Fuksas in Bucharest (II)

Architect Massimiliano Fuksas as SHARE SPECIAL GUEST will give a conference in Bucharest, on the 27th of March 2018 within SHARE – the International Architecture and Engineering Forum.
Until then we introduce – exclusively by igloo media – one question and one project per week. This is the second episode. (See the first episode here.)
We hope to generate a meaningful profile of Arch. Fuksas architectural work and conviction.

QUESTION

igloo media: Do you think that the architect’s mission has changed? Explain how.

Massimiliano Fuksas: I prefer quality. Architecture is about the quality of space. Architecture should improve people’s lives, particularly those of harried city-dwellers. Building should not only solve practical problems but also give emotions. What is emotion? It’s more than geometry, more than space, more than function, more than a problem. It’s something that we feel. In this field, we need much more emotion than before, because it is a way to get out from our system of consumption. This isn’t ideological or political: It’s simply that through consumption, we don’t achieve anything, only create more problems. We buy more, drink more, eat more — more is a quantity problem. The architect has a responsibility because what he builds is meant to stay on the earth for quite a while. This responsibility engages us with civil society because it’s helpless to realize something beautiful if it does not take in consideration the needs of the user. We have to be radical in our choices but our ultimate client is the human being. Buildings should contribute to mood and emotion, like music. This today as it was yesterday.

PROJECT: Rhike Park –Music Theatre and Exhibition Hall, Tbilisi, Georgia

The project site is located inside the green area called Rhike Park, in Tbilisi, Georgia.

The building consists of two different soft shaped elements that are connected as a unique body at the retaining wall.

Every element has his own function: The Musical Theatre and the Exhibition Hall. The north part of the building contains the Musical Theatre Hall (566 seats), the foyer and several facilities, together with technical spaces for theater machinery and various storage. The Exhibition Hall opens his great entrance with a ramp that brings visitors from the street level. The Music Theatre Hall, on the contrary, soars from the ground and allows the users staying in the foyer and in the cafeteria to have a view to the river and the skyline of the city. It is a periscope to the city and looks towards the river framing the historic core of the Old Tbilisi.