Perhaps the best way to present our company is to mention that we have been the investors, developers and contractors for the Demetru Dobrescu 5 Project, one of the most well-known building in Bucharest. Today the project is still in our real-estate portfolio and it’s tenanted by McKinsey & Company, one of the market-leading “Big Three” in management consulting services to the Fortune 500 companies.

In a certain way, the Paucescu House is a sort of symbolic landmark of Bucharest. Defined as a place which embraces all contrasts, Bucharest combines the grayish feature of its industrial and peripheral neighborhoods with the outstanding architectural and historical patrimony scattered mainly in and around the central areas of the city. It is precisely in this respect that the Paucescu House is emblematic of Bucharest: it manages to combine into a single eclectic concept the glass and steel roughness of the contemporary architecture with the remainders of the classic elegance of the mid-19th century French Renaissance style. Originally the building was built as the residence of Grigore Paucescu a politician of the mid and late 19th century. This house was one of the hubs of the social, political and cultural life of Bucharest, undergoing skyrocket popularity with the cultural and political key-player of the city until the early 20th century.

The structure later became the embassy (legation) of Austro-Hungary, only to convert, during communist times in the headquarters of “Directia 5 – Securitate” the former Political Police arm for Protection & Guard Duty, with similar duties as the secret service in the United States. After the 1989 revolution and the years to come the building was abandoned, a sad sight hardly reminiscent of the splendor and glory of the former edifice, ravaged during the 1989 Revolution. At present, the Paucescu House is the main headquarters of the National Architects Union. Some tend to classify the building as one of the strangest structures in the world, others, on the contrary, consider it is emblematic of the lack of inspiration and poise of the local authorities in regard to preserving the historical patrimony of Bucharest. However, located in the Revolution Square, the Paucescu House offers a tourist spectacle virtually unparalleled by other sights in Bucharest. It is, without a doubt, an attraction not to be missed out while in Bucharest: a cubic glass and steel core rising above and defying a shell which hardly calls forth the spirit and the expression of the classic architecture.