Architecture.
City.
Society.
Foto: © Ștefan Tuchilă
Motto: “Don’t tell anyone, but I always wanted to be mayor!” (“Show me a hero,” 2015)
What would happen if the local residents of one of the less fortunate side of Bucharest would take their fate into their own hands? If they tapped the potential and advantages of the place, if they multiplied the good things that are already happening there? With these questions in mind, we launched an art project dedicated to the southern half of Bucharest and its inhabitants.
A Zeppelin book about scrap design and micro-architecture: recycling, pop, economics, low-tech, neorealism and some poetics.
Volume nominated for the National Architecture Biennale 2016 – Architecture Publications
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.
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:
Architecture.
City.
Society.