Constanța

Constanța's seafront casino records the ambitions and changing decisions of an early twentieth-century port city. Daniel Renard was commissioned in 1903, but a political change brought Petre Antonescu into the project before Renard returned in 1907–1908. The resulting Art Nouveau building opened on 15 August 1910 in the presence of Prince Ferdinand. It followed earlier wooden casino structures on the waterfront, replacing temporary arrangements with a more substantial public landmark. Its architectural history is therefore a sequence of competing plans and revisions as well as a familiar silhouette beside the Black Sea.