Oraşul anticipativ. Intuiţii urbanistice în opera lui Haralamb Georgescu / The Anticipatory City. Urban Thinking in the Work of Haralamb Georgescu

This article examines SkyLots (1965–1967), an unrealised proposal developed by Romanian-born architect Haralamb H. Georgescu in California, in relation to the metropolitan expansion of post-war Los Angeles. Conceived as a system of suspended plots, the project combines housing, workplaces, commerce, communal facilities and open space within a vertically organised structure. The study investigates the relationships established by Georgescu between extensive land consumption, functional separation, increasing mobility and the spatial organisation of everyday life. His 1943 text “Bucharest, a New City?” provides an earlier point of reference for examining his reflections on accelerated urban transformation and the relationship between individual buildings and the city as a whole. The two moments are considered within their distinct urban and historical contexts, tracing the reformulation of these concerns from interwar Bucharest to the Californian metropolis. Drawing on archival documentation, Georgescu’s writings and subsequent critical interpretations, the article examines the extent to which SkyLots can be understood as an anticipatory response to metropolitan growth, based on the interdependence of land use, density, mobility, everyday activities and collective life.