AWAKE for ARTDOOR

In 2017, we, the architects from Mures, were called into the "AWAKE family", which was trying to start a unique event in the Mures area, a festival that would bring together music, art, architecture and people in an exceptional historical ensemble that is the domain of the Teleki Castle in Gornești. The place has had the chance to withstand almost 300 years of vicissitudes of all kinds, people, time and weather. How? It must have had an angel above.

Dream interrupted

Anyway, once in the park, you can't help but feel the energy of the place. Everything I write is palely mirrored in the few photos opposite. The real magic is like nothing else! The chance to be part of a logistical and promotional effort, which our professional organizations - the Union of Architects or the Order of Architects - normally don't have, was not to be passed up. Joining our name and our profession to a series of events promoting art in all its domains, as well as the architectural values of the Mures Valley, was not to be missed. So we found ourselves involved in a dream with Gornești Castle Park as its venue, a dream that lasted four years and was abruptly interrupted by the pandemic.

How?

By organizing a competition called ARTDOOR, with the motto "Big art meets nature", inviting visual artists and architects to create installations to be exhibited in the park during the AWAKE music festival. The competition was inspired by the history of the Teleki estate, which has been a European cultural centre since its inception. Hence the idea to revive a contemporary art exhibition in the park, in a unique natural space where the art-architecture communion can be appreciated. We were based on the certainty that the whole community of architects is creative, that each of us feels the need to do something other than ... architecture... Creativity should also be nurtured with events that are related to the profession, but which are connected to it and demonstrate the intrinsic link with art. So why not participate in the ARTDOOR- Big art meet nature creative competition? We invited fellow architects, student architects or students from architecture high schools to invent installations that can find their place in the secular park, with the chance to be seen by the thousands of people attending the festival.

Free your mind

The idea was also praised by the Architects' Association, from whom we received funding from the Architectural Stamp to produce and award the work. In addition to the competition component, every year we have had meetings, discussions, seminars, "feed your mind" sessions as part of the festival, which have made the event attractive and known not only to fellow architects. I believe that the uniqueness of the funding project, the multiple addressability, made the evaluation committee appreciate our dream. I can declare that the works exhibited in the park and in other locations, the discussions held on professional or cultural topics were seen and assimilated by several thousand people every year. Like any competition, this one had a jury. Which was headed by our colleague Kim Attila, artistic director of the AWAKE festival, born in Târgu Mureș, a nostalgic local.

In the first year, 2017, we chose to honor an installation made by a group of students from the Târgu Mureș Art High School - Architecture section - called MINITREMU, led by their teachers Laura Borotea and Gabriel Boldiș. It was called Eclipsa. It talked about seeing the world through defective glasses and how slutty you have to be to burn a library collected over centuries. He was talking about what happened in the 1940s at the castle when a priceless library was burned to the ground. The work has been taken to several exhibition spaces.

In 2018, architect Ionel Pascu's Bolta was awarded a prize. He brought a cut-out cube, transformed into a shelter, pavilion, chair, sofa, with arches that let nature surround you, into the castle garden. The installation takes you effortlessly from art to nature. And it's still on display in the park.

Three works were awardedin 2019. Of which only two were produced. The first was Loope'd, by architects Ruxandra Neagoș and Simona Abagiu. A naïve, playful installation made of swimming colas hugging a tree, with an igloo-like feel. It was appreciated and 'loved' by the first day's spectators until it collapsed!The second was The Door, by architects Sabin Dumitriu and Claudia Voinea - Pluto by night. A symbiosis between nature and the architecture of the Teleki Castle, a romantic evocation of how architecture merges with nature. The work has toured to several events in the city.

In 2020, unfortunately, the world stopped. We all forgot what it was like to meet each other. We started communicating without interacting.

In 2021, the organizers of the AWAKE festival thought that the good habit of meeting and enjoying each other, nature, art and the historic environment should be resumed. A small AWAKE happened in the medieval fortress of Targu Mures. Still historical setting, still music, art, architecture. The musical event was a symphonic VIȚA DE VIE concert, in collaboration with the Târgu Mureș State Philharmonic. In addition, we had an ARTDOOR exhibition in the fortress, with new and older works. Two installations were awarded and produced. The first was Hang in there, by architect Ionel Pascu. Which spoke playfully and colorfully about being together. The message was that we were not designed to live in isolation, as we were forced in 2020/2021 to maintain social distance. The installation is a proposal to restore our trust in society, teaching us to be together again. The work also won a prize at the BNA in the Event section. The second was the work RE-FRACTION, by the Manopera Architecture group, made up of architects Romeo Cuc, Raluca Sabău, Alexandra Damian, Diana Furnea, David Muntean, Adriana Moceanu. It talked about community, collective memory, reuse. The windows used are taken from the former Jewish school in the city center, which after more than a hundred years of being used for education, was abandoned, forgotten. Today it has a chance to be rehabilitated as a school, to come back to life. The work also won a prize at BATRA, in the Micro Architecture section.

For 2022, we resume the custom of meeting and celebrating the arts in historic places, with concerts, movies, conversations and of course ARTDOOR! In the medieval fortress of Târgu Mureș. Maybe this time under the auspices of the Romanian Union of Architects! We expect you all in Târgu Mureș, to somehow resist the times, to enjoy the place, the arts! For all that I have written above I thank Laura Coroianu, the director and soul of the AWAKE festival, and Kim Attila, who needs no introduction. Without them nothing could have happened and teaming up with them made the considerable effort of organizing it all seem like a piece of cake.

RE-FRACTION

Winning project at BATRA 2021 in the Micro Architecture / Temporary Architecture section

Author: MANOPERA ARCHITECTURE

Design team: Romeo Cuc, Raluca Sabău, Alexandra Damian, Diana Furnea, David Mutnean, Ariana Mocean

Collaborators: OAR Mures Branch, Culturaft Association

Address: during the AWAKE Nomad 2021 festival, Medieval Fortress of Târgu-Mureș

Photos: Raluca Sabău

The installation talks about community and collective memory, reuse and retelling the story of School No. 4 (Europa), a school located in the center of Târgu-Mureș, on Horea Street. The story of the school begins in 1890, when the 5,000-strong Jewish community from Nazna moved to the central area of the city and opened a synagogue, a temple and a Jewish elementary school. Subsequently, the Jewish Elementary School, the Roman Catholic School for Boys, and the Protestant Elementary School operated at this location.

During the Second World War, the school was discontinued and some of the teachers and pupils were taken from the school and deported to the Auschwitz camps. After the war, the school was reopened for children from Jewish families from many parts of the country. During the communist period, there was also a school here - initially number 8, later called School Number 4 (1962-2004) and then Gymnasium Europa. In the near future, the school on Horea Street will be rehabilitated, refurbished and reopened as a gesture of respect for the memory of the place and for its importance in the collective mentality of the inhabitants of Târgu-Mureș. The windows that make up the installation are those that protected the classrooms in the past and are now being given the role of marking the moment when the school on Horea Street comes back to life.

MANOPERA is an architecture and structural engineering office in Cluj-Napoca, established in 2017, debuting with the Romanian representation at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Oriented towards community initiative and research as the foundation for each project, the office's practice experiments with ingredients such as simplicity, rational use of resources, structural logic, honest materiality, expressiveness and emotion that architecture is capable of conveying.

In the first year, 2017, we chose to reward an installation made by a group of students from the Art High School of Târgu Mureș - Architecture section - called MINITREMU, led by their teachers Laura Borotea and Gabriel Boldiș. It was called Eclipsa. It talked about how to see the world through defective glasses and how slutty you have to be to burn a library collected over centuries. He was talking about what happened in the 1940s at the castle when a priceless library was burned to the ground. The work has been taken to several exhibition spaces.

Three works were awardedin 2019. Of which only two were produced. The first was Loope'd, by architects Ruxandra Neagoș and Simona Abagiu. A naïve, playful installation made of swimming colas hugging a tree, with an igloo-like feel. It was appreciated and 'loved' by the first day's spectators until it succumbed!The second was The Door, by architects Sabin Dumitriu and Claudia Voinea - Pluto by night. A symbiosis between nature and the architecture of the Teleki Castle, a romantic evocation of how architecture merges with nature. The work has toured to several events in the city.

In 2020, unfortunately, the world stopped. We all forgot what it was like to meet each other. We started communicating without interacting.

For 2022, we resume the custom of meeting and celebrating the arts in historic places, with concerts, movies, conversations and of course ARTDOOR! In the medieval fortress of Târgu Mureș. Maybe this time under the auspices of the Romanian Union of Architects! We expect you all in Târgu Mureș, to somehow resist the times, to enjoy the place, the arts! For all that I have written above I thank Laura Coroianu, the director and soul of the AWAKE festival, and Kim Attila, who needs no introduction. Without them, nothing could have happened and joining with them made the considerable effort of organizing everything seem like a piece of cake.