Articles published by: Nickname

Maybe you know about the Romanian-Bulgarian pseudo-rivalry. Beyond tourism or corruption issues, we, for instance, have a contemporary art museum for which the Bulgarians do envy us; however, in Sofia, they have sidewalks better than ours, their traffic seems more civilized, and why not saying it, they are net winners on the side of cafés or public spaces, parks and squares. This is to set lights and shadows rightly in this nice picture of an imaginary battle. 

In Romania, a car-obsessed country, the application of European mobility policies oscillates between the enunciation of general principles, the promotion campaigns and the uncorrelated partial actions.

What a thing this colouring of the blocks. If you ever moaned about it (no one who would have felt differently than that) that all blocks are alike, that they are boring and ugly, please come now and see that there is no difference at all anymore.

Metropolis Center articulates the concrete curtain of Bucharest’s inner city ring and the historical fabric behind it and defines a genuine public space.

This project is far more than a mere rehabilitation and extension of an historical ensemble. In this strictly private development project, urban surgery combines with the creation of a public space.

The crew is ready to take off, the people have fastened their belts in their seats (or in a comfortable coach or against our school’s famous radiators) and are ready to read zeppelin. Dear readers, we should tell you that from among thousands charming stories the name under which our journal has been picked to go on signifies the capacity to soar, to dare high, and to meditate.

We, you, the media, various people in culture keep on discussing about the public space. And we start to feel the impact of those speeches. Perhaps not the best ones if we think about the explosion of jardinières, fences, bins  which, most recently, easily turn into a public space agenda for certain town halls.

The building site containers were set up around Bucharest’s National Theatre. According to a project delayed for a couple of years, the theatre is supposed to be reinforced and modernized in the next three years starting from this autumn. The process will involve the dismantling the arcaded façade ordered by Ceausescu in the 1980s; the initial façade will be put in place along with the cantilevered roof, which means that the original project designed by Horia Maicu, Nicolae Cucu, and Romeo Belea will be followed in its outlines.

The house on the outskirts of Sibiu is gently placed on a difficult plot and finds a subtle balance between openness and protection.

The house is located in a residential area with lots of terrains whose shapes and sizes come out further to plotting a steep land. After the Revolution, these plots offering a double access from the edging streets have been subdivided in an uncontrolled manner.

I would have never believed to pick up again the topic of Buzesti-Uranus axis that soon (see issue 91). “The Platform for Bucharest”, other NGO’s and the media have brought before justice a decision of Bucharest Municipality and the court pronounced the Master Plan of the operation illegal.

Exhibition at the National Museum of Contemporary Art – Bucharest, 14.05.2011 – 31.07.2011
Curator: Ruxandra Balaci

Dust poisoning, dreams and stereotypes cut out off the media, everyday experience among Berceni blocks of flats, some contagious humour, destabilized framing, light-headed stylistic collages, mixed cultural allusions and colour hallucinations are part of the aesthetic ammunition of artist Nicolae Comanescu whose paintings propose unusual trips among actual urban deeds and collective imaginary.