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"Architecture seeks to be all-embracing. It brings together, composes, unites" - architect Aurelian TRIȘCU

Dear Mr. Professor Doctor Professor Architect Aurelian TRIȘCU, ARHITECTURA magazine is honored to have you as our guest. We will start with a question from the serious register. Is the prestige of the architectural profession in decline?

A house is a universe for those who live in it. And for the one who makes it. Naturally, many elements belonging to the material and spiritual universe are found in architecture. The role of continually incorporating them into the whole of culture and civilization not only concerns the prestige of architecture, but also its obligations. Architecture seeks to be all-embracing. It brings together, composes, unites. In the city, it provides spaces for the community. Laws call for consultation and public debate before projects are implemented.

And yet you often encounter advocates who divide rather than bind, neglect or even deride important areas and components. Moreover, such attitudes are common in many other areas of our society these days. On this basis, a belief is emerging which is growing stronger over time. It concerns the absolutely necessary relationships between people, processes and structures, the beneficial links between Old and New, the working together (even in the same person) of generalist and specialist, the combined use of intuition and reason. Each such binomial, with seemingly opposing terms, must be seen as a constituent part with equally necessary elements in policies for organizing public and private space, for maintenance and protection, for maintaining the balance between nature and architecture.

Many have said so, in various ways. Among them, the Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa who, during a visit he once made to Romania, referred to the "Architecture of Symbiosis". And he observed, with us, the ritual of building a (poor) peasant house, its living in the cosmos, coexistence with the household, the neighbors, the descendants.

How did your training in architecture shape you and what were your landmarks/patterns?

This understanding of the complexity and oneness of the whole has been helped by successive experiences. After family, church and pre-university education followed what was then the Faculty of Architecture at the Polytechnic. School was a place to meet real people from whom you had a lot to learn. G. M. Cantacuzino drew marvelously and took you through all cultures. At the Atelier, Duiliu Marcu shared the experience of remarkable achievements. In other workshops, you had the opportunity to attend corrections made by teachers of different generations, such as N. Nenciulescu, Octav Doicescu or Haralamb Georgescu.

In Urbanism, Cincinat Sfințescu, an active personality in specialized international bodies, was accompanied by Dinu Vernescu, with scientific concerns (such as the problem of optimal sunshine), and Radu Laurian, who had recently published an excellent book on aesthetics. Together with them and with others, Richard Bordenache, Gheorghe Petrașcu, Gheorghe Simotta, conveyed not only an understanding of the various branches of the profession, but also of the features of their own profile.

Do you think that the atmosphere of the Romanian school of architecture is still present today? Communication between and within the workshops was a cultural emulation. In turn, the younger and older students marked the spirit of the school. They came from different backgrounds and had different interests, but they sought and found each other in a community dominated by friendship and good cheer. Living together in the design, construction, relief, ornamental drawing or modeling workshops was the backdrop to moments of spontaneous communication in a world of culture that was free of gratuitousness and even offered lessons. At times, Liviu Ciulei reciting Shakespeare aloud, or Paul Bortnovski explaining to a freshman something from his diploma project "The Headquarters of the Union of Architects", or Liviu Popa, with his sleeves rolled up, colorfully brushing a perspective from the work of a younger colleague who asked for his opinion.

You opted to study philosophy in addition to architecture. How did you come to that decision?

Because in the 1940s, the School of Architecture, as we all called it, didn't have any optional subjects on the syllabus, so I was studying at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy. It was convenient: the places were across the street from each other.

And here I could see how notions, disciplines, fields of study meet and overlap, helping each other and fulfilling their content. Many of the students who attended Philosophy came from Mathematics, Law, Medicine. Like them, those interested in architecture found common elements and objectives everywhere. From Mircea Florian (in General Philosophy, Metaphysics and Epistemology) you learned about evolution, balance, harmony, time and space, matter, movement and rhythm. He believed that "philosophy is closer to the concrete than the other sciences". In Aesthetics, Mihail Ralea highlighted the common elements of the plastic arts: line, volume, color, light and the general laws by which the elements are united. In an unusual course in Experimental Psychology, Zapan analyzed the phenomenon of optical-geometric illusion. Without knowing that in 20 years I would be working in teaching, I was also taking courses in pedagogy. G. E. Antonescu, who was teaching General Pedagogy/Method of Collective Education, pointed out that "humans are equal in nature; the difference results from the influence of the environment and education". And Constantin Narly, in the History of Pedagogy, defended the thesis "education through persuasion". A practical work in Psychology gave me the opportunity to discuss with my colleagues in Architecture the reasons that made them decide to go to this school. The answers covered an unexpectedly wide range.

How did the courses at the two schools correlate? What was Architecture's degree project?

Architecture remained, continuously, in first place. The school was demanding, but the efforts were balanced with the results. My thesis was a project for a forestry center in the Arieș Valley. A gatehouse with two by two strung beams and girders made a two-sided ship. A prototype was proposed for the workers' cottages. Everything was made of wood. About ten days before the handing over, Ricci, Duiliu Marcu's assistant, was passing through the workshop and wondered whether it would not have been better to include a social-cultural piece. He was right and we did it, with a performance hall, on the modest scale of the place. But finding myself in the Bayreuth theater, the one built at Richard Wagner's request, I opened the back of the stage to the landscape. The school encouraged you to dream (beautifully).

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

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