Graduation projects

The revival of Anina’s Thermoelectric Power Plant with steam turbines – Touristic Industrial Complex

Principal author

Todirică Alexandru

External collaborators

Ș.l. Dr. Arh.Gabriela Pașcu , Arh.Ovidiu Micșa, Ing. Cornel Farcaș, Prof. dr. ing. Marius Moșoarcă

Project year

2018

Location

Str. Cotul CFR, Anina, Caraș-Severin, România

Learning institution

Universitatea Politehnica, Facultatea de Arhitectură și Urbanism Timișoara

Project description

The idea of maximizing the value of Anina’s Thermoelectric Power Plant with steam turbines, took shape following the dialogue with the Local Council based on the networks that were already created by the project “Mine of Ideas Anina” and is meant to represent a real participatory process, with the aim of conserving an authentic industial heritage ensemble (class A). Due to the a very high degree of conservation, both on the outside and on the inside, the purpose is to partially transform the ensemble into a technical museum. On the basis of a very well elaborated strategy intented to increase the city’s quality of life, there were identified 4 functions neccessary for the conversion of the entire Touristic Industrial Complex into a self-sustaining mechanism. The economic heartbeat of the Complex would be provided by the hostel and restaurant, while the socio-cultural part would be assigned to the museum and archive. The Complex is designated to strengthen the Mining Museum, through the perspective of the local history developed around the coal mining, offering a space of interaction for the actual community, the former community, the tourists and specialists, with the purpose of becoming a stimulus in the rebirth of the social, cultural and economic aspects of the city. Therefore, the proposal represents a mixture of conversion (the museum space), reconversion (the archive and restaurant) and a new addition (the hostel), altogether destined to emphasize the already existing visual dialogue and spatial dynamism, whose existence is due to the differences in the level plans of the ensemble’s volumes. The new addition tends to follow the basic concept of a “house in house”, in which the newly added accommodation volume hangs on a metallic structure destined to fortify the “shell” of the already existing block. This volume’s nature of a core, tries to recreate the special identity of the already existing volume, which in the past hosted the equipment of the steam boilers. As a metaphorical interpretation, how the “heart” of the Thermoelectric Power Plant was represented by the volume that hosted the boiler room, so the hostel represents the “heart” (more specifically, the economic heartbeat) of the Touristic Industrial Complex, without which the Complex could not possibly be self-sustaining.

Text description of the author

Young architect, interested in the academic career, art and design enthusiast and in his free time an amateur photographer. Currently, a member of the NGO “Asociația pentru patrimoniu activ-PACT” and for more than 4 years a volunteer teacher in “De-a arhitectura” program.

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