Bucharest didn’t grow only through boulevards and housing blocks, but also through the factories that pulled in people, housing and infrastructure. Two landmarks — the Ford hall in Floreasca and the APACA textile platform — bookend a long arc of history: from interwar modernisation to communist-era industrialisation and the post-1990 wave of reconversions. The first metro line, opened in 1979, even linked two industrial platforms, Semănătoarea and Timpuri Noi — a reminder that factories once dictated the logic of transport.

Ford Floreasca: the promise of interwar modernity

In 1936, Ford opened an assembly hall at 159–165 Calea Floreasca. The modernist building, designed with architect Paul Emil Miclescu and Romanian engineers, assembled Ford V8 cars and put Floreasca on the city’s industrial map. Activity slowed with the war and ended after 1948, when the site entered the new state-run industrial system.

What followed matters, too: on the same plot operated “Automatica”, a plant for measurement and control equipment — a case of industrial continuity under a different economic logic. In recent years, the former Ford hall — now a listed monument — entered a restoration and reconversion process, with debates around interventions and the real-estate developments reshaping the area. How you protect an industrial landmark in a transforming neighbourhood remains an open question.

APACA: a “factory-city” that set the district’s rhythm

APACA became shorthand for one of Bucharest’s largest clothing platforms. Its roots go back to the 19th century, but its peak came in the second half of the 20th, when it worked like a social ecosystem: tens of thousands of people — mostly women — clocked in here. Estimates from the period speak of around 18,000 employees before 1989 — the size of a small town.

APACA’s story also carried a propagandistic edge, including the famous claim that part of the platform was “raised in 97 days”, a showcase of industrialisation. After 1990, privatisations fragmented the complex; the platform turned into a mix of halls, offices and small businesses. It’s a typical Bucharest reconversion: the economy shifts, and industrial spaces are sublet to the city’s new services.

Factory and city: how infrastructure is born

When the metro arrived in 1979, its inaugural line ran precisely between two platforms: Semănătoarea and Timpuri Noi. The first section (about 8–9 km, six stations) was designed for industrial commuter flows. It may read like a curiosity today, but it shows clearly how production once organised mobility and set urban priorities.

Semănătoarea: from combines to Sema Parc

On Splaiul Independenței, “Semănătoarea” was turning out thousands of combine harvesters in the 1980s and employed nearly 9,000 people. After 1990, the plant went through rounds of privatisation and downsizing. Today its name survives in toponymy (the former metro station) and in the Sema Parc redevelopment — a textbook case of heavy industry replaced by offices, services and leisure.

Grivița: working-class memory and visible traces

North of Gara de Nord, the CFR Grivița railway workshops — today’s Griro — carry one of the city’s strongest working-class memories, tied to the 1933 strike. Commemorative plaques remain inside the compound, and specialists still debate how to convert this industrial heritage. In Grivița, social history and technical patrimony overlap on the same map.

IMGB / “23 August”: the city of the south

In the south, IMGB — the pride of 1960s heavy industry — shaped housing, transport and identity for large swathes of Berceni. The plant’s fate, with successive privatisations after 1990, mirrors the vulnerabilities of heavy industry in a changing economy.

Why these places matter

Ford, APACA, Semănătoarea, Grivița and IMGB are more than addresses. They explain why certain metro stations sit where they do, why some boulevards swell at specific hours, why neighbourhoods grew along rail lines or service corridors. When these sites vanish or change, the city loses bearings — but gains a chance to reconvert intelligently. True restoration (not just façadism), keeping visible technical elements in new projects, and on-site storytelling are concrete steps toward a Bucharest that recognises its industrial past.