Few places in Bucharest can tell a story that so gracefully intertwines art history, feminine aesthetics, and urban transformation as the corner of Magheru Boulevard and Arthur Verona Street. Here, where today stands a modern supermarket, there once existed one of the capital’s most refined cultural institutions, the Simu Museum. Built in 1910, the edifice was inspired by the Ionic temple Erechtheion of Athens and housed an impressive collection of paintings, sculptures, graphic art, and decorative pieces.

from the temple of art to the temple of feminine consumption

The collection was the work of a single man, Anastase Simu, a nobleman and patron of the arts who lived by the motto “Not only for ourselves, but also for others.” His building became a true temple of Romanian and European art, a space dedicated to the public’s aesthetic education. 

For over five decades, the museum was a landmark for art lovers, until 1961, when the communist regime decided to demolish it — an act that left a deep wound in the city’s cultural memory. 

Symbolically, on the site of this temple of art, another kind of “temple of beauty” would soon appear — one dedicated to women, but built according to the logic of a planned economy: the Eva store.

The birth of the eva store – a “mall” before malls existed

At its beginnings, the Eva store was conceived as a revolutionary commercial space for its time. In an era when socialist commerce was rigid and unimaginative, Eva brought a cosmopolitan air, being presented as a store exclusively dedicated to women. Structured on two levels, it was a kind of “mall avant la lettre,” with a diversified offer and an aesthetic designed to flatter feminine tastes.

On the ground floor, there were clothing items, footwear, and perfumes — the essentials for women who wanted to follow fashion trends, even within the limitations imposed by the centralized economy. 

The first floor was dedicated to household goods, especially kitchen utensils, meant to complete the image of the ideal woman promoted by communist propaganda: elegant yet diligent, graceful yet loyal to domestic and national duties. 

The store’s layout was neat and airy, and its décor, though modest, sought to reproduce the atmosphere of Western department stores whose images sometimes reached Romania through rare magazines or films.

Eva was undoubtedly an innovation in Romanian commerce of the 1960s, but it was also a tool of propaganda. In an era when the state sought to build the “new man” and eliminate capitalist influence, the creation of a store for modern women was an attempt to reconcile ideology with the desire for refinement. The communist woman was expected to be beautiful, efficient, and modest, yet faithful to national ideals.

Local fashion and the contradictions of the system

One of the most interesting aspects of the Eva store was its nationalist foundation. The communist authorities had decided that only Romanian-made products would be sold there. 

Propaganda newspapers presented this as a gesture of patriotic pride: Romanian fashion was described as the epitome of elegance, while local textiles, perfumes, and accessories were claimed to rival those of Europe.

In reality, things were quite different. Romanian fabrics were coarse, colors dull, and cuts outdated. The contradiction became evident when citizens saw on television the outfits worn by Elena Ceaușescu and the women from the ruling elite: silk suits, fine textiles, imported perfumes. 

In contrast, the ordinary woman who entered Eva faced a modest selection, designed more to serve ideological purposes than aesthetic ones.

Still, Eva remained a favorite destination simply because alternatives were scarce. With some luck, one could find a slightly more refined cosmetic product or a clothing item that stood out from the rest. In a society of shortages, Eva became a symbol of aspiration — a place where women could at least dream of elegance.

The 1970s and 1980s – the decline of elegance and the rise of the “block stylists”

By the late 1970s, the store’s aura had begun to fade. The economy was in decline, and material shortages meant emptier shelves. 

The once-celebrated “mall” of communist women had turned into a ghost of its former self: outdated clothing, heavy fabrics, faded colors. Romanian fashion had lost touch with reality, and women no longer believed in the ideals promoted by the state.

In this context, a typically Romanian phenomenon emerged: neighborhood tailors became true artists. Women bought fabric by the meter, often from Eva, and brought it to skilled tailors who, through imagination and craftsmanship, transformed ordinary cloth into elegant dresses. 

These improvised workshops were real creative laboratories, where “ordinary” seamstresses became the Versaces of their time, and Romanian women managed to express their individuality through ingenuity rather than consumption.

Thus, even as its glamour faded, the Eva store continued to play a role: it was the starting point of countless sartorial dreams. Behind every handmade dress was a story of cultural resistance — an attempt to preserve dignity and beauty in a system that demanded uniformity.

The fate of the store after 1989

After the 1989 Revolution, the Eva store’s space went through a long period of transition, much like the entire city center. Magheru Boulevard, once elegant and lively, became an area of contrasts where old communist buildings coexist with modern offices and shops. In this new urban landscape, Eva lost its original function but remained a valuable property.

In 2007, the Cypriot investment fund Bluehouse Capital purchased the property, and in 2014 the Mega Image supermarket chain opened a store there, redesigning the interior to fit modern retail needs. The total surface area of the building — approximately 1,700 square meters — was thus reintegrated into the economic fabric of the capital, albeit stripped of its former identity.

In 2024, the space was sold again, this time to a Romanian investor, businessman Vlad Papuc, for eight million euros. The entrepreneur, known for his ventures in transportation and car body manufacturing, declared himself “happy with Mega Image as a tenant” and said he had no plans to change the property’s current function. 

His decision reflects a broader trend in the modern real estate market: centrally located commercial spaces, leased long-term to large retail operators, are seen as secure and profitable investments.

Eduard Beuran, a representative of SVN Romania, noted the “increased appetite among investors for properties rented by food retail chains,” predicting that such spaces would continue to generate high returns. From this perspective, the Eva store, even in its new incarnation, remains economically significant within Bucharest’s urban dynamics.

Between memory and modernity

Viewed historically, the fate of the Eva store perfectly mirrors the city’s transformations: from the Belle Époque refinement of the Simu Museum, to the uniformity of communism, and finally to the pragmatism of post-1989 capitalism. Each stage left its mark on both the physical space and collective memory.

For generations of women who lived through the 1960s–1980s, Eva was more than a store; it was a symbol of femininity in a gray world. It was where one could hope to find a colorful scarf, a bottle of perfume, or a dress with a modern cut. Even when the shelves were empty, simply walking into the store and dreaming of beauty was a quiet act of escape.

Today, passersby who enter the supermarket on Magheru Boulevard are unaware that they tread on the foundations of a former museum and one of communist Bucharest’s most emblematic women’s stores. Few still remember the stained-glass windows of the Simu Museum or the glamorous window displays of Eva. Yet both buildings, in their time, served the same purpose: to bring beauty into people’s lives — whether through art or commerce.

A space that tells the story of a century of Bucharest

The story of the Eva store is, at its core, the story of a capital city that has reinvented itself countless times. In one single corner of a boulevard, more than 115 years of history coexist: a museum inspired by ancient Greece, a socialist-era store dedicated to women, and a contemporary supermarket.

From Anastase Simu — the art collector who believed in “art for everyone” — to the women who sewed their own clothes in the 1980s, and finally to the investors of today who calculate yields and rent values, all these figures belong to the same urban narrative. What has changed is merely our understanding of “beauty” and “value”: once defined by art, later by fashion, and now by economic efficiency.

The former Eva store thus remains a mirror of Bucharest itself — a city caught between memory and modernity, between aesthetic ideals and pragmatic needs. Even though its shelves now hold groceries instead of elegant dresses, the place still carries a powerful symbolic legacy: that of femininity, taste, and the enduring search for beauty in a constantly changing society.

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