Maria Cotescu


Maria Cotescu was one of the first female Romanian architects. She was most prolific in the period between the wars and was one of the few architects of the period whose theoretical design writings were parallel to her design implementation. She is most known for large industrial works, like the Romanian Railway Company's industrial and office project.

Biography

Maria Cotescu was born in 1896 in Romania to Maria and, a general in the Romanian Army during World War I. She graduated from the High School of Architecture in Bucharest in 1922 and in 1924, she was one of only six women, who had been allowed membership in the Romanian Architects Society, the others being Irineu Maria Friedman, Virginia Andreescu Haret, Maria Hogas, Antonetta Ioanovici and Ada Zăgănescu. Some sources indicate that she also later attended the Superior School of Architecture in Bucharest, graduating after Henrieta Delavrancea did so in 1926–1927.
She was most prolific building in the era between the wars, and typically built industrial buildings like the 1400 Altitude Hotel in Sinaia, which she worked on between 1931 and 1933 in collaboration with Ilie Teodorescu or the industrial buildings she designed for the Romanian Railway Company in 1933. The CFR project was completed over several years and included work on the Griviţa workshops, CFR offices, power plant and administration building. The Griviţa building was one of the first to use red brick, to be designed in a modern style and to use functional technology, making it a model for later works by other architects. Alexandru Tănăsescu collaborated on the buildings which were constructed between 1933 and 1940.
In addition to design and construction work, Cotescu published articles on architectural theory, which appeared in such journals as Technology Magazine, the Polytechnic Society Bulletin, Architecture and Symmetry Magazine.
Cotescu died in Romania in 1980.

Works