Not only the need to extend the already existent exhibition space - a villa situated between Musikviertel and the Clara-Zetkin Park, restylled in 1998 by the architect Peter Kulka -, but also the demand of producing a new status, in which the very architecture of the museum would make up a plausible and adequate interface for producing and exhibiting contemporary art led to the co-operation of GfZK and AS-IF. The result is a museum reconsidered as a discursive tool, consequently involving a perpetual and hued dialogue between representing and exhibiting. Probable space cells or reading courses are free not only to sustain artistic/curatorship points of view, but also to invite the visitor himself to an active contact with the architectural object.
PROIECT: GALERIE FUR ZEITGENOSSISCHE KUNST, LEIPZIG, ARH. PAUL GRUNDEI, ARH. STEPHANIE KAINDL, ARH. CHRISTIAN
LIGHT DESIGN: STUDIO DINNEBIER
DESIGN MOBILIER: BLESS, BERLIN
TEXT: OANA TANASE
FOTO: WOLFGANG THALER, REINHARD GORNER, ANDREAS ENRICO GRUNERT SI AS-IF

The Rembrandt Hotel, under English patronage, is a business class boutique-hotel situated in the historical centre of Bucharest. Its building dates back to 1925, and has been completely renovated in a 7 months' time, observing as much as possible the building and chambers' original features. As for the interior design, it stakes a large gamut of natural materials, marble, travertine, oak, and natural leather. The Tiffany lamps and a few of some Bulgarian artists' paintings stress Hotel Rembrandt the entire scenery.
ARHITECTURA: MAGDA SURUP, CREATION STUDIO
TEXT: LUIZA ZAMORA
FOTO: SERBAN BONCIOCAT

In a blind alley of the Bucharest, the rehabilitation of a house and its reshape, inspired by the patrician domus, around a garden and of a porch, generated an interfusion of the natural and architectural planes and a graduation of the open/covered spaces which give back the purpose to an inhabitation refined and clear at the same time. The house represents a series of excuses for day by day pleasures, scattered before those who inhabit it, as many as the souvenirs from the period of collaboration between the architect and the beneficiary. The surprise of entering in parallel with the axis of the house, the stair pressed as a clarinet flap, the garden embraced by the porch, the light passing trough the beams, the collection sheltered within a wooden wall of the hall towards the service stairs, the pleasure of the discovery of a new terrace, a roof, a garden under the plunged view, etc represent small pleasures that transform the monotone lines of the house in true events.
PROIECT: ARH. SERBAN STURDZA, ARH. ANDREEA HANGIU
TEXT: SILVIA GUGU
FOTO: SERBAN BONCIOCAT

Savarsin is nowadays famous especially for the Royal House castle. Its history dates back to a long time ago. The first castle was built between the years 1650-1680, and belonged to the Forray family until sometime in the XIXth century. The present neoclassical appearance took shape in 1870, after times of devatation, being set fire, rebuilt or transformed. By the year 1857, count Istvan Forray called a renowned landscape architect from the Empire in order to create the park. Further on, the castle was owned by another Hungarian noble family, up to 1943, when, after the owners' deaths, it was bought alongside with the entire estate by the Royal House; from that time on, extensive renovating and modernising works have been undertaken. Yet, after the abdication, it was left to ruin and decay. When the country's “first hunter” became interested in it, the Savarsin castle was maintained again. Only in 2002 the King came back! The castle is not only the place where His Majesty and Their Royal Highnesses soend their holidays; it has been a longtime wish to integrate it in a tourist circuit, and mostly to bring back to life the settlement through a tradition and local arts encouraging programme. Apart from founding workshops, an exhibition space (the Yellow House), and a restaurant, the Royal House wishes to transform the park according to the Highgrove Garden, as arranged by Prince Charles. The works are done on a collaboration basis with a number of London's Writtle College representatives, who thought of developping an eco-horticulture area, of modernising the green houses, and inventoring the plant species and fauna in the Savarsin Park.
TEXT: LUIZA ZAMORA
FOTO: ARHICA CASEI REGALE, SERBAN BONCIOCAT

One must be extremely courageous in order to open the first Concept Store in the old centre of Bucharest. Courage is needed due to such means of proposing unique sollutions in arranging the living space and “reconsidering the sale as a valuable investment”, a novelty to the customers still marked by the vapid minimalism of the late decade and by the acquisition of “social meter” value objects. Market 8, situated in an old building on the beautiful Stavropoleos Street, is such an ecclectic place, where juxtaposed furniture items, objects, and attitudes confer the building a totally different residing dimension. It puts forward four market types: Market Café, a modern café-bar offering French specialties (French Bakery trademark); Market News with its wide array of tourist periodicals, photography, design, or architecture albums; Market Fashion, completing the concept store image through the Venera Arapu signed collections; and Market Art, offering the works belonging to the most reknown contemporary artists, thanks to the Possible Gallery's help. The dwelling concept put forward by Market 8 stakes upon a skilful mixture of freedom and personal style well assumed in compositions stated as lively scenes of family life. These offer more than the simple object; they offer affection through a unitary remodelling of the dwelling space, using - as previously mentioned - furniture items and objects that one wouldn't imagine sharing the same space. This items that we usually name the “last trends in design” coming from Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, or Germany, are interacting with style furniture, reconditioned and re-actualised antique parts, both international and “made in Romania” ones, sophisticated materials and traditional textures.
PROIECT: VENERA ARAPU, DINU CISMARESCU
TEXT: LUIZA ZAMORA
FOTO: GEORGE VASILACHE