Historia Universitatis Iassiensis 10, 173–200
Abstract. The marine biological station “Prof. Dr. Ioan Borcea” in Agigea-Constanța, founded in 1926 as part of the Faculty of Sciences, established itself as a research centre at European level, despite situations that were not favourable to the scien-tific activity (loss of land, destruction and degradation of buildings or lack of materials essential for research). Unfortunately, the current state of the research did not allow us to form, as we initially proposed, a complete picture of the resort’s heritage, resulting only a profile and a series of questions that we cannot yet answer. From the beginning, the resort had five buildings that were gradually adapted to be able to research the marine ecosystems. The buildings were repaired, expanded and sometimes even destroyed in order to design new ones. Along the way, a number of projects were initiated for the refurbishment, exten-sion and renovation of the resort, but they were not successful due to the political context and the institutional changes in the ’70s that merged the research insti-tutes. The decision, with a negative impact on the immovable heritage, led to its degradation. And regarding the situation of the resort land, we identify several changes. With a significant area at the moment of its establishment, it expanded visibly, and at the time of the outbreak of World War II had significant access to the sea, as well as a natural reservation. In the post-war period, there were a series of disputes with the local authorities and the people within the area that affected the territory of the resort, which lost its access to the sea. The inventory of the resort was a thematic one, designed for scientific research. It had a very well-equipped library with specialized books and a museum with the most representative disco-veries of the resort’s researchers. However, the administrative changes in 1970 led to the destruction of the library and the loss of museum exhibits. Although for 20 years, there was a process of degradation of the resort and its heritage, once the resort was subordinated to the University, in 1990, it resumed its primary research role, being gradually equipped with the inventory necessary for the scientific activity.
