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.