Thematic dossier

What spells has Eliza cast?

Thematic dossier

arh. Georgeta GABREA recommends
arh. ELIZA YOKINA

What spells has Eliza cast?

"Recognizing the value of architecture by a society is a phenomenon that involves a long process that has to do with education, culture, tradition, built environment. Encountering People in Architecture (the title under which the 2010 Venice Biennale was held, curator arch. Kazuoyo Sejima) is the highest value to which a man-made space can aspire. But this is an abstract value that can only be realized bilaterally. On the one hand, by the quality of the man-made environment and, on the other hand, by man's receptivity to the built environment. The natural extension of this phrase is... and the human encounter with Architecture. Architecture here denoting not only its physical object, but also the ideas and dreams that accompany the built environment."
Eliza Yokina

Building with holiday apartments P+3R, Club Bosco, Neptun resort, str. Trandafirilor, A.c.=708 sq.m, A.c.d.=2.600 sq.m, Total no. of apartments: 24.
January 2007-May 2008
authors: arh. Eliza Yokina, arh. Adrian Soare, co-authors: arh. Ștefan Simion, arh. Tudor Antemir designer: Soare & Yokina Arhitecți Asociați; beneficiary: Editura Univers Enciclopedic Publishing House Project designer: eng. Mircea Elefterescu
Installation designers: eng. Florentina Radu, eng. Mirela Neculai, eng. Alexandru Damian
Photo: Andrei Mărgulescu

We knew some of Eliza's projects. I knew that she is, together with five other colleagues and friends, the initiator of the De-a Arhitectura program, in 2011-2012. Since then, the program has been running very successfully and growing exponentially. From an idea of a small group of fellow architects, it has become a program developed in many localities across the country. From her point of view, it is an important step in the process of educating the population in architecture. She is right.
Eliza Yokina was born in Vidin, Bulgaria, in 1979. She attended general and high school in Vidin. She applied for admission to Fine Arts - Painting and was not accepted, after which she received a scholarship to study in Romania. She spent the first year at the University of Craiova to improve her Romanian language skills. She graduated from the University of Architecture "Ion Mincu" in Bucharest.
During his studies he worked with prof. dr. arh. Marius Marcu-Lapadat. In 2006, he completed Neptun Private Suites.
After graduation he worked with PZP (Mario Cuibuș, Dorin Ștefan, Zipp Studio - Marius Călin). After meeting architect Adrian Soare, they founded SYAA (Soare, Yokina Asociates Architects) and realized together mainly residential projects, participated in competitions for 10 years. After that, the team enlarged and CUMULUS was established - the company through which Eliza is currently working.

Mazilique Studio , Photo Cătălin Georgescu

In May 2019, the Romanian Union of Architects selected her for the Outstanding Romanian Women Architects Exhibition organized at the Romanian Cultural Institute in London, as part of the London Festival of Architecture. This is Eliza's latest feat.
In fact, at 40 years of age, she can boast an exceptional professional activity, with outstanding results, with works that have won prizes at numerous Architecture Annuals and Biennales, some of which have been nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Award.
It is in her spirit to want to take a project, if possible, from urban concept to object design. I asked her, naturally, if she was or is more attached to a particular project. The answer came quickly: "Each project is different and is like your own child. You cannot love one more than the others".
She is married, has two daughters, a 10 year old and a 7 year old, who constantly challenge and stimulate her. I didn't know, but I found out, that she wrote a wonderful children's book - about houses - which is out of print. The idea came to her when children came along and she was thinking what stories she could tell them. Beyond the day-to-day work of design and design, the surprise was how she wrote the book Dreams About Houses - a book for children and the children in us.
Eliza Yokina: Our first encounters with architecture are when we are very young. We relate to space differently than adults and come to think of the space under the table as our home. We have strong emotional experiences when we enter an attic or stand in front of a huge door. This encounter between architecture and man can happen as early as childhood. Children are receptive to space, they can recognize and interact with it through play. Beyond this direct and physical relationship we can find, in our memories, a different relationship with architecture. This is the land of stories and dreams, when houses are part of them. These fantastical fragments contain a great density of space that reveals itself differently each time, appearing in different hypostases and states, each very well defined and illustrated in a rich and vivid imagination like that of a child. Here, architecture can be overwhelming, it can be sublime, it can take on a different form or personality from the usual ones, it can communicate infinitely more things and thus create a typical child-character friendship. It is an abstract field, but that is precisely how it is free from prejudices and constraints and can be easily approached by the child.

SIMBIO Kitchen and Bar Rehabilitation and interior design of building Location: Bucharest, Romania; Beneficiary: Simbio Kitchen&Bar (Dana Nica and Iulia Younis); Surface area: 360 square meters; Year: 2015 Photo: Cătălin Georgescu Team: arh. Eliza Yokina, arh. Irina Plopeanu, arh. Cosmin Anghelache, arh. Simina Ignat Strength: eng. expert N. Gospodinov, eng. S. Gunju Installations: M. Hush, A. Burloiu, L. Constantinescu Contractor: Cella Cosimex

ELIZA YOKINA (b. 1979)

2001 - Design Excellence Award by arh. Petre Ciuta
2001-2002 - 2003-2004 - "Dinu Patriciu" Scholarship for excellent results in design
2003 - Internship at Spektra Architecture Office, Vidin Bulgaria
2002 - Internship at Buduchnost Construction and Design Firm, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia
2004 - graduated "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture, Bucharest
2006-2007 - UAUIM Doctoral School
2006 - present - Founding member of Soare & Yokina Arhitecți Associți architectural office
2012 - present - Founding member of De-a Arhitectura Association
2016 - present - Founding partner CUMULUS Architecture

Awards
2005 - Second Prize in the Housing Competition for the Displaced, organized by Metabuilding Timișoara
2007 - 2nd Prize, Amzei Food Market Bucharest, Romania
2008 - Bucharest Architecture Annual Award, Club Bosco
2009 - National Nomination - Mies van der Rohe Award
2009 - Grand Prize Arhitext Awards for the Bosco Club project
2009 - Second Prize at the National Competition for the restoration, extension and redevelopment of the Gabroveni Inn
2010 - Grand Prize in the competition for the Natural Science Museum Complex in Constanta
2012 - Best Book for Children and Young People Award for "Dreams about Houses", a story book for children and parents, by Eliza Yokina (Igloo). Romanian Book Industry Gala
2014 - 1st Prize at the Architecture Annual for the wooden game 11+1 Houses
2015 - 1st Annual Architecture Award Bucharest, Simbio kitchen & bar
2017 - National Nomination for the Mies van der Rohe Award, Simbio kitchen & bar

The time has come to meet and chat. After we parted, I was thinking that my assumptions had come true. You can't be an architect and finalize well what's on your mind if you're not boundlessly in love with the profession. And you can't practice it creatively if you are not very attentive to what the consumer of architecture really expects from you, how he or she lives and wants to live, and if you don't try, in our times where super-specialization is the key word and the general attitude, to have, as far as possible, a renaissance profile, in the sense of combining concerns and making viable connections. And last but not least, love people, children and be yourself! To have the strength to work beyond limits, to have the nerves and patience of the opinions and the wisdom to know how far a compromise can be made that does not damage your concept. And, as a woman, to be able to divide your time between family and profession without making it felt. For a woman it is much more complicated than for a man - at least in terms of balancing family and profession, in terms of time, which is the same for everyone.
That's Eliza. A witch of time, of ideas and forms, of turning abstract dreams into reality - a good witch, who tricks time to work and unfold as she wants.

So I ask myself: what more spells is she preparing for us?