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Romanian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018. Freespace with the keychain-around-the-neck

THE ROMANIAN PAVILION

AT THE VENICEBIENNALE 2018.

FREESPACE BY THE THROAT

text: Maria MĂNESCU

I already knew about the Mnemonics project when I visited the Romanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. I wasn't exactly enthusiastic and didn't have high expectations. But as "life beats movies", reality beats prejudice. On site, the pavilion was white and bright, clean and airy, the "exhibits" interesting and surprising. Compared to the initial project, there was a visible qualitative leap. The arguments were clearer, the graphics and other visuals were carefully and discreetly moving the walls of the pavilion, the space was occupied by objects (the carpet bar, the wheel, the swing, the ping-pong table) that supported the basic idea of the project: the exhibition of one of the many forms of freedom, the freedom of the "block-neck children" of the years of communism and post-communism. The city itself, the atmosphere, the morning light in the Giardini, perhaps all together made me see these things more clearly and feel even more in solidarity with the team of former "block-headed children" and their approach to the Biennale theme, which was perfectly viable, a view later confirmed by visiting the other pavilions.
Of course, there were acid comments on the approach to the theme, its support through the playful concept, the way of exhibiting, and it was questioned how representative this project is for Romania. Why not? Is it not a fragment of the realities of this country, a form of mental freedom and resistance, a way of appropriating space? Is it not about Freespace?
I would even say that, in a troubled period in which few have the courage to expose their memories and experiences, these young people have done it boldly and naturally, managing to argue their choice and to convince, to some extent to clarify the boundary between individual and collective, between private and public.
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Freespace, the title of the theme proposed by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara to the participants in the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, subtly occupies the city, on land, with posters and graffiti, on water, coloring all the vaporetto lines in red and white, and in the air, on the flags waving in the breeze of the lagoon.
What is Freespace? For the Biennale's curators, the theme invokes generosity and humanism, calls for renewed ways of thinking and seeing the world. Simple and yet so complicated! Participating countries were invited to synthesize their own vision of the theme into ideas for the use of public space, emphasizing the role of architecture in the choreography of everyday life. The personal way in which the exhibitors were able to transform the theme into a viable concept that would appeal to the public and provide food for thought was strongly influenced by the history, geography and cultural specificities of each country.
Along the huge route linking the two large exhibition spaces, the Arsenale and the Giardini, the participants competed amiably in illustrating how the architecture of 'open space' can influence our lives. The highly varied and surprising national visions respond with strong personal imprints to the standardizing tendencies of our times, giving viable responses to the vanity of the spectacular, the whirlwind of globalized commerce.
The resulting ensemble is an open-air spectacle, bringing together energies, free and innovative spirit, the simple beauty of ideas in a place already fabulous in its historical charge. Between the central pavilion housing the main exhibition and the national pavilions, the architecture stands out as a habitable, aesthetic and protective foundation of another possible world.
In Europe, communism has left its mark, directly or indirectly, on several generations. In the context of the Biennale's theme, several participating countries - Germany, Albania, Romania - have chosen to talk about their experiences.
The German Pavilion (Giardini), curators: GRAFT and Marianne Birthler, spoke to the world about the physical and symbolic tearing down of walls, using the artificial Great Wall between the two Germanies as a pretext for discussion and argument, to examine the effects of separation and the post-communist healing process. The curators tried to demonstrate how the new public spaces on the former border strip can be used in a positive way without destroying memories of the past. A selection of 25 projects shows how this open space in the middle of the new capital has evolved in the 28 years since the Berlin Wall came down.
Albania's pavilion, Hapësira Zero Space (Arsenale), curated by Elton Koritari, interpreted the theme as a liberation of Tirana's public space after the fall of communism. The citizens reclaimed their city and started small businesses with headquarters in their own homes, creating a city of small trade. The active participation and sense of community are reflected in the changing use of the spaces, which thus change their status from private to public. The installation is a visual composition with original doors from buildings in Tirana, which can be opened by visitors as a symbolic invitation to discover what lies behind them. The spaces between and above the doors are occupied by hundreds of photographs of small businesses and activities in the city - a small restaurant, a shoemaker, a barber, a tailor or a butcher. In this case, the Freespace interpretation is more a plea for the freedom to think and decide how to live your life, rather than about the use of a space.

In the same vein of memory, of memories that are always good, never bad, never to be lost because they define us, this year's Romanian Pavilion (Giardini) is also part of the same theme, suggestively titled Mnemonics - mnemonics being the art of aiding memory (a word derived from the Greek mnemonikós, Latin memoria). "Collective memories define our territory" is the motto of the Romanian exhibition.
"Mnemonics exhibits a story about a territory of freedom of several generations in Romania, about small gestures of inhabiting and integrated approaches to space - the home and the open space around it.
Mnemonics is a story about architecture and collective memory, about childhood and the joy of play, about future opportunities and possibilities."
"Shared memories and experiences, the chance for a sensitive discussion on the topic of the open space between the blocks of most Romanian cities and the possibilities to reuse it brought the Mnemonics team together. It is a timely meeting of many skills acquired from urban planning, architecture, art, journalism and communication, advertising, editorial projects and social engagement.
We are in the process of evaluating the built environment in which we live, and we see blocks as an important resource with great potential to (re)generate communities and improve interpersonal relationships and the way of living and using public space. The worlds invented by children and the creativity of play give us the chance to understand how open space in our neighborhood can generate new ideas for development." (Romeo Cuc)
The six members of the multidisciplinary team, generation peers, who conceived Mnemonics - Romeo Cuc, Mihai Gheorghe, Irina Petra Gudană, Roxana Pop, Raluca Sabău, Vlad Tomei - put their childhood memories together, trying to extract their healthy essence and use them to transform for the better the city they live in. The Romanian Pavilion is a scenography that brings to life the public space between the blocks, trying to free it from the negative connotations that accompanied it in the wake of communism. Through their deliberately playful concept, the young architects of the Mnemonics team have dealt with a very serious theme, transforming the "maidanul" in front of or behind the block from a space "of no one" into a space "of supreme freedom", generous and multifunctional through its virtually unlimited playful potential, free of external constraints and rules, foreign to the game, a generator of the collective memory of those who were children in the last almost 30 years of our interminable transition to democracy. A place where children played and built their memories, which cemented friendships, created funny stories, games, accidents.

><img src= Their common symbol is the key around their necks, the phrase "cu-cheia-de-gât" being already established in Romania. The children with the key-keys were those whose parents were working, who came home from school alone and spent the time until their parents came home from work playing outside with other children in the same situation.
The pavilion scenographically evokes the elements that populated the playgrounds in front or behind the block, objects that have become symbols of these generations: the carpet bar that became a gate for football or other games, the wheel, the ping-pong table, the swing and the card game, materialized in the form of postcards that describe in detail the games children played at that time. Contrary to the custom of access to exhibitions, where visitors are warned not to touch the objects on display, on entering Mnemonics they are encouraged to play inside the pavilion, are invited to change roles on the playground, to interact and meditate on the effects of the appropriation of public space by its inhabitants.
In addition to the installation in the Giardini pavilion, there is a second part of the exhibition in the new ICR Venice gallery, which recreates the staircase of the block, the transit zone between the building and the courtyard in front of the block, between private and public space.
According to the British daily The Guardian, "Romania's pavilion takes a playful approach to the public space between the blocks as a symbol of the country's rapid urbanization in the second half of the 20th century", while the international publication Monocle, in a video montage, says that "Romania has provoked with a well-executed and charming exhibition built on reminiscence and memories of childhood spent on playgrounds and patches of grass between the blocks. (...) it reveals the power of a nation to generate a beautiful setting with an evocative idea and, more than that, how perceptions can be changed." Information about the Romanian Pavilion can also be found on www.archdaily.com with a presentation by the Mnemonics team.

caption><img src= Romeo Cuc is an architect and construction engineer, working in Cluj-Napoca and Brussels, Belgium (b. Târgu Mureș), he studied at the Technical University of Constructions in Bucharest and at the University of Architecture and Urbanism "Ion Mincu" in Bucharest. He graduated at the Faculty of Architecture "La Cambre Horta" of the Université Libre in Brussels, Belgium. Besides architecture, she has been involved in several projects and workshops on sustainable development of the built environment.
Raluca Sabău is an architect (b. Sibiu). She lived in Blaj and studied at the University of Architecture and Urbanism "Ion Mincu" in Bucharest and at ETSAB - School of Architecture in Barcelona. Her main concerns are cities and current urban issues, in particular residential architecture, collective housing being the subject of in-depth research.
Roxana Pop is an architect (b. Baia Mare). She studied at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and at the School of Architecture in Clermont-Ferrand, France. She has participated in various national and international activities (in Paris, France and Brussels, Belgium) on architecture, urbanism, design, event planning. Her general concerns are oriented towards the public space, the human dimension of sustainable urban development, focusing in particular on urban residential areas and how they can be transformed through civic engagement.
Irina Gudană is an architect (b. Tecuci). She studied at the University of Architecture and Urbanism "Ion Mincu" in Bucharest and "Alfonso X El Sabio" in Madrid, Spain. She has been involved in different projects and workshops on architecture and urbanism, cultural heritage, publicity and event planning, later developing a summer school on architectural restoration. This experience has led to a better understanding of the impact that communities can have on a territory and the dimension of time in the evolution of transformations.
Mihai Gheorghe is a visual artist (b. Bucharest). He studied at the National University of Art in Bucharest. His experience includes several projects in design, advertising and editorial projects. His recent concerns on the importance of childhood memories in adult life and the creation of a collection of children's games have been recognized by several international nominations and awards.
Vlad Tomei is a copywriter (b. Iasi). He studied Journalism and Communication Sciences at the University of Bucharest and at the Institute of Communication at Lumière 2 University in Lyon, France. He pursued an international career in marketing and communication, developing several national and international publishing projects on children's imagination and creativity. Her collection of children's games has received numerous national and international nominations and awards. This experience was an important asset for the project.
Attila Kim is an architect with extensive experience in architectural design and restoration. He has designed many important art exhibitions and won several awards at the Biennale of Architecture in Bucharest, was nominated 3 times for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture Mies van der Rohe and the Jacob Chernikhov Prize for Contemporary Architecture, Moscow. He studied at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and received several study grants in Slovakia, the USA and the Netherlands. He continued his studies with an MA in Rehabilitation of Historical Monuments and a PhD in Arts, followed by a research grant from the New Europe College in Bucharest.
Andrei Mărgulescu is an architect and photographer, born in Iași and raised in Bucharest. His contribution to illustrating the project is a journey he started in his hometown in the north-eastern part of the country, in Iași. It is a story in pictures that enumerates moments and situations specific to many neighborhoods in large and small Romanian cities, shaped by the same history of urbanism. For the author, they are an opportunity to reread his own childhood memories and confront them with the present.