Architecture.
City.
Society.

On simplicity, luxury and the influence of biographical context on creative people

There’s an advertisement touring social media: a res­idential complex now under construction in Bucha­rest consisting in a taller, uglier, and more cramped precinct of blocks than those built in the last years of Ceaușescu’s time.

eematico was awarded first prize at the Civil Society Gala (Romania, 2022) in the Learning, Education and Research category for the project „Architecture Kit.”

The main objective of the northern extension of the Paris Métro Line 14 was to relieve the saturation of Line 13.

The restoration history of the building with few apartments at 1, Sf. Ștefan square, Bucharest, and the remodelling and lay-out of its attic is, in itself, anything but spectacular.

Perhaps the most frequent project title found on mandatory construction site panels in Bucharest is that of “Rehabilitation and expansion”. Text, photo: Ștefan Ghenciulescu

The same and not the same Text: Ștefan Ghenciulescu There are (famous!) offices undergoing a frantic evolution. And this comes from the desire to be abreast with the time and to respond to new situations and means, the legitimate fear of limiting to one single stile and, often, the obsession to stay visible and relevant, […]

A navy blue, wooden-floored tube ending in a kitchen, on the ground floor of a Nerva Traian apartment building. Text: Justin Baroncea Photo: Andrei Mărgulescu

Since 1931… Ah! Since then, everything completely changed. Lola, Carmen, Angelita, Rosario, María…, abandoned bobbin lacemaking forever and became militants. “Women from all over Spain. Who will they vote for?” Estampa: Revista gráfica, 1936  

Intro: Cătălina Frâncu The following two projects have in common the mediation between the human and the “natural” factor. This human-nature dichotomy was created long ago, and it has come to pit one against the other, giving rise to hyperpopulated, hyperactive and hyperbetonated cities.

Text: Ştefan Davidovici Steinberg is for me, first of all, the New Yorker magazine – one of the most intelligent and open American publications, with a very distinct graphic style that includes a generous use of drawings and cartoons, born and fed by the amazingly rich cultural landscape of New York City.

Restrained monumentalitaty and delicate grain: this high-rise apartment building elegantly balances the various scales and urban situations.

A Modernist block of apartments, typical of inter-war Bucharest, of the type that is nowadays demolished or butchered without any remorse. Here, it is carefully and respectfully restored and highlighted. Then, the new building, set against the old one, but not in a radical, ostentatious manner, but through subtle weaving.

A micro-city to work on, talk about and present art. Demolition scraps, found objects and new construction, architecture and furniture, the exterior and interior hybridize each other and turn the former car workshop into an extension of urban space. Text: João Gonçalo Lopes Photo: João Matos, Inês Costa Monteiro The initial brief was to convert […]

A complex functional assembly which brings energy to the German post‑industrial historical city centre of Oberhausen, where urban agriculture, offices, and a track combine.

The scale regeneration of an entire romanian city, and not of an energic metropolis, but of a post-industrial town, is the subject of a Dossier coordinated by Lorena Brează & Mugur Grosu