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The Idiot Box
Tom Wilson 13.08.04

I was hoping to write something pithy and amusing about Romanian television this week, but found myself facing three main problems. The first is that making jokes at the expense of Romanian TV is like making jokes about George W. Bush being stupid - it's something so patently obvious that even mentioning it seems a little unnecessary, and the joke leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. You end up feeling rather depressed at the whole situation, rather than amused. The second problem is that I lead such a jet-set, ram-packed life of excitement that I rarely have time to watch TV, unlike slobs like yourself (yes YOU), whose every waking moment is no doubt subordinated to the involuntary clicking action that has been hotwired into your thumb through overuse of that life-support device you refer to as a 'remote control'. See how it feels to be patronised? Do you like it? This was precisely my third problem. When I actually tried to sit down and critically asses a helping of Romanian TV, I found that I was willing to chew off one of my own limbs rather than endure such a battering of patronising rubbish. In Britain this would be described as 'Low-brow' programming, to distinguish it from 'High-Brow', which denotes anything to do with the arts, or people with beards. Low-brow doesn't even come close. In Romania , it's better referred to as 'No-brow'.

Romanian TV, I'm told, directly borrows from the Italian model. I wouldn't know. I've thankfully been spared what I assume would be the gut-wrenching experience of sitting down to watch one of the Italian stations. Troupes of dancing girls, formation dancing by girls in their underwear, and more scantily-clad gyrating girls seem to be the staple of this kind of broadcasting. I can only hope that Prime Minister Berlusconi, who we must remember controls 90% of Italian television in terms of audience, has some good excuses. Perhaps Mrs Berlusconi routinely dances round their official residence in her underwear whenever there is a lull in the conversation. However, to the rest of us, the idea of employing such techniques in a bid to keep people entertained is just an example of shockingly bad taste.

There are many things to find distasteful on Romanian TV. There are far too many repeats of made-for-TV D-movies that manage to make Chuck Norris look like Kenneth Branagh. There are far too many imported soap operas that have furnished me with a rather limited knowledge of foreign languages (I now know how to say 'I love you' / I'm leaving you' / 'I'm your father'). There are far too many sub-Jerry Springer talk shows where the aim of the programme seems to be either bullying the guests into saying something controversial or making them look like badly educated yokels.

These are of course all good reasons to feel disappointed with Romanian TV. However, the real offender is undoubtedly TV news broadcasting. Allow me to offer a few tips to any programming chiefs who may well be reading. Under no circumstances should you add dramatic-sounding music to a given news item. Nor should you enliven your footage with subtle horror-movie effects or coloured filters. If a story isn't tear-jerking or pulse-quickening enough, then please, go and set fire to an orphanage and film the resulting inferno to your hearts content. It would be infinitely preferable to your current practice of adding music and/or effects to bona fide tragedies. Please remember that these news items depict the genuine plight of genuine people, so have a bit of respect. What you call TV news has gone way beyond parody.

The shift towards the tabloidisation of news coverage, and its primary concern with human interest stories (murders, rapes, cats up trees, topless sunbathing at the seaside...) is supposedly the result of the free market in television. 'Give the people what they want!' is the rallying cry of the TV executive. 'If people want to watch news items about buxom strippers adopting injured furry animals then so be it' (it didn't actually happen, but it'd make a damn good story). However, this approach over-simplifies the issue. Perhaps we should start crediting the viewing public with a little more intelligence. Many indicators suggest that viewers are actually turning off news programmes of this kind. The Romanian Academic Society's 'Forecast report for 2004' states that news audiences have dwindled following this sensationalisation. News programmes "lost 20% of the audience they had in 2000" through this policy of pandering to the lowest common denominator.

It doesn't take much thought to figure out the real reason for the shift, especially in a country where real and deep-routed scandal is never far from the surface. Reporting the real stories of the day is a dangerous business. There are too many powerful toes to be trodden on. Remember that last year journalist intimidation peaked since monitoring began, with beatings having been doled out to 16 journalists. Most of these, and other cases of intimidation, still remain unresolved.

People in Britain and America spend on average a quarter of their waking lives glued to the television. In Romania I strongly suspect the figure is higher. Where I come from, only your friend's wisecracking father (the one with bad breath who laughs at his own jokes) would consider it amusing to call television 'The Idiot Box'. It is, however, probably the best possible description of what TV has become.

On the 2nd of October, at 12pm , the global kids TV channel Nickelodeon will be celebrating its 25th birthday in a particularly apt way. For the first time in its history, it will cease broadcasting. For three straight hours, children everywhere will be encouraged to go out and play. I suggest that us adults start following the same advice. The world today is an exciting place to live in. Pull the plug on television and see what you're missing.

ople rarely learn from the lessons of the past, and architecture is no exception. What we condemn today as 'architectural monstrosities' are usually exhaled as works of genius just a few years down the line. And every generation seems set on recreating the mistakes of their forefathers.

The Victorians did it to many historical monuments, destroying or 'adapting' ancient buildings in accordance with the conventions of the time. Few people realise that the famous Stonehenge monument in the UK never originally looked as it does now; it was those clever Victorians who decided to pile the stones on top of each other, presumably to make it look more 'exciting'. Exactly the same thing was done to the architecture of the Victorians in the first half of the twentieth century. Whole swathes of Victorian residential areas were demolished to make way for constructions more in keeping with the suburban ideals that were in vogue. The same buildings that were once condemned as slums, the soot-stained reminders of a less civilised period, are now the most desirable properties in most towns and cities. It's a destruction spree that is now lamented as an act of vandalism. Exactly the same thing has taken place, in recent years, with the modernist architecture of the 1960s. The stark, utilitarian concrete structures erected during this era, such as tower-blocks and even multi-storey car-parks, are now treasured as examples of architectural vision and excellence. If you'd told someone thirty years ago that 60s car-parks would find their way onto English Heritage's list of protected buildings, they'd have laughed in your face. But it's true.

It's the same kind of incredulity that you tend to face when discussing communist architecture in Romania . It's still almost impossible for people today to look at these buildings in a non-political light. It's hardly surprising. If you'd seen your home demolished to make way for one of the vast Circuses of Hunger or a row of communist tower-blocks, it's unlikely that you're going to take a detached view of their aesthetic.

It's been a source of endless arguments, but I have to admit that I actually like a lot of communist architecture. As someone who never knew the old regime, it's easy to be seduced by its grandeur; its misplaced utopianism; the sheer ambition of it all. For a non-Romanian, it's possible to see the blocks and fountains that line Unirii area without being struck by them as kitsch or gaudy; I'd even go so far as to say that there's something majestic about them. Don't be mistaken in thinking that I'm in any way apologising for the regime that created them, or the tragedy of the razing of Bucharest that made way for their construction. However, now they're here we must allow ourselves to view them in a new light.

Out of all the old regime's controversial constructions, the Palace of the People is no doubt the most divisive. With 7,000 homes - 1/4 of the city once known as 'The Paris of the East' - demolished to make way for the vast project, it's perhaps the most powerful symbol of suffering and ostentation that characterised the dictatorship. It's a building still shrouded in much mystery, as anyone can experience by asking as many awkward questions as possible when receiving a tour of the vast structure. I'm sure that I must have been reported to the Securitate following my own visit, given the number of probing questions I took it upon myself to ask. There is, I was assured, no nuclear bunker under the palace (yeah, right!), which is reportedly larger below ground than above (a fact again emphatically denied). However, to her credit, my guide admitted that she had no idea exactly what was down there.

There are many people who would ideally like this cavernous palace to disappear altogether, though this clearly isn't a viable option. "The internal structure of the building is completely unprecedented," Mihnea Mircan explains, sat in the cool of his office at the Kalinderu gallery. "Whatever had gone before it, in terms of architecture, they had to surpass. If the biggest supporting column had previously been, say, three metres thick, then they doubled it. The underlying structure itself is virtually indestructible."

Mihnea and his colleagues are currently working on putting the building to a particularly good use. On the 29th of October, one wing of the palace will be opened as Romania 's National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC).

"The museum will cover 4 floors, with each floor having two rooms of exhibition space. All in all, we're looking at an area of more than 10,000 square metres. And the facilities include a library, a café and offices for administrative staff," Mihnea explains. "It's the only part of the palace which didn't see Ceausescu's final wishes realised. The museum is situated in the part which would have been the living quarters for himself, his family and visiting dignitaries. Ceausescu apparently liked big bathrooms, and that was what one of the rooms was planned to be. It would have been a bathroom measuring more than 100 square metres. Locating the museum here really represents a very interesting collision - it's the public encroaching on the private spaces of power."

Placing a contemporary art gallery in such a unique location almost resembles a piece of conceptual art in itself, given the big questions it raises. It's these debates that the first exhibitions to be held at the museum are taking advantage of, with an opening show of Romanian contemporary artists being entitled 'Love Ceausescu's Palace!?'

"Support for the project in Romania has sometimes been thin on the ground," Mihnea continues. "While enthusiasm within the country has often been lacking, international support for the project has been huge." Many at home have been quick to condemn the use of a symbol of communist terror as the home for a cultural institution. For many people, the building and the regime it stood for are inseparable; its history too fresh in the minds of those who saw its construction. However, just as has been the case throughout the history of architecture, opinions are certain to change. There are few, if any, historical buildings that were not constructed by the ill-gotten gains of regimes that oppressed one people or another, be it through feudalism, slavery or economic exploitation. It's only a matter of time before the Palace of the People is seen for what it really is - an architectural monument of immense cultural value. One day, it will undoubtedly be described as 'beautiful'.