Thematic articles

Transparency of the architectural design process

Contemporary design in Romania already has a history of more than four decades, Romania synchronizing with this evolution thanks to the "thaw" of the 60s and early 70s, when Bucharest hosted the International Congress of Aesthetics and the International Seminar of Architecture (the latter at the UAUIM) and the first experimental groups of aesthetics and design, the first design centers were established, the Institute of Industrial Creation and Product Aesthetics and today's higher education institutions. Witnessing these events, we witnessed the conversion of the term experimental aesthetics (too contaminated by stylism) into the more global and conceptual, but above all operational term design and the shaping of large blocks within it.As we often joke, architects have always been doing design - just as the Gentile Bourgeois was doing prose without knowing it - and this is because the realization of the synthetic environment requires a level of detailing (and detailing already implies basic design fundamentals) and aggregation.However, in the times we are evoking, architects were designing, and today they are doing architectural design or urban design, not to mention hotel design or other expressions vigorously ventilated in our environment. We do not believe that the use of terms and the choice of one or the other is an eminently subjective process or subject to fashion, and the power of the word is so great that in his writings on aesthetics Heidegger devotes the first dozen pages of his first dozen pages to evoking and comparing the meanings of terms in the field in Ancient Greece with those of today.

Read the full text in issue 4 / 2011 of Arhitectura.

In our country, contemporary design has known more than four decades of history, Romania managing to keep the pace with this evolution due to the "thaw" occurred in the 1960s and the early 1970s, when Bucharest hosted the International Congress of Aesthetics and the International Architecture Seminar (the latter in the very premises of UAUIM), when the first experimental aesthetics and design groups emerged, along with the first architectural project drawing centers, the Institute of Industrial Creation and Product Aesthetics and the contemporary specialized higher education institutions. As witnesses to these events, we also saw the conversion of the term "experimental aesthetics" (too contaminated by stylism) into the more global and conceptual, but especially operative term of "design" and to the emergence therein of large blocks.As we often joked, architects have been making design forever - just like the Bourgeois Gentilhomme made prose without knowing it - and this is so because the creation of a synthetic ambiance imposes a certain level of detail (and detail already implies the fundamentals of design) and embellishment.And still, in the times we evoke, architects would draw projects, while nowadays they make architectural design or urban design, not to mention also hotel design or other phrases feverishly used in our circles. We think that the use of the terms and the choice of one or the other are not entirely subjective or ruled by fashion, and the force of the word is so great that in one of his writings on aesthetics, Heidegger dedicates the first dozens of pages to evoking and comparing the specialized terms used in Ancient Greece with those of today. For linguistic comparison purposes, we shall give below their definitions.