The projected house is simultaneously terrestrial, Dionysian, anchored viscerally in the mountain and illuminated, rational. All the spaces are picked and ordained by a ‘bridge’, a vertical deck: the stairs. By excellence, contrary to a net majority of the stairs in the entire world devoted to ascension, this is a dark, descendent stair. Perforated laterally, the night makes it look like an eye multiplied by Picasso: to describe the slipping of a head on a pillow. For the villagers of the place they are the lights of a plane ready to land. The bedrooms have landscapes that are rigorously cut up and framed with green, red, yellow, blue shutters. I suspect the architect of an ironic modesty. Certain people detain a too refined sense of humor. Asked which he cares more about, the details and the compositions of the house, he said: nothing. I don’t care about anything! That was the moment in which the house became in my eyes free, infinite, impossible to place in formal patterns, the matter became thinner as in the sketches made on paper and ever since metamorphoses melt into each other the same way an origami changes – house – beam – attic – stair – plane – gate, it is free to portray itself to anybody with a different face, with the amused complicity of its own architect.
PROIECT, FOTO: ANDA SI DORIN STEFAN
TEXT: SILVIA GUGU

Romanians don’t have too many beautiful houses; out of foolishness, meanness, mischievousness, monuments or just testimonies of the dawned crafts crumble under the cobwebbed eyes of a nation in crisis. But a refined image about what we’ve been continues to hold on, around a mutilated city, amidst a ravaged country. Mogosoaia defies through its simple existence the smallness of the times we are living. With the belvedere of the entrance defined by trilobite arches and enfolded by the dome that was painted at a time, with the loggia which dominates the main façade, all these elements being nuanced by the fine sculpted decoration, the Mogosoaia palace, balanced in volume and happily proportioned, shines in the kind light of these lands, being quietly reflected in the waves of the lake that seems intentionally made, with the waters barely disturbed by the delicate jump of some frog. This pleasant image wouldn’t be worth, probably, more than a landscape for sale on a booth if between the stones well matched from Mogosoaia wouldn’t be kept the beautiful and sad story of the greatness of a nation; because a historical monument requires more than a satisfied look; it is the quiet witness yet present to a state of the society and the questions that torment it.
TEXT: RARES FLOREA
FOTO: RARES FLOREA, GEORGE VASILACHE

Sometimes what the architects see, imagine and create is surprising exactly because of the nuance. If the sight is moving from a place that is arranged it rarely does not support on ‘strong images’. What are ‘strong images’? The sequences that remain present, intense and clear in the memory. Not only in the visual one. A strong image is the premise for nuance. The architectural project is preceded by a dream, an image or a question. They meet and clarify the nuance.
PROIECT AMENAJARE: ALICE IGNATIADIS
TEXT: FRANÇOISE PAMFIL
FOTO: SERBAN BONCIOCAT

"It is a period of explosion of the private, and people with money, without any cultural tradition desire to manifest visibly their wealth. The opulence is their only criteria, beyond style, comfort or other points of reference. They are a mess and borrow from all sides, from little towers to baluster rail columns. Besides, there is no intelligent rapport with space: there are also beautiful houses but placed in such a way, that though they have big windows, the sun doesn?t get in for there is a roof out of place, in the wrong angle. Then, some are in a bad relationship with the vicinity or with the street. Afore there used to be some landmarks; we spoke of the wagon type houses: they were placed in such a way that the noise would only get to the first part of the house. For me apartment buildings were no problem, for I had no way to escape them; we will redo the streets, we will plant some trees, illuminate the neighborhoods, but what do we do with the apartment buildings? Even if we refashion them, they will still look sinister. What can you do with Titan or Berceni, with entire neighborhoods. It comes to my mind that in the ?60s around the Camil Ressu street there were gardens of the Serbians, but they were all wiped. Where is all this compactness coming from? Why not let the space breathe? And if we are to talk about the damn People?s House, the first experience I had was when, in a break from a parliamentary meeting, I wanted to have some mineral water. An aisle was still closed and they told me to go around: there were five kilometers going and coming back. It seems absolutely terrible; I am terrorized by the pharaoh type space. A colleague that worked in the People?s House told me that he had a problem with the dimensioning of the furniture there?.
INTERVIU: OANA TANASE
FOTO: ADRIAN CIOCAZANU, GEORGE VASILACHE