The neighborhood in Vatra Luminoasă has its origins in the interwar period. Initially, a few small villas were constructed for the middle class and public servants, mainly employees of the Ministry of Labor. Soon after, the first apartment blocks emerged, following the Stalinist urbanism model, which either manifested as linear structures or constituted large residential complexes.
These apartments, in terms of height, ranged between three meters and three meters and ten centimeters, with two-bedroom units spanning around 62 square meters and three-bedroom units around 80 square meters. The area characterized by these Russian-style blocks extends between Vatra Luminoasă Street and Maior Coravu Street.
The housing crisis of the early ’50s, as well as the desire to provide housing for as many families as possible, led to the adoption of the principle of constructing multi-family apartments. The idea was that a 2-3 room apartment could temporarily accommodate several families until new housing was built for the so-called additional families. For the first time, this experiment was carried out in the complex of blocks in the Vatra Luminoasă neighborhood. However, the solutions adopted proved to be unsuitable in terms of comfort and privacy. Consequently, this concept of housing was quickly abandoned, and after 1960, buildings with 7-10 stories were constructed.
