Sometimes, if not always, the way business is made may be read in the way a buildings looks like. The two business principles chosen by the Dutch company Golden Tulip – „International Standars and Local Flavours" and "European Way of Franchising" surely had an influence upon the buildings built for hosting the hotels spread all over the world. In February this year was inaugurated, 100 years away since the company's founding, the first G.T. Hotel in Bucharest. It is a ten floor building with 38 rooms, offering all facilities:: business centre, meeting rooms, fitness and a restaurant.
Proiect: arh. Marilena Bucur
Text: Luiza Zamora
Foto: Ana Blidaru

In the overwhelming monotony of the B`r`gan Plain, the eM House tries to give birth to a qualified dwelling place, a straining space, and revigorating in the same time for the ones inhabiting it. The eye contact is not at all perchance fundamental to this building: the professional relation of the owners to the image determined decisively the stylistic profile of the entire building. Each detail moves the eye, challenges it, the architect proves to be a truly original director.
Unconventional, labyrinthical upon the first visit, kept in a healthy tension by the contradictory dialogue between the materials, the eM. House superiorly looks upon its neighborhoods, standing out through its remarkable personality.
Proiect: DSBA, arh. Dorin Stefan, arh. Alexandru Pop, arh. Liviu Budur, arh. Anda Stefan, arh. Olivia Strachina
Amenajari peisagistice si terase: Geo Com, Vera si Ioana
Structura de rezistenta: Z Group
Text: Viorica Buica
Foto: Serban Bonciocat

The Romanian word "cula" derives from the Turkish one "kule", meaning tower, and also referring to the fortified houses. It was a form of passive or active defense according to territory and context, spread across the Balkans. The Wallachian "culas" certainly appear in the XVIIIth c. They are buildings of an almost square design, with thick stone or brick walls. They have a ground floor covering a cellar, which sometimes did not communicate with the rest of the building. Above were two or three floors communicating through an interior wooden ladder. The most famous were the M a×lda×res¸ ti ones, Cula Greceanu and Cula Duca.
Text: Luiza Zamora
Foto: Serban Bonciocat

To the north of Bucharest, in the vicinity of DN1, a new district makes its first appearance. The B`neasa Project, toting up to a million differently employable square meters, reppresents one of the largest private projects of urban planning in SE Europe. Associated in 2000 with the Agricultural Science and Veterinary Medicine University, the one providing the field, the B`neasa Investments firm was able to start elaborating a new district, which wishes to incorporate the values and functions of a model town through the balance between the residing spaces, the commercial ones, the bureau areas and the free access to multiple facilities. We further wish to present you, through the interventions of those directly involved and those able to talk about this topic, not only the project's history and profile, but also an analysis of its impact on an urban scale.
Ancheta: Viorica Buica
Foto: Baneasa Investments

Are you also wondering which of the lessons Paul Klee tought at Bauhaus may have cavilled at and inspired Renzo Piano in designing the Berna Centre? We may find possible answers in a recent interview given by the architect: nature and earth, irony and drama, or all of them together! I for myself would not forget too easy the music's part in this chemistry of the contact of a music teacher's son - a visual artist whose childhood ambition was to be a great violinist and to whom harmony had to be searched primarily in sounds - and an architect whose repertoire numbers, appart from spaces dedicated to art and exhibitions, some concert halls in Paris, Venice, Berlin, and Rome.
Client: Maurice E. and Martha Muller
Proiect: Renzo Piano Building Workshop-B. Plattner-Arb Berna
Text: Oana Tanase
Foto: Zentrum Paul Klee