Articles published by: Nickname

The 10 years construction period of this villa on the shores of a lake on the outskirts of Bucharest allows to read the evolution of the architectural philosophy of Starh office.

Over 110 museums are now disappearing because the previously nationalized buildings are given back to their rightful owners. Local administrations, which have the right to buy them back, are not interested or have no funding. Thus, essential urban public places vanish, and sometimes incredible collections will com­pletely disappear. A recent exhibition and installation at the Museum of the Romanian Peasant was meant to raise awareness about this shameful development.

Text: Cosmin Caciuc
Illustrations: Urban Regeneration workshop #Tudordurabil

A few dozen students and professors from the Faculty of Architecture in Strasbourg and supervisors from Brussels had a clear vision on the way the public space can be improved with minimal resources and interventions, following an urban regeneration workshop for Tudor neigh­borhood in Târgu Mureș:

Text: Ștefan Ghenciulescu
Photo: Irina Pata

It is quite difficult to write an editorial about architecture and the city after the tragedy from Club Colectiv. The number of victims is growing, and among them there is a large number of architects and urban planners.

• Album launch: „Dwelling together. 6 apartment buildings by ADN BA”
• Conference: Andrei Șerbescu, Adrian Untaru, Bogdan Brădățeanu

Book on sale now

Volume nominated for the Bucharest Architecture Annual Awards 2016 –  Architecture Books 

We go on a journey through trees that give energy, artificial organisms, invented materials, old factories that become centers of a new urban culture. New types of practice are changing architecture, design and cities in Romania. The context is difficult, the resources are ridiculously low. So what? You find your courage, do it yourself at a superior level, invent and, most importantly, you work with others.

Text & photo: Ștefan Ghenciulescu

This article is not about the already famous gigantic cross with twinkling lights proposed for University Sq as a monument to the 1989 Revolution; it is only the latest in a series of authoritarian and pompous actions that have been rained upon us from various city administrations in the past years. Impaled potatoes, grotesque busts, monstrous princes, cumbersome allegories…

Beyond the lack of artistic culture of the commissioners and the fact that they waive any advice or public consultation, the problem seems to be the need for bombastic: in order to remember or simply to honor something good and beautiful, you must exaggerate, look for grandeur, size, magnitude and maximum visibility. They must be seen, literally jump at you. Otherwise, the monument doesn’t work, it seems.

Let’s not beat around the bush: those of us who do not live in the southern part of Bucharest rarely go there, unless we have some specific reason. Exceptions are usually parks and malls.

Traditionally the poorest side of Bucharest, the South received a new blow with the demolitions and especially Ceaușescu’s sinister avenue, which literally cut the town in half and isolated the south even deeper.

The city is moving. Even on the other side of Unirii Boulevard: a new green area in Văcăreşti, galleries, art and design centres appear in old factories, cool bars and restaurants and vanguard entrepreneurship. The isolated and forgotten South breeds today one of the busiest areas.

We explored the southern side of the capital, with two specific themes in mind: new cultural, social and business initiatives and transforming industrial spaces. As a result, in Carol Factory there were three events on October 21st:

Text: Cosmin Caciuc

In this issue we are publishing a dossier with projects rewarded at the European Award for Architectural Heritage Intervention AADIPA. These biennial awards organized with Catalan support occurred in the professional continental landscape only recently, in 2013. Unlike other famous European awards, such as those dedicated to the Eu Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Awards (from 2002, focusing on heritage conservation), The European Prize for Urban Public Space (from 1999, focusing on new urban interventions) and the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award (1998, for new architectural projects) AADIPA awards deal with a niche mediating between heritage and contemporary examples. It is an important signal of the need to reconcile social attitudes divided between history and modernization, of the strategic importance for the development of urban heritage, providing even a guide of best practices in protected areas, where integration and coexistence are fundamental keys to awareness and understanding.