Argument - Climate

"Climate", as a semantically open notion, is a tempting topic. It is for this very reason that approaching such a subject can be hesitant. It is our hope that through the articles in this issue we will be able to overcome our hesitations in the face of a vast territory in a creative and constructive way. Like a kaleidoscope - which brings together fragments of consistency in a unified whole - this issue of "Arhitectura" magazine brings together in its pages different climates whose keys to reading are found in various registers: continuity and change, confidence in architecture, reaction to catastrophe, substance in intervention or revisited memories.

The first is celebratory and obliges a certain kind of assumption, not just a reading in continuity. The 120th anniversary of the founding of the Society of Romanian Architects was an event organized by the UAR in February in Sinaia. It generated a climate of communication on the public space, moments of intensity and consensual densification of the ideas debated, as well as an autonomous time for reflection.

Then the message that the Sendai media library conveys, with the delicacy of an architectural and structural masterpiece that seems to transcend the harsh reality, is moving: in a climate of buildings devastated by the earthquake, it is holding up impeccably. It is, perhaps, also a message of confidence in the architecture that both the building and its typological uniqueness convey in severe conditions.

We move in direct gaze to a climate of misunderstanding. These arise precisely from a long-planned gesture that was intended to help the city with a North-South transversal. The recent intervention to clear the land is the subject of a silent dossier. The climate of inability to coordinate the work and components worthy of rescue, of inability to react in time and of our ultrasensitivity to our "vocation for catastrophe" demonstrate reactions that are only composed and manifest in hard codes. In the next issue we will illustrate in a detailed file the comments of the parties involved now.

The competition in Brasov for the "Livada Poștei" area generates a dreamlike climate. A green sloping plane is the realm of memories, but also of architectural expectations. Revisiting a space of memory is the starting point for a landscape design project.

In Iasi, the climate of a lucid look at the present inventories heritage values and memory landmarks for a possible connection.

A climate of substantiality of the architectural approach brings together three international examples. The rigorously critical questioning of the design theme is capable of positioning an architectural intervention in exemplary rank. This is what the international articles have in common. We find two architectural interventions - a conversion in London and a new company headquarters in Madrid - and a landscape remodeling. In both cases of buildings, the conceptual approach, the intervention strategy, the impeccable detailing, but above all the consistency of discourse between the critical starting point and the result reveal constructions that leave - to quote Noica - a certain kind of "shadow on the earth". The third illustration of substantial climate comes from Alicante Park. The design team succeeded in turning a winning entry in a European competition into the starting theme for an urban park that activates both the landscape and the community of Alicante.

The common desire to decongest urban traffic congestion and return, as far as possible, urban space to pedestrians is manifested simultaneously in the Buzești - Berzei transversal intervention, in TUB-PIDU and in the current theme of the international competition archetypes. It is a climate of intense vibration in the name of public space and the idea of sharing.

We want in the space of the magazine a climate of decantation, of respite for reflection and the joy of discovery. We expect a climate of collaboration and communication, and so, despite the delights and pleasures of appearing, we open the pages of the magazine not only to readers, but also to those who wish to write or be present in its space.