A glacial house, where the dust never settles, because it is slippery as a rainbow. Here and there an icon, a clock face, a red wall warm it up. The wood, although used in abundance, never succeeds to raise the temperature perceptively, because of the perfect polished surfaces. A single-family dwelling, for a family with child. The individual house on the allotment. Nothing very expensive, but not poor either. The allotment and the house are both behind a coquettish and horizontal fence. The stone socle ends inexplicably, finished with plates. On the terrace: rattan furniture. The absent shadows, the wet colors and the pergola figured on a cloudy sky seem to narrate about a rain that just passed trough the area, galloping towards West.
PROIECT: ARH. HORIA REIT
TEXT: SILVIA GUGU
FOTO: SERBAN BONCIOCAT

The creation of architecture and the "life" of a building. It happens to meet friends or acquaintances who build their houses. Invariable, they are overwhelmed, disappointed and frustrated by the slow progress of the works. Depending on the capacity of understanding, each finds various explications. A few think that a house is built for an extremely long usage period of tens and even hundreds of years. The "life" expectancy of a building suggests the complexity scale of the projection process and implicitly the time and resources needed to be allocated thereof. The superficiality with which the architecture creation is treated " not allowing sufficient time, the risible payment or just giving up the services provided by an architect " by some beneficiaries, reveals their impatience to taste immediately the pleasure of using something new, bought as being ready-to-use (automobile, computer, TV set, etc). What is often forgotten is the fact that, in these objects, a great quantity of resources and intelligence was initially invested. The house is, briefly, the transformation of a pragmatic demarche commanded almost exclusively by capitalist rigors " in which, isn't it so, you have to give as less as possible and to get as much as possible " in a "madness" where, together with the beneficiary, we slipped and "got emotional", if I have to remember my teacher, architect V. Simion. The volumes that slowly reveal themselves are cut by eyes of light and finished in different colors and textures, after a compositional logic, which you can taste while you perceive the moving space. The stairs " the central element of the interior composition" invites you, but also lets you feel the space it"˜s displayed in, or to perceive even the exterior trough the stained glass walls opened towards the garden behind the house. Choosing the ascension, you reach the first floor, in the night area, which is developed around the stairs, dominated at its turn by a top light.
PROIECT: ASDESIGN 95 SRL, ARH. ASTRID ROTTMAN , ARH. BOGDAN POPP
TEXT: BOGDAN POPP
FOTO: DAN CALCIU SI BOGDAN POPP

To be born beautiful and rich, in the middle of a capital familiar with luxury, then to be stripped of all your possessions and forced to an ascetic life, in order to burn in the flames of a near liberation after a long battle for survival and, in the end, to be eternalized not by mummification but by fertilization with a new life, at the same time incubated and protective is not little in a debunking era and crocheted out of the superfluous events from the news bulletins. Like history says, "the building... from the 5 Demetru Ion Dobrescu Street was conceived as a luxurious building" (from the study elaborated by architect PhD Anca Hanna Derer and architect Radu Nicolae). Rich decorations and the monumental main stair with the smooth balustrade were preserved until today, confessions of the intention of an easy and refined living. The years passed and, in the meanwhile, the Romanian Architects Union (the new owner of the building) initiated a rescue operation ended by a contest. The two projects awarded ex-aequo were tie-braked by the advantage, both urbanistic and economical, to also take into consideration the neighboring allotment on the Dobrescu Street, reason due to which this solution was subsequently encouraged.
BENEFICIAR: UNIUNEA ARHITECTILOR DIN ROMANIA
INVESTITOR: ACMS
PROIECT: TOTALDESIGN, ARH. DAN MARIN, ARH. ZENO BOGDANESCU
TEXT: SILVIA GUGU
FOTO: GEORGE VASILACHE

Established in 1977, the Museum of Art Collections is hosted by the former Romanit Palace, built at the beginning of the 19th century. Sold to the state after 1835, the building was initially the headquarters of Administrative Court and then of the Ministry of Finance. The consolidation and restoration works started in 1996 ended a first stage, the museum body towards the Calea Grivitei being reopened in December 2003. At the same time the cellars were rehabilitated, organized as lapidary. A rigorous activity of classifying, dating and establishing the provenance of the objects in the patrimony of the Museum of Collections was developed behind consolidating and restorations works, so that the reopening for the public required a team of researchers and museographers, composed of Carmen Brad, Mircea Dunca, Alexandra Beldescu, Gheorghe Kazar, Elena Dobre, Adriana Adam, Mariana Dragu, Dana Bercea. The result: the Garabet Avachian collection, the Beatrice and Hrandt Avakian collection, Clara and Anatol E. Baconsky collection, Marcu Beza - Hortensia and Vasile G. Beza collection, Celine Emilian collection, dr. Sandu Lieblich collection, dr. Mircea Petrescu and prof. Artemiza Petrescu collection, dr. Sorin Schechter collection, Sica Alexandrescu collection, Alexandra and Barbu Slatineanu compared art collection, the family Dumitru and Maria collection Stefanescu - col. Gheorghe Preda, Josefina and Eugen Taru collection, lawyer Hurmuz Aznavorian collection, Rodica Aznavorian Sfintescu and Claudiu Sfintescu donation, Elena, Maria and dr. Iosif N. Dona collection were rehabilitated.
COORDONATOR DE PROIECT: ROXANA THEODORESCU
COORDONATORUL COLECTIVULUI DE: RODICA MATEI
DESIGN DE INTERIOR: ARH. LIVIU CONSTANTINESCU, R. PETER OOSTVEEN
TEXT: OANA TANASE
FOTO: SERBAN BONCIOCAT