In dialog with Professor Virgiliu Onofrei

Dragoș Ciolacu: It has been 50 years since the school of architecture in Iași and you are one of the people responsible for its birth and rebirth. Was it worth the effort?

Virgiliu Onofrei: Yes, time is passing and the School of Architecture is celebrating its 50th anniversary, but its existence has been discontinuous and marked by shocks and changes. There is a gap of seven years between 1983, when the school ceased its activities, and 1990, when it resumed, and there are clear differences in the structure and status of the two entities, the 1970 school and the 1990 school, in terms of the length of schooling and the competences attested by the diploma.

I did not have any responsibility in setting up the 1970 school, as I came to Iași later, after it had already started its second year of operation. The proposal to come to the school was made to me in 1970 by architect Cezar Niculiu, a counselor at IPET Bucharest, where I had been working for four years, who had been appointed lecturer at the school in Iasi together with architects Nicolae Porumbescu and Maria Vaida Porumbescu. He was a man with a very good education, whom I respected, but he was not a practicing architect, with a body of work, as some people like to say, but had worked in management and coordination positions, a relative image of what today one might call a manager. I answered evasively, because I was reluctant to leave Bucharest, my family and a job where I was appreciated and felt good. A year later, in September 1971, I met the architect Nicolae Porumbescu at the Union of Architects, which at that time had its headquarters in Episcopiei Street, near the Athenaeum. It was a beautiful day and I liked the place very much. I was seeing N. Porumbescu for the first time and I had a spontaneous liking for him, and the way he spoke to me made him seem sincere, open and convincing. It was a meeting that gave me pleasure and gave me confidence, and the result was my coming to the school in Iasi.