Continuity through Re-invention

Ileana TUREANU, UAR president since 2016

This is an anniversary issue of the Romanian Society of Architects. I hope it doesn't turn into a celebratory...

Former presidents can take stock. I wouldn't want, a few months after assuming this enormously demanding position, to start making promises. I will not do so because we are all tired of promises, that is to say good intentions, most of which are unfulfilled, of course... through the fault of others.

There is no timeless strategy. As a responsible association, we are forced to adopt "a strategy appropriate to the priorities of the moment". It is the conjuncture that dictates the major themes of our work and not our own program "in the drawer".

How, in a few lines, do I see the moment we are in? What is it specifically, therefore, worth remembering?

First of all, a huge creative capacity wasted by a society that is largely confused, uneducated, uncultured, snobbish and hypocritical, lacking empathy, suffocated by information, trends and brands, empty of moral and cultural values, mentors and role models. And that, above all... because of a lack of REFEREES.

Instead, we are bombarded by a media blitz: news, news, (breaking) news and (sensational) discoveries, workshops, formal and informal workshops, select gatherings and grass-roots country fairs (in memory of authentic or hastily picked up ancestors), exhibition competitions or competitions with exhibitions, real and virtual competitions, consultations, advice, gatherings. All in vain, to the point of suffocation...

In this context, the characters of the moment have emerged: the event inventor and, of course, the event consumer. We are "lost in transitions and translations". We are not suffering from a lack of information, but from too much of it. And that... from a lack of REFERENCES.

A sovereign contempt combined with a lack of interest in Romanian values, be they wooden churches, Dacian ruins, architect-creators of schools and institutions, scholars, traditional crafts, architects who had the misfortune to profess during the socialist period (how "lack of morality" to choose to be born and work in a compromised or compromising period!!!)...

An empty amphitheater, where speakers coming from hundreds and thousands of kilometers tell among themselves and the organizers about their projects, ambitions, intentions and international acclaim. The speakers leave the hall disappointed and wander through the foyer, where a bubbling "bubbling saunas" presentation is being held in a teeming room of attendees (with a salmon couch in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other).

The skillful use of possible linguistic confusions (lightened by the professional squabbling) of 'Europeanized' tricksters to short-circuit and ridicule sustainable urban planning studies, followed by the tiptoeing removal of professionals from decision-making bodies.

The absence of Romanian specialists from the teams and bodies that are shaping the new architecture of the continent, in its new organizational formula, and its imposition through funding mechanisms.

Pensioners with incomes the size of a pair of shoes, whom the guild can only help with the equivalent of a few kilos of bananas.

The emergence, when you've given up hope, of volunteers who play THE ARCHITECTURE with primary school children.

The discovery of colleagues who, for years in their cities, have been struggling to make ARCHITECTURE loved and understood by talented high school students, future architects or not, but certainly educated and informed future residents, the interlocutors of architects and urban planners.

Artists who, in complete anonymity, teach children in villages with exotic names traditional crafts and a love of heritage.

A young colleague who, to the question: "What do YOU expect from us?", asks neither scholarships, nor prizes, nor competitions (although all would be necessary), but asks: "SUPPORT, when I am right, normality, morality, involvement, assumption, REPERE".

As you can see, the answers are logical and obvious. If they are also possible, we shall see.

But, for that, we MUST try to put values in order, establish hierarchies, spot values and promote them.

We MUST take advantage of the creators we still have, whose faces and words have been forgotten, erased or unfairly mocked.

We MUST promote national values while we can still find and save them.

We MUST show Europe our treasures, be it wooden churches, houses with porches, Oltene cule, inter-war or contemporary architects.

We MUST understand that we can enrich European culture with personalities with fascinating destinies and exceptional creators (such as Henrieta Delavrancea, Horia Creangă, G. M. Cantacuzino and, in fact, their whole generation).

In a globalized world in which the big fish swallows the little fish, a world that erases bureaucratic, financial and identity boundaries, we MUST cling tenaciously to our REPRESENTATIONS.

We MUST do more to make architecture present in the city and in the concerns of its inhabitants. But residents need to be informed and prepared. We will support all these initiatives. Recognizing that architecture can only exist in symbiosis with its inhabitants, architects need to nurture and educate their audiences from the earliest years of school.

The profession is going through a difficult period. The guild MUST abandon internal squabbles, close ranks and take ownership of its condition, values, actions, choices and opinions.

Professional associations MUST pay more attention and respect to young colleagues, to whom they have a duty to provide competent support, professional attitude and moral benchmarks.

Architects seem determined to explore their resources and realign their ways of working with society.

The National Architecture Biennale 2016 was recently held under the motto RECOVERING REPEAT. It is the expression under which we seek our sources, our inspiring and emblematic figures, our authentic values. The concern for the recovery and valorization of authentic architecture makes itself felt and has been exemplarily rewarded. It is not by chance that the OPERA OMNIA prize was awarded to the architect Niels Auner, the savior of the wooden churches of Maramure, the architect Niels Auner.

The events organized during the days of the Biennale included exhibitions and debates: Duiliu Marcu, Ștefan Balș, the DADA movement. In search of identity and...