RDW

A mode(l) for the revitalization of European-rooted cultural heritage: Ville de Laval, Québec, Canada

Laval is nowadays the third most important city in the French province of Québec and is ranked thirteenth in Canada from a demographic point of view, with 430.000 inhabitants. Its insular territory, formerly known as Île Jésus, situated in the north-western part of the Island of Montréal and covering a surface of 246 square kilometres, is the second largest island in the Hochelaga Archipelago4, after the Island of Montréal.

HerculaneProject. Our Story

(…)HerculaneProject. How it all started
It was during a short visit to Herculane and under the impression caused by the current state of pronounced degradation affecting the built heritage of great architectural value that we decided to get involved and do something to prevent the history, culture, myths and tradition of this place from being lost forever. Fascinated by the beauty of the place and its power of regeneration throughout the centuries, we wanted to make known this heritage by promoting and valorising it.
Hence, we can say that our project for Herculane emerged naturally, from our desire to change the compromised destiny of the place.
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On the Heritage of Roșia Montană, with Hope

(…)Roșia Montană boasts a wealth of valuable items coming together to form an outstanding site, a fabulous cultural landscape. The Apuseni Mountains area also boasts a number of other historical mining sites, none of which has preserved, however, such a rich collection of important vestiges, dating as far back as the prehistoric times, and going all the way to the modern and contemporary era and uniquely illustrating the evolution of mining.(…)

The frail life of Bucharest monuments

A retrospective glimpse at the situation of public monuments in Bucharest over the past 100 years reveals an uncanny reality most often defined by uncertainty and/or improvisation. This is generally due to a pair of reasons acting separately or jointly, depending on the case. First, it is the sometimes brutal influence and discretionary manifestation of politics, not only in the case of authoritarian or totalitarian governments but also when it comes to those allegedly democratic, which radically come forward in times of political regime change and profoundly affect the recent evolution of the Romanian society. On the other hand, most often than not, the precarious location of some monuments is also the result of the vague urban development solutions for representative public spaces in Bucharest which all lack a coherently defined configuration and are not prepared to appropriately incorporate important monuments.

Historical allotments and proximity communities

The current project is part of a broader initiative, conceived and implemented starting with 2012 and initially focusing on the history of the Communal Society for Cheap Housing (1910-1948) and the Building Office (1930-1949). According to the acts of establishment, both institutions aimed at building houses for the working class and for the poor population of the capital in general. First of all, we sought to understand the history of the building process and how the dwellings were assigned to the beneficiaries, as well as the conditionings generating the adoption of these measures, the way in which the two institutions elaborated their operative policy and the extent in which the state took full responsibility for these steps as part of the housing policies implemented during the first half of the 20th century.

Functional Mix in Inter-War Bucharest. Union Building

Since they were located in the central city area, these buildings met all modern economic, social and cultural requirements, from the highly effective use of the land plot and modern technical equipment to a new way of living and working and a new urban image.
The structure of these buildings was generally designed so as to ensure the prestige of the investing companies, and also, to a large extent, to provide safe economic efficiency.

The modernity of built heritage

The evolution of the built heritage concept is far from being complete. The subject has not preserved its topicality only due to the endless quarrel between those supporting the unconditional conservation of old architecture and those wishing to clear the land in order to make room for the architecture of the everlasting present. Heated debates are taking place in the conservatory side, in relation to the complex issues of conservation.

Heritage Frustrations

Heritage Frustrations text și foto: Irina POPESCU-CRIVEANU Click for Romanian version Nearly three decades have passed since we cherished the hope, in the aftermath of the brutal socialist era, that a front for safeguarding national memory would be put together and the road to freedom would undoubtedly entail retrieving our long lost honour. At first, […]

Examples, exceptions and models for protecting the Romanian cultural heritage

EXAMPLES, EXCEPTIONS AND MODELS FOR PROTECTING THE ROMANIAN CULTURAL HERITAGE text: Sergiu NISTOR © Daniela Puia Click for Romanian version A survey conducted by ICOMOS Romania in 2002 revealed that, in the specialists’ opinion, the main threat to historical monuments was the carelessness shown by owners, historical monument administrators and the authorities. Ten years after […]

De Patrimonio. A Battle Journal

The designation of 2018 as the European Year of Cultural Heritage has once more reopened old wounds concerning heritage protection, both in our country and throughout Europe. The first European Year dedicated to cultural heritage creates the ideal context for re-reiterating public awareness regarding European history and heritage values, the feeling of national identity and the conscience of European unity.

The drawing board au féminin. Women architects in communist Romania

THE DRAWING BOARD AU FÉMININ. WOMEN ARCHITECTS IN COMMUNIST ROMANIA text: Ana Maria ZAHARIADE UAUIM terrace Click for Romanian Version (First published in „Ideological Equals: Women Architects in Socialist Europe 1945-1989”, editat de Mary Pepchinski, Mariann Simon, Routledge, 2016) Months ago, when first considering this paper, I wrote that the active involvement and significant contribution […]

ARHITECTURA Magazine Contents, No.4-5 / 2018

Main Theme:DE PATRIMONIO

Accommodating the Commons: Social-Spatial Practices in Bogotá

Accommodating the Commons: Social-Spatial Practices in Bogotá text: Klaske HAVIK, Tom AVERMAETE, Jorge MEJÍA HERNÁNDEZ Study of the Open Building concept by John Habraken, and of the Stem concept by Shadrach Woods. Diagrams by Milda Kulviciute Model of urban intervention in the Los Martires neighbourhood in Bogotá, by Milda Kulviciute Click for Romanian version The […]

The Regulatory Framework of the Participative Approach – A Compared Analysis between Berlin, Belo Horizonte and Bucharest

The Regulatory Framework of the Participative Approach – A Compared Analysis between Berlin, Belo Horizonte and Bucharest text: Simona GRÜTER-BÎRGĂOANU Click for Romanian version Participation is a flexible term that was endowed with different overtones depending on the cultural and socio-economic context. The regulatory frameworks, both the laws in force and their implementation, have evolved […]

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