Alexandru Beldiman. A signature architect

Françoise Pamfil: The first question that assumes the role of the abrupt - is the profession of architect, in Romania, in decline?

Alexandru Beldiman*: Hard to say, architecture is practiced quite differently than we were taught. We all reacted to the changes that have followed since 1990 with a fumbling reaction; it took me a few years to understand what a liberal profession means and how to practice it.

F.P.: Can we say that, after 20 years of architecture practiced in relatively new conditions, we are now reaching a moment of lucidity, of decantation or of latent continuation of an aberrant amalgam?

A.B.: Architecture is practiced in undeniably new conditions. Apart from the conditions already mentioned, it is private ownership of land that has totally changed the theme. Signs of settling? Perhaps, but tentative. Architectural quality? ... there is undoubtedly good quality architecture, but little of it. The various biennial events are a true reflection of the level we are at.

F.P.: To what extent is it or is it not necessary to review architectural education, not as the training of an architect, but as a person who understands the discipline from a client's perspective?

A.B.: Given the difficulties I have had in understanding this relationship, I imagine that it needs to be learned at school. The existence of a client with his desires, with his terrible lack of knowledge of architecture, town planning and the visual arts in general, must be taken into account. The architect also needs to be an educator, and this is not within everyone's reach. I think new things need to be taught in architecture faculties, not least professional ethics. A dialog on this subject from the first year onwards would be necessary to avoid cases like the one recently reported at the Order's conference in November, when a colleague told us of a young colleague's astonishment and disapproval of the Order's code of ethics, the purpose of which he did not understand. The architect's pedagogy must go hand in hand with a state policy of educating society in the visual arts. In Italy, for example, the history of art and architecture is a compulsory subject for the Baccalaureat, starting in fifth grade.

F.P.: To what extent, in the critical future of another 20 years, are we Romanians prepared to respond to the idea that perhaps architecture should no longer be an architecture of marvelous, placed objects, but a process that accepts the challenge, that in fact the main task of the architect is to ideally integrate the needs of society, the needs of the client and to assume the dimension of process, not solution?

A.B.: I will refer to a book I read recently, "La revolution de l'amour" by the French philosopher Luc Ferry. At the end of the book he has a chapter on contemporary art entitled, and I quote from memory... "Effets de la revolution de l'amour... sur l'art et la politique", in which, evoking Damien Hirst's "Le veau en formol" and Jeff Koons' "Le homard à l'Hélium", he says with a certain irony, but also with self-mockery, that he doesn't understand this kind of art. For him, art presupposes the existence of an important aesthetic component which he does not find in contemporary art. I extrapolate this statement to architecture to say that the aesthetic dimension remains very important to me; of course, we can discuss - very much so - what aesthetics means in architecture at the beginning of the 21st century, but that is another discussion. I still think that the architectural object is important, except that it has to be born from a careful judgment of the urban, natural, etc. context, and that when it is the case it has to establish a dialog with what pre-exists, that is to say, in my opinion we are dealing with a process, so the object does not exclude the process. The aesthetic component is, however, one of Vitruvius's three demands and it remains valid, regardless of what some people say. It seems to me that two relatively recent projects are superlative expressions of what an architect's intervention in the citadel should mean: the project by Șerban Sturdza and the PRODID team he leads, for the Pictor Verona street, and the project by the team led by Andrei Șerbescu for the extension of the University of Arts. Both are school cases.

F.P.: Precisely in the idea of the architect who has no control and has to be a teacher himself, and precisely in the idea of the lack of culture both in the private sector and in the state, let's play - a utopian, idealistic scenario and a terrible, apocalyptic scenario - what will be the job of the architect in 50 years' time in Romania?

A.B.: I think that we can not only talk about the fate of the architect in Romania, but also about the fate of the architect in Europe, if not in the world. The other day the French architect Marc Barani was here, who opened the cycle of workshops with students, organized by the French Institute together with the UAUIM at the initiative of Richard Edwards, a remarkable designer and organizer of architectural and architectural educational events, former CEO of the "Claude Nicolas Ledoux" Centre at Arc et Senans. In the discussion we had before the conference, Marc Barani pointed out that - although there are more and more interesting works in terms of architectural quality and more and more spectacular works, more and more books and architectural publications - the architect has less and less power, which is a real fact.

F.P.: And very serious.

A.B.: A fact that I began to realize in 1991, when I became a member of the UIA Council. In all this time - it's exactly 20 years since then - I have noticed an exponential loss of the architect's power, which will have repercussions in many things - first of all, in the quality of architecture, because losing power means that others with a different education will have it... and with other interests, for example, the exclusive interest of making money... and not only that.

F.P.: What alternatives are there?

A.B.: Above all, professional training must be strongly reinforced. It will have to be done with a degree of thoroughness to which we are not accustomed. The challenges posed by ecology, the emergence of new technologies and new materials - which are evolving at an ever-increasing pace - are factors that call for continuous training. The National Order's initiative to organize annual events at the Marriott Hotel goes in this direction; it is a gain for the guild, but the effort must be more intense. In the battle ahead, the cultural dimension remains one of, if not the most important asset. This card needs to be played with much greater intensity. At the event at the Marriott, which was also very well organized, we witnessed presentations by colleagues of an intellectual quality that was not of an exceptionally poor quality. Highlighting the cultural dimensions of our profession is what takes architecture out of the status of mere commodity, as it tends to be considered today.

Read the full interview in issue 1/2012 of Arhitectura magazine.

* Architect, graduate of the Institute of Architecture and Urbanism "Ion Mincu", Bucharest, in 1967, President of UAR between 1990-1999, President of the Simetria Foundation for Architecture and Urbanism since 1999. Member of the board of UNESCO Romania since 2008.