ATELIER ACS

‘The Exile’ was an emotional, affecting phenomenon which described the inside of the architectural word of Romania during the Communist Regime.

​

The central theme of this heart-rending period was the political-ideological intention of creating a new image of the country.

‘The Exile’ with its sufferings, nostalgia and hardship made the Romanian architects and architecture students experience an enclosed, uncreative environment which inhibited their imagination and architectural visions. They were captive inside their own minds as none of their creative ideas could be expressed in the real life.

​

‘The Exile’ was seen as a refuge, as a chance for the young Romanian architects to escape into a space where they could evolve and experiment with new ideas, an environment where they could find themselves.

​

The purpose of this work is to explore the visions of representative Romanian architects and their different manners of experiencing this exile, both inside and outside the country. It is a work of contrasts and juxtapositions, an understanding of how this period might have been perceived and furthermore experienced.

​

Most importantly, this proposal aims to highlight how the architectural output in Romania has changed since Communism as a result of the changed education and different ways of teaching architecture.

​

The proposal seeks to investigate the current situation in Romania, get insights from the architecture students and architects through interviews and field trip observations and to understand how this profession has evolved during the past post-Communism 28 years.

​

Also, as Romanians who study and practice abroad, our understanding of architecture and how an architect should aim to be like is different from what it would be if we would study in our own country.

​

As such, the proposal aims to relate to current architecture students in Romania and investigate the way in which they understand their profession, how the course is taught and what they imagine their careers will be like after they graduate.

​

This research was explored through a design competition we organised in collaboration with 'Carmen Sylva' Art, Music and Architecture College in Romania on the theme - 'House of the People - 'How would you re-design the most representative Communist landmark of Romania?'.

​

The winning teams, in First Place - Ioana Ionescu, Stefania Teleru and Ana Vlaiculescu and Second Place - Alexandra Zamfir, Catalina Persunaru, Claudiu Costache have shown real innovative approaches to the brief that reflected not only their architectural visions but their aspirations as future architects.