Diploma Project - Rosia Montana paper mill

Cultural project on paper craft initiated by Răzvan Supuran,

"Atelierul de carte", Bucharest

Stud.arh.: Alexandru BUFTEA

Supervisor: Cristian BLIDARIU

Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism,

Polytechnic University Timișoara

Moving beyond the activist momentum of 2013, leaving behind the naive rhetoric and the thematic clichés of ameliorative strategies, Alexandru Buftea enters the concrete realm of the phrase "Save Roșia Montană" by offering a very concrete solution. The solution is thus built around a real client, Răzvan Supuran, a concrete theme, that of a paper workshop, and a feasible and more than necessary economic idea, that of retraining and employing a small contingent of workers in the area both directly (in the workshop) and indirectly, through the horizontal economy generated. Beyond being a simple architectural project, Alexandru Buftea's proposal is a theoretical approach, a research that efficiently combines site study (carried out on site on several occasions), psychosocial study (obtained through dialogues with the main actors of the area), thematic study (built following discussions and negotiations with Răzvan Supuran).

The newspaper produced on the occasion of the public presentation accurately captured the complexity of this approach. The project has not been without its syncopes - not a few times the approach got bogged down in the reluctance of the locals to engage in dialog - but it has written its history as it went along, as data was gathered. The latest arrival was the architecture. It took shape step by step as a construction in the materiality of which Alexandru Buftea has encompassed all these issues, fears and uncertainties. Hence the nomadic house, the house without a foundation, uprooted, despite its sensitivity to context. The house only comes to Rosia if Rosia wants it.