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Text: Alexandru Cristian Beșliu
Images: Carmelo Baglivo, BAN

For Carmelo Baglivo’s generation, formed in the 80’s, the architectural representation, the image, has become a fundamental ideological pursuit complementary to the project, yet a willfully autonomous one, free from the constraints of immediate realization. Carmelo’s collages and drawings capture the disorientation of someone who dares to interrogate the legacy and memory of modernity, of its “fathers”, its masterpieces and its myths.

It is generally difficult to rehabilitate Modernist works, balancing unavoidably radical interventions and the respect for your colleagues’ (and even your masters’) work. How do you deal, though, with minor, (semi)vernacular Modernism, devoid of any great historical value, but full of charm – and issues?

Interview: Alex Axinte

Co-founded by Constan­tin Petcou and Doina Petrescu, atelier d’architecture autogérée (aaa) is “a collective platform of research and action around urban change and emerging cultural, social and political practices in the contemporary city. aaa initiates and supports strategies of ecological transition involving citizen locally and internationally. aaa acts against global crisis (ecological, economic, political, social, etc) by creating the conditions for citizen to participate in the ecological transition and adopting resilient ways of  living. aaa functions within an open interdisciplinary network, where different viewpoints cross each other:  architects, artists, students, researchers, pensioners, politicians, activists, residents, etc.

Intro: Ștefan Ghenciulescu

“Four Walls and a Roof . The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession”. A book by Reinier de Graaf

Zeppelin rarely publishes “starchitects”. And when it does happen, it is mostly about an isolated project where, besides the fireworks (having their own value), there are also more important things: an (added) value as a public space, a smart urban transformation, beautiful spaces, innovation that will actually carry things on… Or because they express a phenomenon which needs to be critically discussed. Or, well, because it is what it is, and we all have our guilty pleasures.

Text: Oana Bogdan
Photo: Leo Van Broeck

As countries hurry to exit the pandemic lockdown, the discussions are focused on the choice between health and wealth. My point is that we don’t have to choose. Our health and the one of the planet we inhabit is our wealth. We could plot this exit starting from the cause of the pandemic: the way humans use land. This is the illness of Earth, this is what triggered COVID-19.

Text: Ștefan Ghenciulescu

Learn as you go

There is fear and sadness, feelings that all of us are experiencing. But there is also enthusiasm (a lot of it) and competence (more or less of it). Balkan-like bricolage and makeshift online solutions.

The history of modern architecture is full of dreams about dl flexibility and about solving the problem of living in a small space. If, as Louis Kahn said, the city is made of public corridors and rooms, maybe a good strategy for minimal dwelling could be thinking of an apartment as a continuation and interpretation of urban spaces, the final stage in the complex transition from total exposure to intimacy, from being together to being alone. The design as masterplan and the dweller as an entrepreneur and strategist of their own space: an answer to a system in which dwelling becomes a corporate business more than anything else and in which we can afford increasingly smaller houses and apartments.

Stardust’s Anca Cioarec and Brîndușa Tudor seem to be extremely comfortable on the scale that borders architecture and design. Each project is approached sensibly and with care: the space and the bolt become part of the same family, and the cultural references and the love for history are visible even in the smallest works or details.

Aviator Protopescu Street, Bucharest. An already refurbished old house, and that in a dubious way. A new house based on previous ones. An almost forced eclecticism a world of many spaces and elements

Text: Justin Baroncea
Project: Justin Baroncea, Dragoș Dragnea
Photo: Radu Malașincu, Andrei Mărgulescu

Project: Brandlhuber+ Emde, Burlon; Muck Petzet Architekten
Text: Ștefan Ghenciulescu
Photo: Laurian Ghinițoiu

Project listed as finalist at EU Mies van der Rohe Awards, 2019

Text: Ştefan Ghenciulescu
Photo: Cosmin Dragomir, Daniel Miro

The area defined by the Polonă and Eminescu Streets and Șoseaua Ștefan cel Mare is part of a rather old part of the Romania capital, Bucharest, with quiet streets, and all sorts of architecture, from imposing villas and pretty blocks of flats, to old slum houses. There are many poor people there, although the social structure is rapidly changing. It does not have the prestige and coherence of some of its adjoining neighbourhoods, and, as such, it also hardly contains any protected areas.

Text: Mugur Grosu

What can be more comforting when you get lost than the landmark on the map telling you where you are: you are here. Maybe a simple sign that indicates a destination. No wonder that in 2014 MoMA acquired for its permanent collection a representation of the red tear-shaped symbol that the Danish designer Jens Eilstrup Rasmussen had created for Google Maps.