(b Bolintin Deal, Giurgiu, 5 July 1872; d Bucharest, 15 Jan 1955). Romanian architect. He studied (1895–8) at the Politecnico, Milan, then returned to Romania and became a follower of ION MINCU. Cerchez emerged as a leading representative of the ‘neo-Romanian’ style and as a keen student of Romanian vernacular architecture and decorative arts and of the medieval monuments of Wallachia. He promoted the ‘neo-Romanian’ style both in print as a writer, with drawings, photographs and articles, and through his architectural projects, in which he attempted a more urban ‘neo-Romanian’ style, without Byzantine Revival elements. The most successful example is the villa for Dr Minovici (1910; now the Minovici Museum of Folk Art), Bucharest. Its plans preserve the traditional form of a one-storey house from Oltenia. In the elevation, however, Cerchez freely interpreted various elements of vernacular architecture, for instance in the bell-tower, the watch-tower and four-tier roof. The traditional materials of stone, brick, tile and enamelled ceramic contribute character and tonality to a distinctive building, which is stylistically consistent in execution. Cerchez also executed monumental public and official buildings, characterized by conventional late 19th-century eclecticism or by turn-of-the-century variations. The latter is exemplified in the Franco-Romanian Bank Building (1909; now the Consular Section of the Czech Embassy), Ion Ghica Street, Bucharest.

• Cerchez, Cristofi
  • Romania, §II, 3: Architecture, after c 1800