Moldova / Architecture - profession and school. Interview with prof. univ. dr. dr. arh. Virgiliu Onofrei

Tudor Grădinaru: With rare exceptions, the architecture of the last 20 years in Romania is more about assimilating fashionable trends, without the necessary critical reflection, without a contextual approach to the themes, without a relation to the social, cultural and spiritual specifics. What is your opinion on this?

Virgiliu Onofrei: Although the assessment is a bit abrupt, it describes situations that we frequently encounter. There are, however, also works in which respect for the context is not absent, in which the solutions derive from a careful and responsible analysis of the area, of the particular conditions of intervention. But it is true that we are in a constant state of acculturation, of dependence on other cultural models. It is not a process that has been going on for twenty years. Although not in the sometimes mimetic forms that we know today, it can be traced back to the beginnings of our modernity and even deeper, in the process of the constitution of Romanian culture as a space of syntheses born out of the East-West interference. In the course of time, we have either taken up the models ourselves or they have been imposed on us conjuncturally. Thus, for example, by free choice, inter-war modern architecture was born in our country, or, by opportunism, the formalist architecture of the period of Soviet domination.

Today, when, given the dense network of connections in which the world is enclosed, what is significant in one place has global reverberations, and the possibilities of information offered by the Internet are fabulous, when major investors have transnational businesses and exploit their own projects, technologies and materials, and when most of the outstanding achievements are by architects who are not originally from the cultural space in which they operate, the influence of foreign models is not surprising and, therefore, should not be disqualified a priori.

However, without ignoring foreign models, but on the contrary, it is necessary at the same time to look more closely at ourselves. When I say "towards ourselves", I am not referring to the simplistic retrospection of tradition, of specificity, which is so difficult to define univocally, evoked from time to time as a resource for stylistic inspiration. I am talking about distancing ourselves from the exclusively formal option, from the seduction of the successful, fashionable image, in favor of interpreting models by relating them to concrete places and concrete people with whom we live.

Such an option requires reflection and more research effort, far beyond the last architectural magazine leafed through or the last website visited, but the results gain in authenticity and add value to the place to which they can thus truly belong.

T.G.: Under these circumstances, where do you think Romanian architecture is heading?

V.O.: I don't agree with the predictions, but I think it will continue to move naturally towards the models that contemporary architecture offers. For two decades, the world has been producing high-quality architecture in a diversity of conceptual and formal approaches, personalities with original works have taken firm shape, and at the same time there has been an exaggerated cult of the image, commercial motivation, the star system, and values are increasingly unstable, short-lived, governed by the whims of fashion. A context likely to confuse and confuse.

However, from a discerning analysis of contemporary architecture, going beyond the extravagances of the spectacular at all costs and the ephemeral ephemeral of fashion, it is possible to build the support to give expression to a thought of our own, to assimilate new technologies and contemporary formal language without strident disagreements.

This is the only way to free ourselves from the practice of mimetic exercises and collage. However, we will probably not soon be free of the excessive preoccupation with the architectural object itself, and it will probably be some time before we are able to turn our attention to the problems of the city and environmental quality as a global value.

I believe that a few isolated successes that pamper the vanity of a few are less important than the average level of quality of the dominant architecture.

However, much of what is being built is of mediocre quality, and we know how poor the actual state of cities in general is, from housing districts and industrial zones to infrastructure, various facilities and green spaces.

We should also turn our attention to the major themes that have also made their way into the world of our profession in recent decades: protection of the natural environment and energy saving, sustainable development, protection and rehabilitation of the built heritage, urban renewal. But I am afraid that for a long time to come, they will still be present only in doctoral theses and scientific papers.

T.G.: As a university professor and Dean of the Faculty of Architecture "G. M. Cantacuzino" you have guided many generations of students for the profession of architect. How do you see the evolution of the Romanian architectural education, the school of architecture in Iasi in the current context?

V.O.: In terms of curriculum structure and even teaching methodology, with some non-essential differences, our schools of architecture are close to and in line with European requirements concerning the training of architects.

However, the European dimension also extends beyond the forms of organization and functioning. There are relations and academic exchanges with Western European universities within the framework of higher education programs, and there are regular evaluations of our schools in which foreign experts also participate.

Ion Mincu University has consistently and successfully pursued international openness as a strategy, but every school has to relate to the requirement of European integration, and Iași is no exception. However, the situation, as far as we are concerned, is not as simple and serene as the optimistic conclusions of this report and the fact that graduates of the school are working as architects in foreign firms might suggest.

Student numbers have increased substantially since 1990, from 30 to more than 500, but without a commensurate increase in space and teaching staff, and recent retirements have further complicated the situation. Development in the future can only be achieved by the young, most of them former students of the school, who are already on the natural path of their teaching careers. The future of the school will depend on their participation, on their involvement in the life of the school, on how they work together, making what unites them rather than what separates them prevail. And on the quality of the students, of course.

Unfortunately, the entrance exam is far from being a reliable filter, allowing access only to those with definite native aptitudes and highly motivated for the profession of architect, which is very difficult, demanding and full of responsibility. Obviously, neither the deficiencies with which they generally come from high school, nor the immature behavior of some, can be neglected as undesirable factors.

But in each new series there are students with remarkable qualities, imaginative, well-informed and highly committed, who are developing in a coherent way. These students, having reached the senior years, where in Architectural Design the guidance is primarily through theoretical analysis of the program, the site and the proposed solutions, in parallel with the practice of teamwork, manage to establish their own concept, to argue it and to structure a convincing response to complex issues, dealing with concrete and difficult sites. There are failures, of course, but these too are part of the learning process.

In any case, I do not believe that schools should set out to train specialists in a narrow field; they are trained by long-term, effective professional practice.

Although the school is the place where knowledge and skills closely linked to the future practice of the profession are transmitted and acquired, it must, above all, be the framework for understanding the architectural phenomenon in its myriad manifestations, its intrinsic and extrinsic connections, the framework for developing creativity and for forming a flexible and uninhibited attitude towards the demands of such a problematic and unstable world as the one in which we live.

T.G.: Given the crisis that the professional market is going through, manifested in particular at the level of the activity of the architect's own office, considered as the basic entity of the practice of the profession in our country, it seems that graduates will have fewer opportunities to make a promising career in the practice of architectural design. How is architectural education responding to these challenges?

V.O.: First an observation, please. I don't understand why the individual architectural practice is considered to be the basic entity of practicing architecture. And I can only partly understand the haste with which very young architects want to express themselves as individuals in this form. In their eagerness, in their haste, I can of course see the desire to assert themselves which accompanies youth, but also a lack of maturity. It is not only because the known regulations provide for a compulsory apprenticeship that any graduate should realize the need for a period of apprenticeship before fully assuming the responsibilities involved in architectural design and the act of building. As I said before, the profession of architect is very demanding, it is a profession that does not only mean encounters with inspired poetry, chatting with the muses, but also a lot of routine technical work, numerous confrontations with disturbing factors, either objective or subjective, which must be overcome. A job which, in order to be done well, requires knowledge, which is growing all the time, but also the accumulation of lived experience.

That is why I believe that working in strong design teams is a better way to develop professionally after graduation and for many years afterwards, even for building a career. And it's a better alternative than the individual office to weather times of crisis. A firm with a well-established prestige, well placed on the market, offers, in principle, the possibility to participate in large-scale works at a high professional level, which is essential for the apprenticeship of young architects. Unfortunately, there are not as many quality firms as there should be. I say this because not once have I met graduates who were disappointed and surprised by the mediocrity of the routine professional environment in which they had found a place, be it a small firm or a solo office. I wonder if now, in times of crisis, they have remained as demanding in their assessments. I hope so.

We don't know how long the current crisis will last, but it's obvious that it's affecting investment, the construction market, and therefore architectural design. However, it shows us how dependent architecture is on the way the world we live in is going, on the economy in particular, and that the image of creators breathing in a privileged universe of pure art, which some architects ascribe to themselves, is just one proud illusion among many others. It also shows how important professional training is.

It is a well-known fact that in times of economic crisis, not only can there be a reduction in professional fulfillment, but also the dramatic problem of finding or keeping a job in order to ensure a normal, balanced existence for you and your family.

You can only succeed if you make yourself necessary, i.e. if you have recognized skills and, preferably, with a broader scope than strict specialization in a subfield of architecture or urban planning, for a prompt response to unpredictable market changes. In other words, skills and experience that allow you a certain flexibility, adaptability and, I would add, a willingness to be a lifelong learner, after all, all of which means developing a new attitude to the practice of the profession. And in this sense, by aiming to open up to multi-directional horizons and not narrow specialization, the school is doing a good thing.

T.G.: A renowned architect said: "Architecture is not just about making beautiful and original buildings. For me the definition of beauty also includes architecture's responsibility to society". To what extent is this important mission of architecture/architect fulfilled today?

V.O.: I understand what you mean, but we cannot talk about the social responsibility of architecture, but about its social mission, expressed either explicitly in specific programs or as a corollary of its multiple functions.

In the first case, the responsibility for the extent to which this mission is fulfilled lies primarily with the politician, who organizes and governs society, sets development targets and priorities for the use of resources, and only then with the architect as a professional.

In the second case, since architecture is a response to the material and spiritual requirements of life which must be met by organizing space and creating the built environment, its social and cultural function is obvious.

In ideal terms, through its aesthetic and symbolic qualities, architecture shapes the inner man, with his need for beauty and poetry. How well it does so depends indeed, to a large extent, on the architect as creator of forms in space, of aesthetic values. But his responsibility covers all the attributes of architecture, not just beauty, but also the quality of utility, construction, the harmonious relationship with the environment, economy. Each of these and all of them together also have a social dimension.

Consequently, it seems that reflection and value judgments on architecture cannot be reduced to the question of aesthetics and stylistics, as we usually do. And the fact that the Venice Biennale in 2000, under the direction of Massimiliano Fuksas, had as its generic phrase "Less Aesthetics, More Ethics" indicates the need for a more realistic and comprehensive perspective on architecture, for a more responsible attitude, beyond the obsessive preoccupation with the image of the object.

This does not in any way suggest ignoring aesthetic quality, but rather shifting the focus from the architecture of the building to the city and its great problems, in a world of serious imbalances generating tensions, in which in-depth analysis of the environment, the impact of new technologies on the individual and society, and viable economic and social mechanisms, take on substance and credit in comparison with snobbish and artificial insistence on architectural stylistics.

It is well known that modern history has witnessed exemplary examples of the commitment of architects to a change of perspective in the appreciation of architecture, to an architecture in tune with the evolution of society, with social and economic transformations and with the technical and scientific revolution of the 19th and 20th centuries.

I am thinking of Viollet le Duc or Adolf Loos, for example, whose polemics seemed to be aimed only at changing the aesthetic paradigm in opposition to academic thinking, when in reality they were the expression of a well-structured and well-argued reassessment of the relationship between architecture and art, between architect and society.

And I am thinking of Le Corbusier, Gropius, Mies, Aalto, of their interest in urban housing as a social problem. First of all Le Corbusier, who, as the author of some overly one-sided definitions of architecture, but also the creator of a new architectural aesthetic, still functional as a source of inspiration, was, beyond his inconsistencies, contradictions and harmful exaggerations, a living conscience and a vigorous voice in favor of architecture. Suffice it to recall titles like "Des Canons, des Munitions? Merci! Des logis... s.v.p." or "La Maison des Hommes", to understand and appreciate him as a model of the committed architect.

But the model is lost in a page of history and I don't think it can be brought to life today, in a society dominated by individualism, self-interest and enormous hypocrisy.

T.G.: Tom Wolfe, the famous American journalist, once argued that in American capitalism, corporations have preferred a "serious, bureaucratic-socialist style" in expressing the function of representing their own real estate assets. On the other hand, as some critics have observed in connection with this statement, in today's communist China avant-garde constructions are being realized with absolutely unprecedented formal developments. Is this an expression of financial power, of the need for individualization, or is it an expression of openness and absorption of universal cultural values?

V.O.: What can I say, Tom Wolfe seems to be one of those who want a new architecture for every day of the week, as a journalist he doesn't hesitate to insinuate himself into unfamiliar areas.

As for American corporations, I don't think their aesthetic or ideological preferences have dictated the physiognomy of architecture fit to represent them. Rather, it was the pragmatism and efficiency of this architecture that dictated it, thus ensuring a long career for Mies's "glass box," which proliferated internationally with its neutral, flexible spaces and its standardized curtain wall. An abstract, refined and cool architecture, serious, of course, bureaucratic, perhaps, but I don't see why socialist, as Wolfe characterizes it, even though the Bauhaus is said to have had socialist sympathies for which they were forced to leave Hitler's Germany.

In short, a journalistic assessment, so to speak.

But what was the point of criticizing modern architecture in 1981, at the height of postmodernism, in "From Bauhaus to Our House"? After, as early as 1966, Robert Venturi had, in "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture", questioned the pauper language of modernism and had opposed Mies' phrase "Less is more" with an equally trenchant one - "Less is bore", thus providing arguments for the change that postmodern architecture was to bring.

What followed is well known - the pastiche, the parody, Charles Moore and Ricardo Bofill, and then, to break the deadlock, we remember "Less is more" again and set our clocks to the hour of minimalism.

This is to show how superfluous it is to talk about style today, when everyone wants to be an icon-maker, as the case of China demonstrates, in my opinion.

For years, China has been living a paradox commensurate with its size in the eyes of the world, a paradox in which Western architecture is a full participant.

In China's case, the old theories about the relationship between politics, ideology and architecture, about cultural specificity and tradition, are proving to be outdated prejudices. What remains are the facts, which need to be interpreted in a new light and which show us that globalization is not a laboratory concept and that economics, finance and profit are the forces that determine the course of the world and act on politics, strongly influencing its strategies. And also that today's architecture knows no frontiers and is no longer in itself a means of identifying a particular cultural space, however venerable its history.

No doubt there is a fundamental mismatch between the political regime of the single party, the party-state, the image of Mao's China, China in overalls, which we have not forgotten, and what we see today in Beijing or Shanghai. One wonders, however, whether one billion three hundred million people could be kept indefinitely in poverty and gray uniformity, mimicking an alienating cult of personality, victims of a lying indoctrination.

China's communist rulers broke out of their infatuation with this absurd and bankrupt model because they had no choice, so the economic reforms begun in the late 1970s evolved into a sui-generis combination of central planning and free market mechanisms.

Then, amendments to the Constitution to protect private property and facilities for foreign investors were instrumental in achieving, after 2000, what we see today in China's special economic zones.

A shrewd policy which, through economic development supported with Western capital, skills and technology, has strengthened the position of the one-party government, which continues to prohibit any political opposition. This is what some blame the West for. But could it be otherwise? When it is precisely the laws of the market, the laws of profit, the very laws that have, in fact, generated globalization, that make investors insensitive to political or ideological impulses and direct them to where they find cheap, skilled labour, a vast market and stability. China has it all, including stability, albeit vulnerable, and is thus becoming a preferred destination for investors.

So China's new architecture expresses the essence of globalization, which breaks down political and cultural barriers, aiming only for profit, a reality that goes hand in hand with China's need for urban development. It may seem surprising, but economic development has widened the gap between village and city, and the distribution of the benefits of development is grossly unequal. Given this situation, urbanization plans are in the pipeline to move three hundred million Chinese from village to city over the next 15 years!

A huge challenge and an extraordinary offer to architects, who so far, in Beijing and Shanghai in particular, have staged impressive shows of architectural superlatives, symbols of the success of a hyper-dynamic society.

Mao's "great leap forward" has turned out to be a great leap back. Today, China is launched on a great leap into the 21st century. It has the strength to make it: it has become the world's second largest economy and will be the world's biggest by 2030, if it can maintain its current momentum. But everything must be done quickly, energetically and well. This requires advanced technologies and highly skilled construction and architecture.

The West has them, and it doesn't lack the competitive nerve either. Always innovating in form, always breaking technical records; Citius, Altius, Fortius, a non-stop Olympiad. And so, the culture of the capitalist and democratic West, its architectural models make their place on the soil of communist China, becoming the expression of its openness to assimilate the dominant values in today's world of globalization, not only economic but also cultural.

The grey uniformity of Mao's era has been left behind, now the brilliant uniformity brought by the internationalization of architectural language and technologies is unfolding.

In New York and Frankfurt, in Dubai and Singapore, in Hong Kong and now Shanghai we see the same spectacle of competition on the profit vertical.

Where is great Chinese culture and traditional Chinese architecture? They are where they belong, in museums and in tourist guides. What is the government doing? It does well; it organizes international architectural competitions, it invites famous European and American architects such as Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas, Herzog and De Meuron or Steven Holl, who put their own personal stamp on China's new, cosmopolitan architecture.

How is the single party doing? It's doing good; Tiananmen Square is quiet.

T.G.: To conclude, what advice would you give to a young architect starting out in the profession?

V.O.: Advice? Absolutely not! I would tell him an anecdote about a dialog off the French Atlantic coast: "-Is it still a long way to America, Papa? -Tap and swim!".