A few weeks ago, I participated in a seminar on urban regeneration practices in Great Britain, organized by British Council as part of the project “To follow”.
At the end of the day, after the work session, I had an informal conversation with one of the invited architects, Fred Manson. He was eager to know about modern architecture in Romania, how it is and if it is produced and to what avail. Besides the few examples I could mention, I told him that it was a long-term project and that there was a strong opposition to modernity in Romania.
Unlike London, modernity is not opposed by old architecture, for instance, neo-Romanian or traditional vernacular, whatever we might understand by it; it is mostly blurred by hybrid constructions resulting from a compromise of unpalatable styles and languages. Moreover, all that belongs to the interwar period, art deco, cubism hardly escapes the demolishing frenzy sustained by real estate speculations.
The most important fact is, however, that it is hard to convert people to architectural modernism except by direct contamination. As I said some time ago, you cannot make fans unless modern architecture is directly experienced; our way of promoting it in the magazine does not help too much.
Then, Fred Manson told me about a huge project in London, “Open House London”, whose goal is to offer direct experience with modern quality architecture and open people’s minds and hearts. The project involves visits guided by architecture historians and journalists to sites usually closed to the public, including private houses and institutions. People walk about other people’s houses, see and understand the meaning of good contemporary architecture. They simply sign up for such guided sightseeing focused on certain areas and themes; they participate and discuss on the architecture they experience. If you are interested in the project, go to www.openhouse.org.uk where you can find more details about the story.
Of course, in London the resistance to modernity and contemporaneity is fueled by different sources than in Romania, yet the solution invites to education and dialogue, which shed an interesting light on the relation between people and the built environment. This points to the fact that the fracture between architecture and society can be mediated through educational programs that should not be done only in schools, which seems a bit exaggerated here and now.
However, we have no reason to be pessimistic, because the Romanians learn good things fast and passionately.
