Initiatives / Experiments / Visions

HerculaneProject

Principal author
Asociația Locus
Profession
studenți arhitecți
Co-authors (team members)
dr.arh. Bogdan Demetrescu, ing. Cornel Farcaș
Collaborators (team members)
Oana Chirilă, Patricia Blidariu, Cristina Apostol, Răzvan Popescu, Adrian Boianț, Daniel Antoci
External collaborators
Platforma România 100, MakeBetter, IdeiLaGram, Asociația Tinerilor din Herculane, BlackLight, MelnyTopo, Direcția Județeană de Cultură Caraș Severin
Project year
2017
Location
Băile Herculane
Client
Primăria Băile Herculane
Project description
With the culmination of inspired young people, a great, if not the best, natural scenery and built environment, and some misunderstood issues, an initiative sees the light of day, one that promises a lot and is carried away tirelessly by our strong team. As follows there are our story, the story of the place we fell in love with, and also our ambitious plans. Băile Herculane is one of the oldest balneoclimateric resorts in Romania and one of the oldest resorts in the world. The uninterrupted existence for two millennia of Băile Herculane resort was favored by the miraculous efficiency of the thermal springs, being considered a "gift of gods" and by the picturesque settlement of the resort in a valley sheltered by mountains of a special beauty. Băile Herculane can be seen as an idyllic place, dominated by the history that has consecrated it and which takes the form of an outdoor museum due to the rich architectural patrimony. The identity created around the heritage has placed on the mental map of the place extraordinary buildings built or events related to mythological or historical characters. Thus, the Hercules legends or the stories about the arrival of Queen Elizabeth of Austria in the resort become leitmotifs when it comes to presenting cultural and patrimonial identity. HerculaneProject was born from our desire to do something good and change the course of events for Herculane. After seeing the the current state of Herculane’s heritage we decided that something had to be done, otherwise all of this history, culture, myths and tradition would be lost forever. We started out as a group of young architecture students. Within a few weeks we grew as a multidisciplinary team, united by the sole idea that only by acting together the heritage and its community can be reactivated, through education, culture and architecture. While completing an important stage of our project, such as handing over the project for the first building on which we are acting - Neptun Baths, we started developing a strategy, being motivated by the wish of developing a convincing and productive vision. The three main aspects that form the basis of our strategy are the commnunity, education and the resources, such as the natural and architectural heritage. As a much bigger objective, we will try to convince the Minister of Culture to start, together with us and other NGOs, a project to include Herculane’s heritage in the UNESCO heritage, in order to protect its beauty and extend the local impact on to a regional and national one.
Text description of the author
Locus Association is a newly established association that aims to save and promote the cultural, architectural, urban, natural and historical heritage both mobile and immovable on the territory of Romania and beyond. The team, though initially formed only by architectural students, has become a multidisciplinary one, united by common values. We are motivated by the fact that together we can bring out change, we can educate the general public on architectural issues, good practices, but more than that, we want to create a precedent in what student initiatives mean. Even if our team is not formed by students, we consider it is very important for the young generation to open up to the context in which they live, to waiting places and communities in need of hope. Only us, who inhabit the spaces, can give them sense, can develop them to be places that help us and meet our needs. We are young, idealistic, ambitious, energetic to do as many as possible, to grow together and to learn from each other.
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