The exhibition organized one year ago by Archilab si FRAC Centre (Regional Contemporary Art Fund) in Orléans (Site des Subsistances militaires) proposed to the viewers over two hundred architectural models and four hundred drawings gathered under the umbrella of the experiment. Sculpted, monolithic or with widely developed in space structures, simple living cells or urban dispositions, "inflatable" or "radical" architecture " these are only a few of the hypostasis pursued by the exhibition curators for the past fifty years. As far back as 1991, FRAC Center initiated the composition of an art and contemporary architecture collection, the main focus being the experimental innovation applied to the built space. The result of this effort: the archive of over five hundred models and about ten thousand drawings signed by distinguished contemporary architects, as well as the hosting of the collections of some architects such as Ionel Schein, Claude Parent, Ricardo Porro, David Georges Emmerich or Jean-François Zevaco. The "Experimental Architecture , 1950-2002" exhibition , organized last year, represented just one of the sections of an event by which FRAC was celebrating 20 years since its establishment. The focus was on the architectural gestures and projects initially issued from a critical investigation of modernism's precepts.
TEXT: OANA TANASE
FOTO: ARCHILAB, FRAC CENTRE

I don't know exactly how an office building should look like, or if there really is a resemblance between what is going on inside and the way this activity is translated to the exterior, much less how should the headquarters of a financial audit company look like. The appearance received by such a company in Constanta is somehow as strange as the activity developed there sounds. The coordinates of the plan are balanced by the four squares that define the functional space of the building, the technical one completing the sideways which follow the ground line. Two simple gardens with Dobrogea stone and birches, one of them opening the access way towards the building while the other leads the way towards a place for the relaxation of the eyes. The pierced walkway goes beyond the glass door, all the way to the atrium which coagulates all the volumes of the house and who cast the rest into the shade, to some extent, by the wooden stairs with the curved metal frame. The transparency of the facade makes the entire interior to be composed and re-composed by the intensity of the light. The finishings are within the common office range: the ceilings are not the fake-white ones anymore, but their squares were replaced with metal ones that reflect light instead of absorbing it, the floor is made of slate, and the furniture made of flexible modules develops a concept of the architecture company.
PROIECT: WEST GROUP ARHITECTURE, ARH. ADRIAN CRISTESCU, ARH. ROXANA SCHIOPU
TEXT: LUIZA ZAMORA
FOTO: SERBAN BONCIOCAT

Of smaller proportions than the fortified enclosures in Barsa Country, the rustic fortresses in the Medias area have as main feature the fortification of the church. A representative locality for the architecture of the German population in the area, Mosna (Meschen) competed for over 200 years with Biertan and Medias for gaining the administrative precedence of the area. The prosperity of the village and its inhabitants' ambition contributed to building of one of the most beautiful hall-churches from the region, raised at the end of 15th century by the then very famous quarrier Andreas from Sibiu. The church dedicated to Virgin Mary was built in the late gothic style. The three same height aisles (Hallenkirche) are separated by pairs of poles, each with another type of profiles. In conformity with the late gothic principles, the columns that support arches don't have column heads, the network of the arch ribs extending directly from the pillars' stone mass.
TEXT: OANA SI DRAGOS MARCU
FOTO: SERBAN BONCIOCAT

It was also said about Art Déco interiors that they represented the architectural and decorative transposition of that title of the Matisse painting: "luxe, calme et volupté". Either it borrows sequences from the esthetics of some oriental or exotic styles, or it resembles the austere language of avant-garde, the Art Déco style remains the expression of the need for comfort, strongly suggesting the pleasure of living. The arrangement of a building situated in an area of Bucharest that preserves with elegance the architectural signs of the interwar period follows the line of that goal expressed in 1925, "creating modernly with respect for the tradition", but definitely with a pronounced contemporary note. The arranged house, built in 1932 under the careful supervision of the Jean Monda architect, in a typical Art Déco style, allowed the preservation and stylistic recovery of many elements both structural and decorative. The spacious, open and strongly geometrized structure of the entire assembly was preserved almost entirely, the only interventions being the ones for consolidation. The express wish of the owner was to emphasize, by all means, the particular, generous architecture this resulting in an interior with slight minimalist accents, but of a ravishing elegance.
PROIECT: ARH. TOMNITA FLORESCU
TEXT: VIORICA BUICA
FOTO: SERBAN BONCIOCAT