Local, symbolic and precarious or Learning from Vama Veche

Between October and April, Vama Veche becomes a 1:1 model of the Old Customs House. It becomes quiet, people disappear and solitude prevails. The buildings are wrapped for winter in OSB, PVC, tin and tarpaulins. Without the tourists and the buzzers, the spatial typologies invented over the years, the strategies of land use and construction techniques become clearer. In the post-tourist quiet, the casual visitor can reflect on the nature of this place.
1. Categorization difficulties
Vama Veche eludes the usual urban categories. It is too urbanized and cosmopolitan to be a simple village. It is too cluttered and ambiguous in form and function for a tourist resort; it is too uncivic and too impermanent for a town or city.
Closer to the truth are the spontaneous and emotional labels: the Vama is the commercial plankton at a Bucharest-Iancului intersection by the sea, a light in the night, appealing as a highway gas station, unstructured and jumbled as an outpost on t