Brazilian architect Key Imaguire Jr., Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, at the Parana University in Curitiba (Brazil) arrived in Bucharest at the end of last year, at the invitation of the "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism, to sustain a series of conferences.
A specialist in the history of architecture, Key Imaguire Jr. has dedicated his entire career to promoting and protecting the Brazilian patrimony. He talked to us about the history of a country who developed its identity in a very strong relationship with architecture and about the experience of visiting Romania.

"When I chose my profession, it was at the end of the fifties, when Brasilia was being constructed; this architecture of Brasilia hits me and all my generation. It was the most important item driving me to architecture. Also, I always had a natural tendency towards construction. If I wasn’t an architect, I’d be an engineer, preferably working with bridges. I have a passion for bridges. [...] I have another, very strong, tendency to research, so the University was the way for me, and, since the beginning, it was something very good to me, to have the possibility of working with research. Also, my relationship with the students was always very good. I’ve been teaching for 33 years."

Since 2001, the year Square One was established as an architectural practice, almost all of their projects, in line with the international tendencies, have caused violent reactions from fellow architects and the audience alike, offering Adrian Cancer and Robert Marin a privileged status. They set out to create strong, provocative spaces, capable of inducing lasting feelings and emotions. And they succeeded.

"[...]We have accomplished certain things, but there's still a long way to go, in a field like architecture, until we are able to identify ourselves as architects. Our determination to practice architecture comes from our wish of creating something that lasts, not just as an object, but in terms of value as well. At first, we didn't know what we were going to do, one of the ideas was creating a graphic novel. We were lucky because we started working when we were students and we managed to build a clientele, which ensured a constant source of income and we were able to establish our practice."

At the beginning of the 21st century, the automobile is the subject of a paradox: on one hand, due to the high mobility of our time, having a car (i.e. using one regularly) is a must (Gabriel Dupuy speaks even about a dependence upon automobile use in “La dépendance automobile. Symptômes, analyses, diagnostic, traitements”); on the other hand, automobiles are being more and more criticized for the inconveniences connected to their use: pollution, waste of space and resources, traffic congestion.
The transformation of the modern society – and I refer especially to the relation between individualization and territorialization – continues to depend on the use of the automobile, viewed as a means of providing autonomy.

The automobile is not used only for transportation, as it results from several examples of architectural elements that are dedicated to it, in an indirect or direct way. Since the automobile has been invented, the buildings that shelter it and those of which it makes use have expressed the collective attitude towards it. These are some of the most important, and yet neglected types of constructions of the modern era. The garages, the gas stations, the toll gates, the car washes, the car services, the auto trades and stores are constructions destined for the automobile, and they hallmark and modulate our lives.

The concept of "bizarre", in the Victorian sense, is reinvented by Adrian Cancer and Robert Marin, the people who succeeded in lifting the Romanian clubbing scene at an international level, acquiring the status of superstars amongst their fellow architects.
Set in a space that is unusual for a club, but well known when it comes to Bucharest night life, the new establishment opens its gates towards a house of shades, where the play on textures is completed by deformed shapes and luminous prints doubled in mirrors.
The conception, with its many thick pillars, had to be adapted to the exigences of the users, and to those of the architects especially and therefore the execution had an overwhelming importance in the general economy of the situation. Thus, the pillars near the bar are plated in mirrors, while those around the edges are bases for giant lamps, resembling classical columns and those near the sofas are ornamented plated in Corian.