Rolul municipalității în introducerea gheții artificiale în București (1902–1910)
The Role of the City Hall in the Introduction of Artificial Ice in Bucharest (1902–1910)

Summary/Abstract: The paper analyses the transition from the use of natural ice to that of artificial one, in Bucharest at the beginning of twentieth century, and the central role played by the city municipality. The ice played an important role in the food chain, before the advent of refrigerating technologies, as it was essential for preservation of foods, especially perishable ones like meat or fish. From the last decade of the 19th century, the medical profession was more and more concerned with the bacteriological hazards associated with natural ice, and had pressed for the introduction of artificial ice. In 1902, a warm winter had generated an ice crisis, which in turn prompted the City Hall to construct an artificial ice factory. It was a complicated process, made more challenging by the very short terms and by the necessity to import the installation from Western Europe. The inevitable delays resulted in a long and protracted conflict between the Borsig Company and the City Hall. In the following years, cold winters assured a sufficient supply of natural ice, and the municipal factory was neglected. In 1910, when a new crisis occurred, the old factory proved unusable and had to be replaced with a new one, soon completed with cold storage rooms. The municipality did not envisage the ice factory as an economic venture, but treated it more like a public service. The price of ice was set low, and the ice was distributed preferentially to those branches of the food chain where its absence would have caused the greatest dangers for consumers.

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