding was generated by the study visit to Budapest, Vienna and Paris public services in 1925, 27 which strengthened his own model for public services.Eventually, in the '30s, he succeeded to create a powerful urban planning department in Bucharest Town Hall, with a clear hierarchy and approximately 90 specialists with clearly assigned tasks. 28And, most importantly, he maintained a 20-year long career as a public servant, between 1913 and 1934.
C. Sfințescu also secured a life-long career as a university professor of urban planning, establishing the first department of urban planning in the Romanian education system in 1923, at the Faculty of Architecture in Bucharest.The urban planning education for technical specialists in public services was discussed at the UIV congress in 1932, in London and then, more thoroughly, in Lyon in 1934.Sfințescu participated in those discussions.Later, he built on these topics in his writings, addressing all aspects of urban planning education, as he communicated at the Lyon congress. 29He worked towards the transformation of the Romanian Planning Institute into a school of urban planning, firstly just as a specializing centre that offered general education for civil servants that could later extend into a faculty, following the international model.
He was part of the founding team and one of the leaders of the Romanian Union of Cities (Uniunea Orașelor din România -UOR, 1923-1942) and of the Romanian Planning Institute (Institutul Urbanistic Român -IUR, 1932-1942).The UOR was his "passport" to the international congresses; usually, he participated as a delegate of this organism.The IUR had a more academic purpose, aiming to become the sole authority in Romanian urban planning.C. Sfințescu established the only Romanian urban planning scientific journals -Monitorul Uniunii Orașelor din România (The UOR Review), later Revista Urbanismul (Urban Planning Journal), issued constantly between 1923 and 1942, with 6 issues per year.Following the international and national model of such scientific periodicals, it contained extensive reviews of major urban planning works and selections from other similar periodicals, such as La Vie Urbaine.The journal was published exclusively in Romanian, Sfintescu being its main contributor, and, obviously, the only scope of such an effort was to create a Romanian urban planning scientific library, and not necessarily an international connection.Furthermore, C. Sfințescu conducted extensive research which was published in more than 10 different scientific periodicals, magazines and newspapers; he authored the only major thesis on Romanian urban planning and was the only steady Romanian correspondent and specialist to participate in international congresses.This kind of founding father figure was the usual model of the early modern period; the leading figures of the IF and UIV, as H. Sellier, A. Bruggemann, E. Vink or R. Unwin, whom he was admiring, were conducting similar activities, both back home and internationally.For sure, the Congresses inspired and maintained a certain flow of information and served as a source of inspiration for him.

Urban Planning Philosophy
The fundamentals of C. Sfințescu's planning philosophy were: -urban planning as a scientific discipline based on statistics, estimations, diagrams, mathematics and formulae: "…we must convince everybody that urban planning is a science, not an amateur fantasy (…) as it possesses laws, a clear technique and a doctrine"; 30 -the authoritarian exterior position with regard to the city, the city as a working object; -the ultimate goal of order and clarity in the city: -the city as a territory with a hierarchy of elements, a main physical structure and clear zoning; -hierarchy of functional areas, reflected in the physical structure; -laws, norms and regulations for building; -urban planning as an exclusive responsibility of public administration; -prediction and guidance of growth; -regional plan as territorial order, through any form of satellite cities connected by a system of roads and transport.
In 1929, at the Rome Congress, it was R. Unwin's discussion about the importance of the scientific study of any urban planning aspect that made Sfințescu expose clearly the main reason of his attending these Congresses, as well as his scientific approach.He pointed out the need to pursue the practical outcome of any discussion on the scientific tools of urban planning, for instance "the right amount of population in the city for a rational existence." 31Data and estimate formulae about the population in a settlement existed, but he was looking for a practical formula for an existing city, and not for an ideal scheme.
The principle of order was a common belief among modern specialists,32 especially since "inherent in the idea of planning is the rational ordering of space -the search for order out of complexity." 33gain, a direct influence from the German model can be traced in the pursuit of "order" as "an important goal", and in the aim to establish a "correspondence between visual and functional order of the city on the one hand, and its social order, on the other."Of course, "the planner was supposed to be concerned with both aspects; even if his tools were directed merely toward spatial objectives." 34other possible understanding of his urban planning philosophy needs to be highlighted here.That imperative need for a 'good' city, which is so often highlighted in Sfințescu's writings can also be seen as his reverence to the modern individual and society, as if modernity itself overpassed the stiff physical structure of the old cities.
"One of the most important issues in the social and economic development of our State is without any doubt the improvement of our urban and rural agglomerations.
Modern life requires that all settlements should meet the necessities of hygiene, extraordinary development of commerce and industry, the multitude of transport and to the general comfort and artistic refinement, offered by civilization to the modern man.
Therefore, the necessity that the old narrow and irregular streets should be widened and new great roads and plazas be created; parks and public gardens should be created so that the polluted air produced by the growing population might be purified, and finally modern sewage and sanitary installations could be drafted; thus, the necessity that all buildings should match a coherent ensemble, without destroying the traditional physiognomy, the characteristics and genius of our people, but to accomplish instead that harmony between aesthetics and comfort, arts and science, a thing that the urban planning doctrine has been defending for few decades."35

Efforts on the Housing Issue
Discussing all the important topics of urban planning in its time, Cincinat Sfințescu's work would not have been complete had it not addressed the housing issue in a comprehensive way.In 1934, he was writing in a local periodical: "the housing issue, under all its aspects, is the key question of present urban planning; therefore neglecting this issue leads to pseudo-planning." 36e international dimension of his accomplishments on this topic as well can be foreseen from his early studies.In 1913, after visiting some of the most important garden cities in England, he publishes "English Garden-Cities," 37 his first important study on urban development topics, also being the first Romanian author to address this subject in the local theory.He did not just translate Howard's theory in Romanian, but he also discussed how theoretical aspects were put into practice in the different settlements he visited, in an effort to seek the optimal solutions for a controlled development of the residential fabric.Like any other of his studies, the article is rigorously structured.It tackles several important issues that can affect the development of an urban fragment (land division plans, design of streets, public works, design of houses, economic issues, etc.), which are addressed in separate chapters, aiming at a systematic and exhaustive approach.
The subject was again tackled in 1916 and enriched with the experience of other countries. 38he specific problems of the residential areas of Bucharest, erected in the previous decades, were comprehensively addressed.The novelty of Sfințescu's efforts can be clearly assessed if compared to the level of Romanian urban regulations in the first quarter of the 20th century, which was quite low.Despite the local authorities' constant effort to achieve a new and modern legal and administrative framework, at the end of the 1920s local urban regulations were still focusing mainly on the configuration of streets and on the relation between buildings and public space (especially alignment and height), merely ignoring other important attributes of the build environment. 39arting his activity at a time when local administration was just beginning to face the problems of peripheral neighborhoods 40 and relying upon the European experience, Sfințescu came to be the first Romanian theorist to put together a selection of urban prescriptions able to provide the framework for a modern and judicious development of the residential areas of Bucharest.Exploring the European legislation, he tried to provide Romania with suitable examples for administrative reform. 41This topic remained one of the focal points of his work, recurrent in his studies over the years.
In 1916, Sfințescu tackled the issue of the development of Bucharest in terms of building heights, with direct consequences in the choice between detached homes and collective forms of housing. 42he subject was addressed in a broader approach in 1921. 43Both from an economic and a social suitability perspective, he favored detached homes.High rise collective housing forms were not dismissed by the author, but they were seen as back-up solutions, acceptable only for those parts of the cities where individual housing could not be easily implemented (especially in the central part, with high density fabric and high land prices).Over the years, he remained faithful to this belief.His perspective was consistent with the international point of view, the subject being frequently addressed in the IFHTP Congresses (for the first time at the 1926 Vienna Congress,  and then again in 1928, 1929 and 1937).Despite the fierce debates over the years, the majority came to favour detached homes as the most suitable form of housing, the tenement blocks being accepted only "as a necessary evil." 44th broad implications in the overall development of residential areas, the zoning concept was an important planning instrument gained from his international affiliation.The idea first emerged during his early activity, in the form of defining distinctive types of land use for the whole area of the city, this method being applied in the first Bucharest General Plan in 1921.An improved method, aiming towards the concept of zoning, was theorized at the beginning of the 1930s.Relying on the German method (discussed during the IFHTP Congresses over the years, within the legislative topics 45 ), the notion was scientifically constructed in 1931. 46Not only did Sfințescu define distinctive types of land use, but after a carefully constructed research he also provided specific parameters for the land occupation pattern, determined by exact formulae consistent with the distinctive needs and characteristics of different urban functions. 47This urban planning instrument was not to remain only a theoretical one.Introduced by Sfințescu in the local doctrine, it was one of the key points of the second Bucharest General Plan in 1935, being also integrated in the new urban regulations from 1939. 48e development of the suburban area, another main concern of that period, was also a seminal topic in Sfințescu's activity.The idea of a metropolitan plan of Bucharest was first addressed in 1929. 49Relying on Purdom's theory of 1925, 50 he expanded the zoning methods over the city borders, providing a development pattern for the suburban area as well.The surrounding settlements were to be transformed into small satellite towns 51 of approximately 20,000 inhabitants and with a surface of no more than 500 ha (a diameter of approximately 3 km), 52 with distinctive zones for commercial and other public functions (central part of the settlement), industry and residential occupations, reflected in land occupation patterns. 53The issue of building satellite towns was frequent in the debate of the IFHTP in the early '20s, within the ideological shift from the garden city theory to the idea of regional decentralization, 54 and it was revisited in the 1929 Rome Congress, when the traditional city growth, characterized by a gradual and concentric expansion, was firmly rejected. 55In Romania, this expansion pattern, based on satellite towns, was embraced by both the administration and the theorists of the interwar period.Even though the concept came to be addressed in legislation by the end of the '30s, 56 no satellite town was erected either around Bucharest or in other parts of the country.The expansion of the suburban settlements followed the guidelines established in the early 1920s: alongside private investments (drastically reduced after the second agrarian reform in 1921), public interventions translated into separate allotments (following the rural expansion patterns used all over the country in the interwar period), designed by the Ministry of Agriculture on the state's rural estates for war veterans and civil servants.
A key topic in the industrialized countries, the issue of housing shortage also received an important place in Sfințescu's studies.Seeking practical solutions to overcome the crisis, especially concerning housing for the very poor population, he was for sure the advocate of state or municipal driven policies, relying upon the international experience to highlight the benefits of state involvement.Regarding Bucharest, even from his early studies, Sfințescu stood for the establishment of the Communal Society for Low-Cost Housing 57 and followed its activity over the years.In 1920, he was arguing the necessity of creating this kind of societies in towns and cities all over Romania, and even in rural settlements, in order to meet the increasing housing demands. 58e year later, he again addressed the issue of housing production, this time in terms of reducing construction costs in order to provide new wholesome houses at affordable prices.He took into consideration several major topics: judicious use of the land, well designed allotments and houses, means of reducing the costs of public works, efficient transport and production of materials, qualified workers (both in terms of improving the education system and of providing appealing jobs), etc. 59 Driven by the agenda of the 1928 Congress in Paris, later that year Sfințescu addressed the new topic of building standardization: large scale construction programmes of typified houses in the outskirts of Bucharest (where land was more affordable than in the center and public works were cheaper to provide than in the suburban area), as a municipal driven policy in order to relocate the population from the unwholesome neighborhoods and to meet the upcoming housing demands. 60Standardization was not to be applied only for the general design of houses, but for building parts as well. 61He again emphasized the importance of the Communal Society for Low-Cost Housing, which took important steps towards achieving this goal.It was an example of good practice to be followed, although insufficiently supported by the state and, thus, with insufficient results if compared to the needs of society. 62e directions of Sfințescu's theory for housing and all related issues were set from the early years, but it is certain that participating in the international Congresses reinforced his points of view by constantly confronting them with the international doctrine of the time.Driven by the ideas launched and discussed during these events, he invigorated, updated and renewed his theory.
The interwar Congresses of the IF and of the UIV were the melting pot of urban planning and served as extended workshops, scientific committees, places for debate of theories and practical experiences, thus offering everything needed for an idea to gain consistency and to materialize.The 57 See, for example: Sfințescu, "Orasele-grădini engleze" [English Garden-Cities], 477.Congresses became a powerful authority, validated by the number and quality of the participating specialists."Access to the transnational dialogue facilitated by the IFHTP could provide advice, acknowledgement, support, exposure, education, instruction, et cetera.This considerably raised the stakes: all participants had something to gain (…) but ultimately the real power in the IFHTP was concentrated in the authority to determine what was or ought to be the appropriate knowledge." 63ncinat Sfințescu's long commitment to the international connectivity was strongly upheld by the need for direct access to data, inspiration and knowledge, as he was committed to the practical outcome of urban planning in Romania.And, as was the main purpose of the International Federation of Housing and Town Planning and Union Internationale des Villes, he aimed to establish a durable general framework for his contemporaries and even for the future, thus enabling every specialist to add the modern forms or to stir a philosophical debate that questioned the urban planning concepts.He wanted to lay down clear and unique forms.His ultimate goal was the establishment of Romanian urban planning, meaning that he was a perfect agent, accomplishing the first, and foremost goal of the IF and UIV.Through a balanced allegiance towards the international and national scene, Sfințescu understood comprehensively the international metamorphoses of the urban planning discipline, and right along, he sieved and processed those forms for a suitable assimilation in the local environment.
C. Sfințescu was truly the only Romanian specialist who was able to unfold each aspect of the urban planning discipline and still understand the overall mechanism and, what is more, to initiate and work on each of these aspects within a coherent and clear vision.He had the ability to create frameworks and open paths.On a practical level, he approached the discipline irrespective of the immediate desired results (the general urban plan, great sanitation works or vast building programmes).Although he did not succeed in creating the power mechanism to assure the discipline's self-sustainability (a critical mass of followers, long-term political commitment to a clear agenda or the general acknowledgement of the need for urban planning in the modern Romanian society), his success is even more remarkable, since it is the work of a single man.
The Communal Society for Low-Cost Housing was created in december 1910, and over the years it proved itself to be the most important Romanian public construction organization, building over 4000 dwellings by 1942.Sfințescu was directly involved in the activity of this society, being its consultant for 13 years, from 1928 to 1941.see, for more information: Societatea comunală -Bucureşti pentru construirea de locuinţe ieftine.Dare de seamă a Consiliului de Administraţie şi raportul comitetuluidecensori către Adunarea Generală ordinară dela 27 Martie 1942.XXXI-lea exerciţiu social [The Communal society -Bucharest for Constructing of Low-Cost Houses.Report, March 27th, 1942] (Bucharest: Cartea Românească, 1942), 2, 8. Nevoi și posibilități în industria de clădiri din București [Needs and Possibilities of the Housing Industry in Bucharest] (Bucharest: Gutenberg, 1921).