TITLE: From the Coliseum to the Renaissance: the production of European atmospheres in two

gated communities in Chiinu.

AUTHOR: Giuseppe Tateo (PhD candidate, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.
tateo@eth.mpg.de)

SHORT ABSTRACT:

Taking into account two newly developed gated communities, Coliseum Palace and Renaissance
City, this paper shows how the ongoing process of Europeanization in the Moldovan capital
actually unfolds in its real estate market.

LONG ABSTRACT:

Like in many other post-communist cities, the urban real estate market in Chiinu is currently
undergoing a stark financialisation. The consequent rapid differentiation of housing supply is
partly exemplified by the exploitation of a distinctly European symbolism. Thus it has become
popular among the Moldovan elite to opt for estates built in such architectural language and
literally separate it from the rest of the urban fabric. Focusing on similar gated communities in
China, in the last decade scholars from different disciplines have defined the current
developments of this housing solution as transplanting cityscapes, highlighting the underlying
conscious action by developers to exploit globalization (Zhang 2010, Wu 2004).

Aiming for difference is definitely a core aspect of gated communities, but I argue that the
Moldovan examples offer complexities beyond this. Evoking different spatial and/or temporal
locations, these developments are heterotopias, (and heterochronias) in the Foucauldian sense.
European Renaissance or Ancient Rome are imaginary settings that become blueprints for the
present in these locations.

The concept of Utopia, widely used in the literature concerning privately gated complexes,
cannot grasp the messiness of spatial and temporal orientations present in these communities,
where the proposed future can easily be someone elses imagined past. One of the most
important commodities provided by recent gated communities is precisely their potential to make
customers feel in another location as opposed to a vaguely defined paradise. Using the two above
mentioned sites I will analyse how developers utilise images of Europe to create such
heterotopias.