ARHIVELE OLTENIEI - Universitatea din Craiova

The urbanistic evolution of the city of Drobeta Turnu Severin in 19 th century 47distribution of house lots in Turnu Severin began. Places in a total surface of70000 square fathoms 10 have been sold until 1833, July, 26 th . Then, InSeptember 1833, a great deal of merchants and persons also bought lands forhouses and shops. Among the first buyers we can name: Colonel NicolaeCiupagea, Colonel Ghiţă Burileanu, Court VicutallerVasile Strâmbeanu, highboyar Ion Opran, Colonel Ghiţă Burileanu, Treasurer Stanciu Boboiceanu andmany other boyards, merhcants, dyers, furriers, shoemakers, teachers andsilversmiths 11 .The works will stagnate in the next two years as a result of the politicalchanges. The plan of building the town near the ruins of the Bridge of Traian,over the ruins of Caster Drobeta will be abandoned as well. Thus, even if theformal year of building the new town was 1833, the real one was 1836. Duringthe reign of Alexandru Ghica, Governor Mihail Ghica was appointed to dealwith the issues raised by the building of the new town. Engineer XavierVillagross, that designed a new plan (a western more one 12 ), that supposed a newplace for the new town, was sent there in the spring of 1835. According to thenew plan, Engineer Xavier Villagross did not agree on the new town enclosingthe Roman Caster (on the reason that it would damage many vestiges or that thefuture researches will be affected by the buildings) and proposed the centre ofthe future town to be in the North of the ruins of the Medieval Borough.Through Order 1003 of the Ministry of Interior, State Engineer, XavierVillagross, was assigned to design the new town in 1835, October 19 th . After theplan has been approved and debated by the Romanian Administrative Border(1836, February, 11 th ) and through a Decree Law in 1836, February, 28 th ,engineer Moritz von Ott was appointed to perform it, bearing the title of Town’ sEngineer 13 .This plan was designed for 500 families and enclosed a regular streetnetwork that intersected in a square angle with the wide squares with leafy areas,being a rightful copy of many western models: “a miniature achievement of allthe achievements of civilization, a mirror on field of the liberal- bourgeois formsof life, with an absolutely antonymic character to that of Cerneţ, that stillremained the keeper of traditions, of feudal forms of life soon defeated,destroyed altogether with Cernet, incapable of adapting to changes” 14 . The houselots were divided into three categories: the ones from the center, those on thestreet near Danube and thirdly, those with facades to the large squares belongedto 1 st class. In their case, a square fathom was to be paid with 2 lei; the ones fromtown’s centre, second class, would have been paid with 1 leu and 2 chinks perp. 9-11.10 The National Archives, Dr. Tr. Severin, The Town Hall of Tr. Severin, dossier 1/1833,11 Ibidem, p. 39-40.12 C. Pajură, D. T. Giurăscu, op. cit., p. 56.13 Ibidem, p. 57.14 Ibidem .