Along the way...

As the magazine "Arhitectura" celebrates the first five-year anniversary of its second century of existence, the editorial team is being revamped on the fly. This is, of course, a routine task, as it has been repeated countless times in the biography. A course correction, nothing more.

Naturally, a "forward word", presenting programs and manifestos, is justified only at great historical moments. That would have been the case in 1906, with the first issue. No doubt in 1919, after the Great Union. Not necessarily in 1945, when there was talk of another beginning. But especially in 1951, in the midst of the reversal of values. Or in 1990, with the return to the normal world. After the last "one word, forward", many colleagues, not only architects, passed through the editorial office of "Arhitectura". Their projects had to fit, willy-nilly, into the variable geometry of the transitional period that drastically marked the world of architecture. With the relative emergence of a new economic equilibrium, the previous editorial team succeeded in re-establishing the magazine among the leading professional publications.

No easy task! Persistence, effort, skill, perhaps even sacrifice. Over time, however, increasing involvement in the smooth running of the machine that is a publication has generated the illusion of self-sufficiency and a sense of ownership. Editorial performance gradually distanced itself from the banal problematic of the existence of a small professional group with great social responsibility. Of course, one could discuss the present roles of "Architecture", but the future ones should not be omitted either. On the other hand, it can mirror excellence abroad without neglecting the effort to perfect domestic production. In the context of globalization of all kinds, a concern for individualization can be a sign of a thirst for harmony.

Since, after 1989, technical information from abroad is everywhere in abundance, it seems appropriate to pay more attention to the domestic reality, both for the local exchange of ideas and for researchers from abroad. And this, not only through the end product that is the journal, but also through the accompanying fruits of editorial labor, namely the archive.

Finally, the concern to decentralize the work and to encourage the participation of as many professionals as possible in the production of the journal will not be unimportant. The decision to influence the trajectory, specified in the title, also takes into account these principles frequently mentioned by the Romanian architects' guild.

Not only on behalf of the Senate of the U.A.A.R.