Articles published by: Nickname

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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.

Text: Cosmin Caciuc / Photo: Cosmin Dragomir (Boldești-Scăeni)

In this issue we present some examples of good ecological thinking, that I would label as high green, due to their coherent, mature, integrated, financially prudent vision, and responsible, in a broad sense, for the future of the built environment: the education centre of Boldești‑Scăeni (Adrian Pop – Center for Sustainability in the Built Environment), a dossier of the 4th edition of Holcim Awards for sustainable construction, and VTree, a prototype of an urban autonomous mobile power generator from this year’s festival Street Delivery, in Bucharest, by Studio Act.

Between July 24th – August 1st an industrial heritage workshop will take place in Anina in the framework of the “Anina Mine of Ideas: Post-Industrial Cultural Identity” project initiated by Alba Verde Association in partnership with Anina Town hall, the Architects’ Chamber of Romania in Timiș, the Faculty of Architcture and Urbanism from Timișoara, and supported by The National Architects’ Chamber of Romania.

Conference & the last day of the Bucharest exhibition Connected. Things about Future, Cities and People

11 november 2014, h. 18:00 @  National Museum of Contemporary Art – MNAC

23 may 2014 @ Halele Carol [Carol Factory] (Str. Dr. Constantin Istrati no. 1, Bucharest)

conference, pop-exhibition & film screening

powered by Zeppelin & Eurodite

Project team: Zeppelin

Architects: Constantin Goagea, Anastasia David, Bogdan Petru Pana, Stefan Ghenciulescu, Adrian Dobre.

Interior finishes: Habitual

Furniture and woodwork: Acant Design

Decorative plaster: Baumit

Photo: Cosmin Dragomir