1922
Paul, or “Paulică,” as he was known to his friends throughout his life, was born in Sinaia on July 17, the third son of Vladimir and Elena Bortnowski. His father was the son of a Polish refugee who had settled in Botoșani around 1864. Vladimir moved to Sinaia before the First World War, where he established a construction company. Many houses and public buildings in Sinaia were designed and built by him in collaboration with renowned architects of the time. He shared a particularly close friendship with the architect Paul Smărăndescu, who might even have become Paul’s godfather had he not been prevented from attending the christening by a snowstorm.
1932
His father’s profession and professional ethics had an evident influence on the lives of all three sons: Stănică, the eldest brother, became an architect; Vladimir, known as Puiu, became a structural engineer; and Paul too would follow the path of architecture. Their mother Elena, born in Giurgiu, constantly showed great warmth and affection toward her three children, something Paul often recalled throughout his life.
After completing primary school in Sinaia, when the time came for Paul to attend high school, the family moved to Bucharest, to the neighborhood behind the Patriarchate Hill, near Carol Park. Paul attended Mihai Eminescu High School.
1941
He enrolled at the “Ion Mincu” School of Architecture in Bucharest, where his professors included Constantin Iotzu and Haralamb Georgescu. The war affected the fate of the Bortnowski family, as it did so many Romanian families. The two older brothers served on the Eastern Front and managed to survive. Paul was conscripted too late to fight at the front.
1941
As a student, he worked in the offices of several established architects of the period — Creangă, Georgescu, and Doicescu — and also in the architectural service of the Royal Estates in Sinaia under the guidance of the architect Jean Ernest.
1949
His modernist diploma project, entitled “The Architect’s House,” was criticized for its “formalism.”
1951
After graduation, employed at the Chamber of Foreign Trade, he designed exhibition environments for Romanian pavilions at several international fairs.
Encouraged by Liviu Ciulei, with whom he had studied at university and formed a lifelong friendship, he decided to temporarily abandon “pure” architecture and enter the field of film set design. His first films — Mitrea Cocor, Nepoții Gornistului, and Răsare Soarele — bore the artistic expression of the Stalinist period.
He worked together with Liviu Ciulei and Mircea Bodianu on the film Erupția.
1956
He made his debut as a theatre set designer with the play Cauțiunea by Hans Locke (in collaboration with Mircea Bodianu) at the Film Actor’s Studio in Bucharest.
1958
At the Municipal Theatre (later the Lucia Sturdza Bulandra Theatre), he designed the sets for The Rainmaker by Richard Nash, directed by Liviu Ciulei. The costumes were created by Maria Bortnowski, the wife of his elder brother, Stănică. At the Municipal Theatre he collaborated with major directors such as Liviu Ciulei, Lucian Pintilie, Radu Penciulescu, Dinu Negreanu, Dinu Cernescu, Mony Ghelerter, and Valeriu Moisescu. He would also design sets for theatres in Iași, Oradea, Târgu Mureș, Brașov, Galați, and Brăila.
1962
Among others, the sets for productions such as Caesar and Cleopatra by Bernard Shaw, My Heart’s in the Highlandsby William Saroyan, Holiday Games by Mihail Sebastian, I Am Not the Eiffel Tower by Ecaterina Oproiu, The Death of Danton by Georg Büchner, The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare, and Exit the King by Eugène Ionesco marked his work of the 1960s.