Initiatives / Experiments / Visions

Topophilia

Principal author
stardust architects*
Profession
arhitect
Co-authors (team members)
vlad stoica
Architecture office
stardust architects*
Collaborators (team members)
Atelier Vast, Matei Cătălin,coVR, Cezar Șomîtcă, ilustrație: Irina Mateescu
External collaborators
Parcul Natural Văcărești Acasă:: the film Benq Romania Konika Minolta MSLGroup The Practice
Project year
2017
Location
București/Seul
Client
Romanian Chamber of Architects
Budget
33600 USD
Build surface area
9mp
Project description
The project for this pavilion won a national competition for Romania’s representation at the congress of the International Union of Architects in Seoul. The theme of the congress was the soul of the city. The Order of Romanian Architects added a subtheme—a suggestion to also talk about the independent initiatives, the new projects that change the urban world. For the authors, the soul of the eclectic, disparate, but also always resurrecting city that is Bucharest may best be expresssed by Văcăreşti Natural Park: a field, a monastery, a prison, the destruction of the monastery, a building site for an artificial lake never to be finished, the abandonment and its invasion by nature, the slowly emerging wetland and then, through civic initiatives, the slow salvation and the listing as a natural park in the hearth of the city. In order to describe this tragic and energetic history in a 3×3 space, two cubes were built up. The interior one serves as a a translucent environment for videomapping, but also as a series of windows towards the space in between the two cubes, where a series of objects are exposed: living plants, old and newer objects from the site, photographs. The architecture can be seen asa an abstract grid but also may suggest some sort of glazed porches so typical of Balkanic architecture. After Seoul, the pavilion lives on: it has already been exhibited twice in the National Museum for Contemporary Art in Bucharest.
Text description of the author
Stardust architects* is searching for poetic experiences in the process of design, aiming to slow down the automatic use of everyday objects and spaces by creating moments of silence, presence or wonder. Stardust architects* are Anca Cioarec and Brîndușa Tudor, architects and teacher assistants at the 'Ion Mincu' University in Bucharest. They founded Stardust architects* in 2011.
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