Diploma project - A different kind of museum

stud.-arh. Andrei Puică

Polytechnic University Timișoara,

Faculty of Architecture, 2015

The theme of the present work consists in a process of relocation of several abandoned houses in a refunctionalized industrial hall. The aim is to provide a space where the houses can be temporarily stored in order to be studied, restored and saved.

Removal of the houses will be by rail and road transportation. This will be perceived as a 'happening'. As a result, the routes on which the houses will be transported will not be chosen by chance, but will be backed by a whole strategy. Routes will be chosen which will pass through certain less visited rural settlements, with the aim of saving them or drawing attention to them. We can say that villages will also go through a restoration process, becoming intermediate stopping points in this system.

Of course, small festivals will be organized to highlight the moment when the houses are stationed. This "happening" launches the opportunity to restore or recycle various means of transportation.

The final stationing in this system will take place in a very large industrial hall, specifically the UMT hall. This will also go through a restoration and repurposing process, becoming a storage space for abandoned houses. Like a multi-shelved library, the hall will also be organized inside by means of freestanding metal structures, depicting multi-level platforms on which the houses will be placed. In the hall, studies will be carried out on those houses. They will be restored, refunctionalized, repurposed, repurposed or ultimately become exhibits. The houses will be able to be returned to their natural or better setting.

In this way, the hall becomes both laboratory and museum. A different kind of museum, reflecting the current situation faced by these stray architectures, using an industrial image with a strong message behind it. Unlike those open-air museums, which have a superficial attitude towards the situation of the houses or heritage objects (the houses brought in become exhibits that are not interactive at all, with a few exceptions), this museum, a hall museum, is interactive in character, seeking a diagnosis, a remedy and a solution. It changes the way restoration is perceived.

The project develops on two planes: one represents the real world to which the hall and the abandoned houses belong, and the second represents the fantasy world where the houses are replaced by creatures called "mioriettes". Although at first glance the two dimensions appear to be parallel, as we go through the project, we see that they are actually interdependent. At the end of one dimension is the other and vice versa.

The explanation of the diploma project uses a storyboard that explains, both in writing and graphically - comic strips - the actions that make up a veritable museum scenario.

tutor: arch. Bogdan Demetrescu