{"id":12467,"date":"2021-11-24T23:03:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T23:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e-zeppelin.ro\/en\/?p=12467"},"modified":"2021-11-24T23:03:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-24T23:03:00","slug":"adn-ba-millo-offices-bucharest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e-zeppelin.ro\/en\/adn-ba-millo-offices-bucharest\/","title":{"rendered":"ADN BA: Millo Offices, Bucharest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A precious place<\/strong><\/p>\n

… and a complicated one. Around the Calea Victoriei area, between the Revoluției Square and the Elisabeta Boulevard, most historical streets are overlapping, from the sinuous, typically Balkan route of Calea Victoriei and the wonderful Kretzulescu church, to the eclecticism of late 19th-century public buildings and houses and then to the flamboyant Neo-Romanian and the Modernist Art-Deco elegance of the 1930s. The post-war period gave us, first and foremost, the Palace Hall and Square complex, an urban operation which entailed significant destructions and difficult relationships with the urban fabric beyond it, but holding genuine urban and architectural qualities.<\/p>\n

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Text: Ștefan Ghenciulescu
\n<\/strong>Photo: Ştefan Tuchilă, Laurian Ghiniţoiu, Adrien Guitard<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Until recently, the latest intervention had been nowadays’ Novotel, a commercial architecture implanted during the mid-2000s where the old National Theatre once reigned. This building, loved by Bucharest dwellers, was part of a wider assembly, together with the small platform in front of it, the Telephone Palace miniature skyscraper (an American-Romanian project), and the Adriatica Modernist building. Severely damaged by the 1944 German bombardments, the theatre could have been restored. But the Communist regime decided to eliminate it, leaving behind a huge gap right in the heart of the city.<\/p>\n

After 1990, instead of a public building or space, it was preferred, typical of our savage capitalism, to surrender the land to private investment. In exchange, the city received a false ruin, a light material reconstruction of the original portico: the reinvented past became a decor within a commercial architecture.<\/p>\n

Millo Office is the first intervention on a larger scale in this area many years later. The other side of the Matei Millo street hosts the building site of the Tandem office building, a project by the same investor and by the same architects.<\/p>\n

$\"02_AB_copyright_laurianghinitoiu_adn_millo_zeppelin$ <\/a>*Aerial view of much of the central area in Bucharest. Right from Millo Office, the Tandem building, under construction ©Laurian Ghiniţoiu
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A large building and a different type of function <\/strong><\/p>\n

Personally, I am not convinced the area is in need of densification. But the pressure is high, as is everywhere downtown, and, perhaps, high yet civilized insertions on free land are better than demolitions which, as we can see, have intensified, even in the vicinity of the new building. On the other hand, I believe that situations should be considered individually. Here, we are not dealing with a homogenous, low-rise fabric, but, as we were discussing above, with an energetic overlay of landmarks and layers. Unity is provided mainly by the public space – the changes in direction and the respites on Calea Victoriei, the contrast between the urban intensity of the main historical axis and the relative quietness of nearby streets – and by the architectural value of most existing buildings.<\/p>\n

In this case, I believe that a good insertion entails a few qualities, beyond the discussion about square meters. These qualities include human scale and discretion. Here, architecture should not yell, should be friendly to its older neighbours and to the city dwellers, should avoid the monolith image, should include details to be discovered upon closer inspection. The urban offer is just as important – how open and active the building is, what the city receives as public spaces and energy. Connected to these, and rarely mentioned, are functional structure and richness. Calea Victoriei hosts mainly culture and commerce, a fragile commerce as, in Romania, malls, and not prestigious shopping streets, are attracting prestigious shops. I believe that if a massive shopping centre were built here, it would prove deadly to the small traders and city life. But there is great need for complementary functions: while housing can only be a luxury one, and difficult to insert,work could be quite welcome. We could thus populate downtown with the active people who would otherwise occupy the business areas which have packed the Bucharest outskirts – areas which are obviously prone to freezing out once working hours are over.<\/p>\n

Finally, and more difficult to quantify, an insertion should not only be discreet, but also valuable as architecture, from shape and spaces to construction, materials, details. Architectural quality is an essential requirement when granting building permits in such areas in European metropolises, it is non-existent in our legislation, and less important to most investors.
\nI will discuss this project mainly according to these criteria.<\/p>\n

$\"07_A_(c)Stefan_Tuchila_03_0151_A7_1677\"$ <\/a>*View from Ion Câmpineanu Street ©Ştefan Tuchilă<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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The building and the city<\/strong><\/p>\n

The new building connects, as it should, to Novotel’s blind wall. A first, apparently minor, gesture, is the withdrawal after the 6th floor. This creates a welcome break in a massive common volume, also allowing illumination on all 4 facades. The light metal structure mounted on the dead wall will support a vertical garden. This cutout also shapes an image that fluctuates between the well-behaved completion of a building front and the isolated landmark. Especially seen from Câmpineanu Street, this urban landmark is quite welcome.<\/p>\n

The recess on the opposite side of the land clears a public access passage, which connects the Matei Millo and Ion Câmpineanu streets.<\/p>\n

$\"01_A_(c)Stefan_Tuchila_07_0055_A7_1581\"$ <\/a>*View from the new pedestrian passage between the streets Câmpineanu (left) and Matei Millo ©Ştefan Tuchilă<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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It is a very good gesture, but is in fact just a beginning: the architects’ and owner’s hope is that the construction to be erected on the neighbouring land should also be withdrawn, and that the resulting, much more generous space, should be laid out as a unitary passage-piazza. For now, the terraced landscape is only continued on the inside, through the two ground floor porticoes and the very transparent entry hall. This in itself is a gesture of urban civilisation that is quite rare in Bucharest, but I think it is also important how it continues, and perhaps interprets, the rows of Câmpineanu street porticos.<\/p>\n

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