ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the socialist project but goes beyond the post-socialist preservationist discourse and shifts the perspective towards presenting the history from the inside, as the transformations were perceived by agents of change involved in the story. The argument moves away from the common post-factum analysis to rescue the history behind the screen. It presents urban transformations as a process, with its hesitations, changes, intricacies and different perspectives, as revealed in oral testimony. Several arguments move beyond the common understanding of the socialist project as the result of Ceauescu's arbitrary will. The interplay between two interest groups, the architects and the political leadership, is explained, especially as it relates to the initial stages of the planning. Thus, many other individual voices are rescued and the idea of the new centre emerges as the result of a negotiation between many agents, as well as a struggle between the generations.
