Telephone Palace, Bucharest, Ghid vizitatori și ce de văzut în apropiere

The Telephone Palace (Palatul Telefoanelor) is an art deco office building on Calea Victoriei in Bucharest, inaugurated in 1934 and designed by American architects and engineers. It is best known for its flexible steel frame, which was tested by the 1977 earthquake, and for standing on the city's main historic avenue.

The story behind it

The palace opened in 1934 as a modern telephone exchange. Its supporting structure contains metal profiles, much like the Adriatica-Socomet block just down the street, and this gives the building a degree of flexibility that rigid masonry does not have.

That flexibility mattered in 1977. The long-period shaking made the frame sway strongly, and the rigid stone skin around it reacted badly and cracked. Inside, accumulator batteries overturned and started a fire, and telephone communications were disrupted for a time. A popular urban myth says the palace stands on balls or sticks, as if built on rollers. It does not. Base isolation of that kind came to Bucharest much later, in newer buildings such as the City Hall.

What to look for

• The stone outer envelope of the facade, which is the part that cracked in 1977 because it could not move with the steel frame beneath it.
• The clean, vertical lines and geometric restraint typical of art deco, which make the palace look quite different from the older buildings along Calea Victoriei.
• The Adriatica-Socomet block on the nearby corner, another reinforced concrete and steel structure that was strengthened after the earthquake.
• The Novotel nearby, toward which the Adriatica block deformed in 1977, a useful way to picture how much the ground moved in that area.

Tips for your visit

• Plan on 10 to 15 minutes to look at the building from the street, longer if you combine it with a walk along Calea Victoriei.
• Treat it as a building to admire from outside. It is a working telecommunications building, so do not count on going in.
• Morning or late afternoon light shows the stonework best, and pavements are usually calmer outside the weekday rush.
• The Adriatica block and the Novotel are within a short walk, so you can see several earthquake stories in one stretch.

See it on a quest

After the earthquake: The story of a lifesaver is free to play. Its earthquake theme suits this stop, which you reach on foot as part of a longer route through the area. The app tells you about each place as you arrive, and you solve a puzzle on the spot.

Jewish Bucharest: The Hidden Legacy passes this part of Calea Victoriei as one stop on a walk through the city. The app tells you about each place when you get there and sets a puzzle in what is in front of you. One ticket covers the whole group.

Bucharest: Un bal regal, o șansă la tron also takes in this stretch of the avenue. You walk from place to place at your own pace, hear the story of each stop and solve a puzzle as you go. One ticket covers the whole group.