When providence takes you to the Venice Architecture Biennale

When I was a child at my mother's, my father wanted me to be an architect, my grandfather a lawyer, my grandmother a doctor, my poor mother, the only one, let time discern my qualities and supported me in discovering my unknown aptitudes. Thus, after following violin, sports gymnastics, I found my way by graduating, in 1990, from the Academy of Art, Faculty of Decorative Arts, Scenography of Theater, Film, TV, and in 1996 I completed my studies in the specialization of Copyright. I can say that my family's wishes were fulfilled, but I didn't become a doctor, but I had my share of sickness and illnesses, which I took care of myself, just enough to get a degree...

I have no idea whether the trajectory of my professional life was due to circumstances, to my restless spirit and always looking for challenges or to chance, but I know for sure that it has always been important to listen to my heart, to my instinct, to believe in myself and not to choose the dull path of a quiet life.
So, from the film sets and the drawing department, I moved, one by one, to the editorial offices of several press trusts, as editor, general secretary of the editorial office and editor-in-chief, continuing to be passionate about art and getting involved in various cultural projects.
I was co-opted in the young Colectiv that set up the Romanian Copyright Office, dealing with the audiovisual field.
Certified as a cultural manager by the Ministry of Culture in 2012 I became the director of the National Technical Museum "prof. eng. eng. Dimitrie Leonida" in Bucharest, with the mission of bringing the valuable exhibits and the fascinating history of Romanian inventions and not only.
It was no coincidence to come to the Technical Museum or to meet arch. Emil Ivănescu.
Karma is what decided.
The first time, I could say, during my childhood, I experienced the first misunderstood step of Karma, when my grandfather used to bring me to Carol Park to go roller-skating and, invariably, at the end of the cross I would enter the Technical Museum, where I was overwhelmed by those huge objects that I looked at with admiration, even if I didn't understand anything. I was fascinated by the Babkok Wilkox boilers, brought and assembled by Dimitrie Leonida himself, from Grozăvești, which seemed to transport me to Star Wars, by the Persu automobile, which I first reproduced in a comic strip, and by Justin Capra's flying machine, which I imagined I was flying to Mars. Child's mind.
The second time was on a beautiful fall day last year, I was well past childhood, I was the director of the Technical Museum, when the architect Tomnița Florescu called me and said briefly: "I'll drop by with the president of the Bucharest Order of Architects, I'm sure you can make a team together and you will generate many interesting projects".
He was right. After the first visual impact with that guy with the beard and the red glasses, who seemed to me, accustomed to senescence, too young for the position he held, arch. Emil Ivănescu, I discovered in his person the ideas with which I had come to the museum and which in time faded in a corner of my mind, because I realized that I had nothing, no one and nowhere to implement them, so our wheels began to work, to intertwine. I don't know when the time passed, when they left my office, but already three projects were starting to take shape. I was no longer a child, but a person who was activated on the spot from the fresh sap that Emil had brought.
A month later we were organizing together, in the museum, the Annual of Architecture and the Henry Coandă exhibition. It was during the paneling that the idea of participating in the Venice Architecture Biennale project came up. It was a project that I was hopelessly hooked on, dreaming about at night and thinking about during the day. It was a utopian project for the museum, which had never been on such a scale, had never traveled abroad, a project that I loved from the start, even though I didn't know its implications, the procedures that followed, the anxieties, the difficulties, but in my unconsciousness I was sure of success.
Afterwards, I realized that anything that was not customary in the museum mentality was considered immoral, illegal and abnormal. Which spurred me on, and got me ambitious and set to work.
Sometimes you have to push with your horns like a battering ram and, in addition to ideas or inspiration, have the touch of madness that will make guaranteed success or disaster. I chose success.
Emil - with the concept, me - with the tank. Yes, with the tank. Because from that moment on, nothing stood in my way. There must have been days of scouring the museum and the storerooms together, countless times a day, until we had selected the objects with which to present ourselves. Whatever the selection, invariably the Persu automobile, the flying machine and the Coandă models were on the list. The Persu car, however, was not looking good at all and needed extensive restoration work to make it suitable for transportation and display.
We didn't wait for the design competition to be announced and started the restoration procedures - after all, it would have been a win-win for the museum. But Murphi's Laws proved accurate. There was no specialist restorer on the car, there was no expert authorized to evaluate this type of object, there were no funds. There was, instead, distrust, misinformation, millstones, stumbling blocks - a whole racecourse and black grumblings in thought and the roof of the mouth aplenty. I hadn't even found the formula to get the job started yet, but the words were rolling: he wants to get the patrimony out of the country, he wants to sell it, he's tried before, he's with the mafia, obscure organizations, the prosecutor's office, DNA. I had gotten used to the platinum in the Karpen piles, which I was accused of wearing around my neck, and they, the piles, I kept locked in the safe, when they had already been on display for several years. I told myself to let them talk, to let them fuss, so that I would have time to find my way unhindered.
I guess I should have taken one shift at Telekom while I could talk on the phone and one at a printer's to print a book with the messages, letters, requests, advice or explanations I wrote in those days.
However, I found PEOPLE, passionate, in the field, who showed their availability pro bono - Florian Marin with his team, a certified expert specialist on heritage and metal, Traian Postelnicu, who embraced the idea and answered in the affirmative. So in December, with the contracts signed, we started the first restoration works.
In the meantime, assessments, reassessments, reports, minutes, contradictory discussions, obstacles, mistrust, accusations, letters to insurers, who did not respond or simply refused, saying that they did not have the product, that the risks were too high, questions with or without answers, but always discouraging, malicious and all from those in our branch or from our collaborators.
The machine, the programmer and the tank, IVĂNESCU-ALBANI, on the other hand, was working, it could not be stopped. The defense and the attack on the battlefield had begun.
On January 15, 2023, a ray of sunshine appeared in the cloudy sky, Emil Ivănescu won the NOW - HERE - THERE project, and no one could turn me back. Călin Dobra, the general manager of S. FISE Electrica Serv S.A., who manages us, had confidence in me and in the project and authorized me directly to do all the necessary steps and paperwork on behalf of the company. From now on, all responsibility, mistakes or successes belonged to me. The clouds were still there, the storms had not stopped, but the way was open.
The hard work, it turned out, was just beginning.
In record time for the scale of this event, with no funding, with the agreements still unsigned because their time had not yet come, everyone pursued their target. Emil with the contracts, the project, the conception, the workers, the assemblies, the installations, the photographs, the catalog, the media, etc. I with finding the ship carrier, applications-forms-forms-forms for insurance, temporary export certificates, restorations, conservations, files, texts, website, etc. We had reached a vicious circle, you couldn't accomplish something because you needed something else. You couldn't solve one, because something else would come in. It was a whole chain that you had to go through step by step, according to a well-established timetable. Any day late meant a week lost. Luckily, I'm at my most productive under stress. For me, there was only the project, the safety of the objects and solving the unseen.
The stars didn't align until the second half of April. Persu was ready in record time. Restored in a museum room, small and unsuitable, but with an aura that turned out well, almost all selected objects repaired, conserved, restored, insurance realized, temporary export certificate on the way. The restorers, due to fatigue and the imposed pace of work, had become like museum objects, static and intangible, good only to look at.
Emil had moved to Curtea de Argeș, working side by side with the craftsmen for the installations, he kept communicating with us, with the outside, with the organizers and the commissioner in the sound of hammers, saws and welding machines. The whole team - Simina Filat, Cătălin Berescu, Anca Maria Păsărin and the elves - worked hard, discreetly, but with nerves stretched to the maximum for the catalog, photos, models.
The start was approaching and, my God, there was still so much to do.
The architects were bringing their models and installations to the museum in a dedicated room, Petruț Valeriu was testing the images and sound system, Anca Maria Păsărin was working on the models and making the boxes for their packaging, Cătălin Berescu was running with his camera through the museum and from one to another. Everything became white, tired and dusty. You could feel the ticking of the bomb ready to explode, hoping it wouldn't go off.
The night of April 26 became day, a long day or "night like thieves" as some would say.
In the driveway of the park, at 10 p.m., the shot appeared. The truck, like something out of a sci-fi movie, with adjustable platforms, slopes, dismantlable parts, came to pick up the objects. The whole team: curators, workers, myself, curator, restorer, driver, photographer, collaborators - we were all one, without functions, without hats, lifting, loading, pushing.
Persu, Coandă, Capra, models, objects, installations, which until then had been sitting quietly and were just stories to some, managed to take the road to Venice towards morning.
What was left to do? Many, many, many, but for me more were the emotions that intertwined with the joys and the paralyzing, almost heart attack moments. I sat motionless on my phone, breathless, watching images, movies, of the transportation, customs clearance, disembarking at Tronchetto, unloading from the trucks, boarding the barge or the cars that seemed to take wings, hanging from the cranes. It was like Leonardo da Vinci and his flying machines. A Saturday day, huddled with eyes and hands glued to the cell phone screen, heart pounding loud, loud until almost bursting. On Sunday they had all arrived safely at the Romanian Pavilion in the Giardini.
Monday, a day of well-deserved rest, it was May Day, for most of us, a day of celebration and rest, Labor Day, for me it was a day of sleep, I slept sound asleep all day. We achieved what no one thought we would manage to achieve. Neither the neighbor's goat died, nor us.
More days of working against the clock followed. This time only for Emil Ivănescu and his team. Fitting out pavilions, installations, movables.
On May 17, 2023 everything was ready, all of us - tired but happy - were waiting for the press, the jury and the opening. Other and different emotions, but it was worth it.

Representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, State Secretary Diana Baciuna from the Ministry of Culture, the President of ICR Romania, Liviu Jicman, or the Director of ICR Venice, Romanian Commissioner Attila Kim, through their speeches gave to Caesar what is Caesar's, recognition and thanks, we in turn, thanked them for having been by our side and supported us in any way they could, and we, Caesar's children, merged with the crowd, friends, specialists and supporters, happy and determined to continue our collaboration, with new and new projects, some more daring than others, even disturbing and taking many others out of their daily comfort.

There are also critics, which is good and constructive, but what is most important is that the Romanian Pavilion at the Venice International Architecture Biennale has managed to become that generator of ideas and research on inventions and innovations in the little known technological area or Romanian architecture, bringing to the forefront the creative journey of innovations or inventions born as a result of interdisciplinary collaboration, and has become a space meant to generate dialog, questions and answers translated into ideas for an inclusive and sustainable future, for society and the environment. The ideas and exhibits are ours, of Romanian minds, we have them at our fingertips, just waiting for you to put them into practice.

There are many, very many researchers and scientists who are virtually unknown and whose merits are enjoyed all over the world, without knowing where they come from. Moreover, if we were to mention only the discoverer of insulin, Dr. Paulescu, we would learn that the Nobel Prize was awarded to other personalities and not to him. Ion Basgan, the inventor of sonic drilling - who revolutionized the drilling technique in 1932 by switching to rotary percussive drilling, a method still used today by Americans and not only, Aurel Persu, the inventor of the first car in the world with wheels embedded in the bodywork and patented in France, Germany and America, but not in Romania, Gogu Constantinescu - the inventor of the sonic torque converter for locomotives are just some of the Romanians who have revolutionized world technology.
The same, but on a different level, is true of Romanian creativity. For example: the mill which is the ancestor of the Pelton turbine, the original Romanian invention of the mine wagon with a track shifter, which is in the Technical Museum in Munich, the Crivacul and the Steampul are almost unknown in the Dimitrie Leonida National Technical Museum. The originals are under permanent preservation, conservation, but the patenting of the invention, if it exists, benefits the whole world.
Thus, the museum, by constantly searching for new forms and ways of expression, by creating new content, can become one of the essential tools for the realization of the knowledge society, representing one of the most dynamic components of today's society, the knowledge of the great technologies that are the basis of Romanian industry and economy.

These presentations cover longer or shorter periods of time, often exhibiting objects whose real existence (as with most prototypes) and connection with their user remain obscure to us. As Beaune writes, "classical museum chronologies are based on two principles: The object is wrested from its environment (or presented in a completely inauthentic reconstitution of it). Recurrence, another facet of this view of history: the object, as defined by its exemplary, original quality - often with a confusion between these two terms - serves to re-create the story of its previous forms" (Beaune, 1998).
It often takes a real intellectual effort of reconstitution to place the object in its technical context and to situate it, as Deforge (1985) argues, in an environment linked to use, production, marketing and in a diachronic perspective, against the background of a whole series of previous versions. In addition, the object is not the only entry point into the history of the technique; the manufacturing process, mode, place, time or use can also be a criterion of presentation.

A museum of technology is certainly intended to be an exhaustive presentation, but visitors must be able to recognize the major elements and inventions essential to the evolution of a field of activity. In the process, they need to move from being spectators to actors, with opportunities to touch and handle, to experiment and test hypotheses through discovery. In this way, access to objects offers the possibility to develop knowledge to a significant extent. This is why the partnership between technology and architecture is and has been the best way to bring together object, man and time in the context of space.

"Now - Here - There proposes a dialog in which visitors are invited to contribute to imagining solutions to the challenges of today's society and their effects on the future. The world's first aerodynamic vehicle with wheels inside the car body, an electric vehicle from the early 20th century or concept installations for tidal energy are just some of the models on display in the Romanian Pavilion. Once upon a time, in the forgotten past, these inventions and innovations were blocked for various political and economic reasons. While today more than a billion people have no access to drinking water, about 70 years ago a Romanian inventor, Henri Coandă, created a desalination plant designed to convert seawater into drinking water using only solar energy - in 12 hours, 1,600 liters of drinking water through an 8 square meter plant exposed to the sun. Unfortunately, the innovation has stagnated at the working prototype stage for bureaucratic reasons," says Emil Ivănescu
To conclude, I confess that, out of my desire to fascinate new generations of visitors, I will always be looking for innovative collaborators to transform the museum into a multicultural space where technique and science become art, intertwine in perfect symbiosis, tell stories both to those who cross its threshold and to those from abroad (through digital or international projectors such as the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023).
The project will continue after the Biennale closes. We will exhibit in Timișoara, Reșița, Cluj, Iași, in Bucharest at partner institutions or at our headquarters, we will host a film festival, a theater company, we will be always present in the public space, we will be active.
The era of simple museum heritage exhibitions or small temporary exhibitions is over. We have realized that we live in a world on the move, in an accelerated transformation thanks to multiple channels of information, and that we have to adapt. A museum organization cannot remain impassive to what is going on around it, and its partners must be grounded in reality, but also dreamers, innovators.
ToparaphraseIonCreangă, my maternal grandmother's uncle, I don't knowabout others, but when I think of my parents' home, of the aspirations of my ancestors, of what they taught me and instilled in me, of the ancestor of the Dimitrie Leonida Technical Museum, I still feel as if my heart leaps with joy, as I have thanked them and I thank them!
The engine has been oiled, the revs are optimal, we are pressing the accelerator and preparing new projects.