Superbia Catalogue

Authors of the project „Superbia” CATALOGUE EXHIBITION
Silviu Aldea, Marius Cătălin Moga, Laura

Panait, Camelia Sisak, Tamás Sisak, Areta Editors Visual concept and artistic production
Soare, Daniel Şerban Silviu Aldea, Marius Cătălin Moga, Laura Radu Cioca
Panait, Camelia Sisak, Tamás Sisak, Areta
Commissioner Soare, Daniel Şerban Object design and artistic production
Monica Morariu Ilarie Pintea
Scientific editors
Deputy Commissioners Corina Gabriela Bădeliţă Multimedia content
Alexandru Damian Alexandru Damian Alina Bradu
Ioan Lucăcel Carlos Carmonamedina
Graphic design Silviu Medeşan
Curators Camelia Sisak
Silviu Aldea, Tamás Sisak Soundscape
Texts Teodora Vlad
Interviews & Multimedia Contest Cosmin Caciuc, Ștefan Ghenciulescu, Vera
Marius Cătălin Moga, Laura Panait Marin, Andreea Matache, Norbert Petro- Shoemaker
vici, Planwerk, Miruna Stroe, Gabriel Troc, Ionuţ Ținţoc
Blog Ștefan Ungurean, Dana Vais
Marius Cătălin Moga, Areta Soare Organizers
Translation from Romanian into English
Prints Ioana Câmpean, Ana Gruia
Graphic design
Silviu Aldea, Tamás Sisak ISSN: 1583-9397 Sponsors
Publisher
Institutul Cultural Român / Romanian
Cultural Institute
Quaderni della Casa Romena di Venezia
VI, 2010
superbia
Romanian National Pavilion in the New Gallery of the Romanian Institute for Culture and Humanistic Research at the
12th International Architecture Biennale Venice
FOREWORD
The 12th International Architecture Biennale in Venice coincides with the closing days of the first decade of
the 21st century. It is a time when, compelled no doubt by the economic crisis, the intellectual and creative
community, alongside cultural operators, appear inclined to reflect on contemporary society as well as on
their own way of rising to meet a host of challenges as diverse as they are pressing.
Under the circumstances, the relationship between tradition and modernity has acquired a dramatic edge,
thus making a substantial contribution to the emerging spiritual and cultural values at the beginning of the
new millennium.
The world of architecture and the international community of architects seem nonetheless to be involved in
a more natural process, whose discontinuities are fewer as compared to those of other spiritual realms. This
should indeed come naturally to a science blending the beautiful with the practical in the attempt to ‘disci-
pline’ the creative spirit harmoniously by means of a set of rigorously pragmatic and social proportions, rules
and criteria.
The current meaning of architecture – the mouthpiece of new values and lifestyles – has been accurately cap-
tured by the curator of the present edition of the International Architecture Biennale in Venice, Kazuyo Sejima,
through the topic selected and the motivation provided: “People Meet in Architecture” essentially reflects the
sheer force of this realm of the human spirit (and simultaneously a significant chapter in our cultural history)
when it comes to generating a surprising collection of patchwork scenarios and finding original solutions for
the interaction between the individual and the environment (be it natural and social). Such a solution could be
the very framework of the debate the organizers have put forth this year, by inviting the former Architecture
Biennale commissars.
Romania’s participation in the 2010 edition has been graciously made possible by the joint involvement of
several governmental institutions (The Ministry of Culture and Natural Heritage, The Romanian Cultural Insti-
tute and The Ministry of Foreign Affairs), whose non-standard response to the difficulties triggered off by the
financial circumstances made possible an event unprecedented in the history of the Biennale: the presence
of two national projects, one hosted by the Giardini National Pavilion and the other – by the New Gallery of
the Romanian Institute for Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice. The latter institution has entered the
80th year since its establishment by Romania’s foremost historian, Nicolae Iorga, the one who, in the years
1938-1940, took it upon himself to muster the financial resources and cope with the complicated formalities
required by building Romania’s pavilion on the land granted by the City Hall.
The community of Romanian architects thus enhances its opportunity to have a say in the debate put forth by
the Venice Biennale. We do have a good school of architecture. Even in Italy, at the Accademia di Romania, a
great number of Romanian architects of the inter-war period studied or benefited from grants, alongside the
specialists of future generations. Their theoretical and practical discourse, a quite interesting discourse, too, in
most cases, has always made its mark on the ideas publicly debated in our country. It was no random occur-
rence that the jury assigned as winners of the Bucharest competition two teams of young architects and their
projects: “1:1” in the National Pavilion and “Superbia” in the New Gallery of the Romanian Cultural Institute
office in Venice. The former project contributes an original interpretation of the Biennale topic: on the one
hand, its particular adaptation to the case of Romania, to the yet unsolved problems of Romanian society at
large. The latter project, “Superbia”, attempts a reflection on what the concept of ‘home’ can still mean today,
after Martin Heidegger’s philosophy taught us that to be actually means ‘to inhabit’, ‘inhabiting’ being the
founding principle of existence.
Subsequent to its inclusion in the Biennale circuit, the exhibiting area of the Venice Institute’s “New Gallery”
(Cannaregio, 2215) will be thus able to monitor the collective response of visitors, specialists and the media,
consequently marking the artistic destinies of the young authors of the “Superbia” project as well as those of
their team-mates.
On behalf of the Romanian Cultural Institute, I wish Romania every success in the 12th edition of the Archi-
tecture Biennale.
HORIA-ROMAN PATAPIEVICI
President of The Romanian Cultural Institute
1. Radu Cioca - Golden shoes for golden routes
Courtesy of the artist
2. Ideal couple - Ilarie Pintea
3. Inner hill - Radu Cioca
CONCEPT
The theme of the 12th edition of the Venice Biennale proposes a humanistic attitude towards architecture:
People Meet in Architecture is centered on the human being in their (personal) encounter with the sometimes
too abstract concept of architecture: “The idea is to help people relate to architecture, to help architecture
relate to people, and to help people relate to themselves.”(Kazuyo Sejima). We see this as an opportunity to
investigate architecture by new methods, and bring about a different approach on a problematic subject in
contemporary Romania.
The Romanian National Pavilion hosted by the New Gallery of I.R.C.C.U, brings forward the recent residential
sprawl of Romanian cities, born by devouring peri-urban landscapes, lacking planning and infrastructure, fol-
lowing inappropriate allotment and street patterns, which exploded in recent years due to the real estate
boom. Today, the (fortunate?) stop of this phenomenon gives us time to reconsider it. The project Superbia
(pride <lat.) speaks about the need for individuality – transposed upon one’s image of their ideal home –
about comfort and intimacy as goals (hard) to attain, by means of questioning the relation of interior vs.
exterior, private vs. commonly shared space in Romania’s newly built suburbs. Ultimately, Superbia occasions
a review of urban living someplace where “urban” itself is missing.
The periphery topic is not new neither in the Romanian, nor in international practice, starting with the more
conservative European adress, going towards more flexible attitudes in South America or Asia. Without seek-
ing corrective measures, with no intention or possibilities for comprehensive studies, avoiding lamentation,
we invite for an investigation uncluttered by preconceived ideas on how the city is defined or the way it should
look. Moreover what we are seeking for is a comprehension of actual dwelling beyond statistical data.
From this perspective one notices first of all the way these places are inhabited: the Romanian suburb is a
terrain of indivual search for one’s well-being and comfort. Here, people concentrate all their effort towards
creating their best possible home, which thus becomes the only support of their dreams, the reification of the
best imaginable nature of comfort, though seldom free of compromise. Ideal living becomes self-centered and
introverted. The personal search for comfort sometimes leads to the over-emphasizing of the interior or its
immediate area, but only within the limits of the private property, meanwhile the exterior, the public space,
remains unsorted. It belongs to no one.
The picture is therefore surprising, feature of sharp contrasts between “superb” interiors vs. crude exterior.
The absence of streets, mud, underdevelopped infrastructure, and underplanning are ubiquous realities of
this casual suburban scene. Moreover, an environment thus built reveals itself as a mere congestion of more
or less striking simultaneous identities inside an incoherent weaving. Yet we can see in this simultaneity a
different coherence: that of distinct gestures, indifferent to each other, performed by individuals sharing the
same ideals and the same spatial practices. This coincidence generates a meeting-point - a place for people to
meet in architecture - where everyone meets an architecture of their own.
This allows us to assume the presence of certain values to counter the absence of the city (in real facts or in
figures), the lack of proper roads or planning, the precarious landscape and the ever present mud: the chance
of spontaneity and customization, the achievement of maximum interior comfort and the assertion of an
architecture of one’s own. Whether the sum of elements of the new peripheries creates or not value remains
undecided; but as the simple addition proves unproductive, further, more complex operations are required.
Symbolic but highly visual, the exhibiton interprets, in this respect, the concept into an installation of con-
trasts and subjective perspectives. The earth* is the emotional factor which charges and torments the gallery,
against which a series of objects with different individulities are set: sculptural elements making reference of
purist architectural stances and ordinary items of everyday living, overemphasised into unexpected or absurd
objects. The installation thus becomes a space a negotiation between these elements as well as between
their virtual projections. They are different channels through which it speaks about life in the new Romanian
suburb, about individualism, materialism, value, effort, aspirations and status, about contrast between reality
and its projection, and the difference of spatial processing between interior and exterior.
Voices of the suburb make themselves heard inside the gallery – cuttings from the interviews with inhabitants
of different peripheries of Cluj, our study case – providing relevant details and a subjective but vivid picture of
life in these areas, as seen from inside. In addition to this, a media project visually documents the Romanian
suburb of 2010, by different means of probing and mapping reality, from drawing, to blog, from film to photo,
a collection partially gathered by public submissions and developing throughout the exhibition.
Finally, the image is rounded up by the series of texts which form the main body of this catalogue. Coming
out of the intellectual sphere, they express both professional readings of the subject, citing theories, studies
or research and opinions or personal beliefs, suppositions and even stereotypes, regarding the experiece of
the city of Cluj, as well as that of Bucharest or even overcoming specific places. This type of vision, embodying
multiple personal perspectives focused upon one subject, reveals our strategy of searching patterns in ideas,
as well as in gestures, in attitudes, desires and tastes, regarded as further meeting-points, as possible firm-
lands for tackling problematic issues and building architecture.
*The earth used for the exhbition was shipped over from Romania, from the soil-abundant suburbs of Cluj to earthless Venice. Besides the
gesture being somewhat symbolic, this is a proof of authenticity and a response to the concept of Rebiennale, while it will be used for replant-
ing the gardens of the Romanian Institute for Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice.
DANIEL ȘERBAN, SILVIU ALDEA

4. Inner hill - Radu Cioca
EXHIBITION
The “New Gallery” of the Romanian Institute for Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice offers us the
possibility to recreate an intimate space on a domestic scale: one room to which the visitor can relate
individually. White and shiny surfaces make us think of care for interiors but the sought-after comfort
slowly slides towards the restraint of stepping on something precious. Within this pristine interior space
the relation is detailed between the interior and the exterior, between comfort and discomfort, between
raw earth and new architectural insertion. The installation violently shows earth’s contrast to the serene
clear space. It is at the same time displayed as a completely strange element to the gallery, an intruder and
a living sensory element. We propose reversed values, an element that is usually a proof of neglect and
chaos, the earth becomes tidy, contained by a geometry perimeter. On the other hand, it is living valuable
material, where an architectural non-living object is placed into. The interior space is intentionally spec-
tacular and, despite its intimacy, it communicates with the exterior through its large windows. This speaks
about property showcasing, making an impression with one’s home. Showing off one’s own values can lead
to absurd hypostases. As overdimensioned or over-invested into houses, items of the individual wardrobe
lose their function by aestheticism: a pair of shoes should be made mainly to walk with and a house to be
lived in. Instinctive need to express one’s individuality springs from the natural revolt against the uniform
way of life imposed on us by socialism and would lead to an overstressing matter: useless furniture items
inhabiting superb interiors as hunting trophies. Along such excessive exhibition, there is sensible value and
refined taste. Desirous of standing out, individuals’ gestures become parallel and so very alike, creating a
new commonplace space. Doubling the gallery by reflexion multiplies the identity of objects as elements
of the system / installation by simultaneously showing two faces of the same coin, two stances of the same
truth: reflected white turns black.
SILVIU ALDEA, RADU CIOCA

MULTIMEDIA CONTEST
In order to create a database of films/photos/collages which would reflect and illustrate the new Romanian suburb
we launched a call for contributions in the form of an open national contest. The goal was both the gathering of a
diverse library of images and the involvement of as many unspecialized people as possible in the process. The selec-
tion was made by a specialized jury composed of Architect Dana Vais, Art Curator Mihai Pop and Photograpy/Media
Lecturer Doru Pop. Out of 42 participants one project was declared winner and the work of 14 more participants was
selected to be presented in the exhibition.
The winning project, ”FoOoOoOam”, has been chosen due to the complexity of the theme and the style of represen-
tation. It is an online project which is organised around the idea of continuous exploration of the targeted areas and
which is searching for ways of exposing aspects most of the time hard to reveal and define. As the exclusive multime-
dia unit of the project “Superbia”, “FoOoOoOam” is developing throughout the exhibition.
MARIUS CĂTĂLIN MOGA, LAURA PANAIT

FOOOOOOAM
How to apprehend the changing idea of the brand new Romanian suburb? The spontaneous, inventive but also
chaotic, individualistic and materialist features of these urban satellites are a perfect inspiration source, but the
risk is that any discourse can turn inappropriate.
In direct contact with the suburban areas in Cluj, we realized that the best idea to understand this social phenom-
enon was to use our ”sketchbooks” as a being that emulates the suburbia itself. A meta-peripherical discourse
that is constantly changing. Departing from here, we developed a virtual journey to reproduce the idea of a walk
through the growing city.
Based on Peter Sloterdijk’s theory, we took the foam metaphor - a matter with hermetic consistence and particu-
lar dynamics - to represent the way in which these spaces are generated. Individualized cells spilled in a spontane-
ous way would show the growing suburbs, just as the many specific situations we present using different blogs,
posts or social networks such as Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter.
Fooooooam is the web art ingredient of the project Superbia, in the Venice Architecture Biennale. Using the dif-
ferent web platforms, it aims to redraw a virtual map of the contemporary suburb, complemented by a second
blog that acts as a periphery of our own blog. The page “I’m the center you are my periphery” is an invitation to
the visitors to send pictures from their own peripheries and show how the perception of this urban phenomenon
can change depending on where they are situated in the world.
ALINA BRADU, CARLOS CARMONAMEDINA, SILVIU MEDEȘAN

www.fooooooam.com
4
4
INTERVIEWS
Our concept is built around the hypothesis that, beyond the obvious chaos to see step by step , new
suburbs in Romania present a realm of negociation between problematic realities and certain values: the
opportunity for self-made individual comfort, formal expression, tracing one’s own set of rules and so on.
The hypotheses drove us to conduct a small research, without the claim of scientific approach, about and
involving the dwellers of these suburbs. We conducted a series of about 20 qualitative interviews around
2 hours long each. Average age of the speakers was 30 years, mainly couples or young families of middle
start-ups and at the early stages of their professional careers. Setting off from a list of questions, the in-
terviews actually grew into free dialogues about significant aspects such as place of origin, daily route to
reach the perifery, reality compared to expectations, annoyances and trivial joys, but also prospects for the
future and needs of change.
Next to the issues we followed during the dialogues, certain remarks appeared constantly: the hint of
financial compromise in the context of unreasonable real estate boom during 2006-2008, running away
from the socialist housing blocks of the more established neighborhoods, the obsession for a new home,
the ideal of large floor area and last but not least the illusion of moving into an unspoiled natural envi-
ronment but which has proven to be swallowed up by buildings or only acts as decoration, not for active
recreation.
The fieldwork of this short case study has largely confirmed our hypotheses. Most of the speakers showed
different degrees of satisfaction with their current situation and with their living in the suburbs in general,
and while there are noumerous complaints and drawbacks, the words of Andrei Coman, 30 years old - one
of the interviewees: “we’ve adapted so well to these new conditions” sum up the general need for empha-
sizing the positive aspects of their life in these new (sub)urban spaces.
SILVIU ALDEA, LAURA PANAIT

5
ARTICLES
SUPERB SUBURBIA. THE DEGREE ZERO OF URBAN SPACE > DANA VAIS >
THE SUBURB OR ABOUT THE LOGIC OF “NEITHER, NOR“ > ȘTEFAN UNGUREAN >
PICNIC CITY > PLANWERK >
ON THE CATASTROPHES, POTENTIAL, AND RECENT DEVELOPMENT OF ROMANIAN PERIPHERIES > ȘTEFAN GHENCIULESCU >
FABRICATING THE SUPERBIA. WHERE DOES THE CHAOTIC URBANIZATION COME FROM? > NORBERT PETROVICI >
THE POST SOCIALIST NEIGHBOURHOOD: FLOREȘTI (CLUJ NAPOCA) > GABRIEL TROC >
PSEUDO-MODERNIZATION VS. WEAKENED MODERNIZATION > COSMIN CACIUC >
LIVING BEYOND THE CITY. THE EXTENT OF AN URBAN PHENOMENON > VERA MARIN & ANDREEA MATACHE >
ABUNDANCE, DEFICIENCY AND COMICS > MIRUNA STROE >

1/4
SUPERB SUBURBIA. THE DEGREE ZERO OF URBAN SPACE

------
TEXT: DANA VAIS
Forget what you knew about suburban sprawl. Rather, take over, now and again, from the tiniest enzymes. Great transfor- 1
Andrea Branzi, “For a
Post-Environmentalism:
a look at the Romanian recent urban periphery. In the wide mations occur through microstructures. The city evolves in its Seven Suggestions for a
green landscapes, there are extravagant houses that have no most elementary domestic cells. New Athens Charter”, in
gardens. But then, neither streets. Splendid cars are parked in Mohsen Mostafavi and
mud. Between neighbours, seemingly endless fields go along In Branzi’s territory, micro-events still occurred in an existing Gareth Doherty (eds.),
Ecological Urbanism,
with unbelievable proximities of windows through which sun- generic grid of order. What if the micro-agents emerged in lack Baden: Lars Müller Pub-
light never gets. of any order whatsoever, in a maximum micro-liberty, as in our lishers and Harvard Col-
case here? The urban space would then begin from absolute lege, 2010, 110-113;
Charles Waldheim,
You thought the city was a sophisticated continuous system entropy: this is the degree zero of urban space indeed. “Weak Work: Andrea
of flows and relations, rather than a collection of isolated ob- Branzi’s ‘Weak Metropo-
jects?... Then what about these superb coloured bodies ran- For our micro-agents, beginning anew is an aim in itself. The lis’ and the Projective Po-
domly thrown into the green fields? What about this urban radical start is actually a very topical issue today. “The world is tential of an ‘Ecological
Urbanism’” in Mostafavi
space where nothing relates to nothing, but so much effort is running out of places where it can start over”2, Rem Koolhaas and Doherty (eds.), 114-
consumed in each and every isolated point? warned, confronted to the huge urbanisation explosions in the 121.
world. But he was wrong. The world can start over everywhere.
This is the continuation of contemporary urbanisation by other One should not look for radical beginnings only in the vastness 2
Rem Koolhaas, “Last
means: what is being experienced here is the total liberalisa- of the globe. The world does not actually begin with bigness. Chance?”, in Ole Bou-
tion of the urban system on low scales. The city has broken Starting over is rather a matter of elementary particles. The man, Mitra Khoubrou
down into small pieces – it has been scattered into a myriad world can start over within its smallest bubble. and Rem Koolhaas (eds.),
Al Manach, special edi-
of individual mini-forces, it has been reduced to its smallest tion of Volume, Amster-
elementary particles. A new kind of instant city is being born Foam bubbles dam: Stichting Archis,
from atoms. This is the degree zero of urbanity. Branzi’s enzymatic model also predicted there would be no 2007, 7.
divisions between interiors and exteriors, between public and
Micro-agents private spaces. Yet it is obvious that these separations have
Andrea Branzi1 defined the “degree zero” of urban space as never actually disappeared. Quite the contrary, limits are
the space of the “weak metropolis”: an enzymatic territory, tougher than ever today. In the Romanian suburbia, the entire
hybrid, diffuse and reversible, in which the smallest elements world has been reduced to an accumulation of firmly defined
– the molecules of urban life – mattered the most. They made private interiors. What is outside does not matter. The city
the city, they changed the world. Indeed, the world does not around does not exist. The private bubbles are the only space
necessarily change through big shifts, but rather by starting of life that there can be. Exactly like in a space of foams.
SUPERB SUBURBIA. THE DEGREE ZERO OF URBAN SPACE > DANA VAIS > 2/4
6
Peter Sloterdijk3 claimed that the “city of the future” will be the Superb after sublime 3
Peter Sloterdijk, Éc-
umes – Sphères III, Paris:
“Foam City”, and that the 21st century will be a Century of Foams. Something is incessantly born out of nothing. However, what
Hachette Littératures,
We live in a world of private spheres, where there is nothing in emerges here are new individual private bubbles, not a new 2005; see also Sloterdijk,
between. Every micro-bubble becomes a world in itself. We don’t order. What is continually recreated is entropy. Order on urban Sphères I. Bulles, Paris:
live in a shared world, but each in our own “indoor”. All we care scale, any bigger scale order actually, if it existed, it would be Fayard, 2002.
about are our isolations and immunities. You think this could be really sublime: bigness is always sublime. Modernists tried sub- 4
Sloterdijk, Écumes, 50.
a return to nature?... Quite the contrary. This is the definitive ar- limity in their time (and communists were some absolute mod-
tificiality: we produce only well-controlled acclimatised interiors. ernists), shaping the urban space like one big total artwork. Yet
Relations to anything outside have disappeared. Vicinities do not they have failed.
mean opening through proximity, but rather opacity effort. The
city becomes a multitude of elementary cells that “can be nei- Individual micro-agents are light-years away from this intangible
ther truly united, nor truly separated”: a “co-existence in co-in- sublimity. All is not lost though. They might be small, but they
sistence”.4 have their pride – their superbia. Being superb at smaller scales
is not a waste, it is not excessive. It is rather part of the spatial
Space physics logic of entropy itself: the extravagant micro-particles take it all.
Actually, our cities of foams are rather collections of isolated ob- All that can be invested into the urban space now is invested in
jects, floating in spatial fields where the only interaction is sheer their bubbles, which can thus flourish in full splendour. (Splen-
gravity: the one with bigger mass prevails. The only laws in effect dour in the grass.) And what do excess or waste mean, when all
here are the laws of physics. The city coalesces by accretion from is entropy?... What is superfluous, when there is no order, there-
simple elementary bubbles into discontinuous patches of agglom- fore no good measure either, to be exceeded?...
erations and swarms. They overflow overboard the compact city, The superbness of each of the elementary particles is part of
but still keep close to it. The force of gravity is maybe weak, but how the urban space works when downscaled to the lowest lim-
also implacable. And, as relativity theory describes it, it is maybe its. It is a sure symptom that the absolute degree zero of space
not even a force, but the warping of space itself. What we have has been reached. From now on, the scale of urban order can
here is simply the result of how spatial mechanics works. only go up.
When physicists studied matter at its smallest scales, what they
found was uncertainty, a lot of empty space, and some very ex-
travagant micro-particles. It goes the same for the urban space
reduced to its smallest scale, the degree zero of urbanity – such
as the space of Romanian periphery.
7
8 9
I’m the center
you’re my periphery 10
9
11
Superbia: When did you decide to move?
Előd: About 4 years ago we thought about getting a place, but the prices in Cluj were very high. A normal apartment with 2
rooms cost about 100 000 euro, in the city, not necessarily only in the centre. It was the economic boom period, when every-
body was building and the prices were extremely high. After about a year we found out that in Floreşti or Baciu, right near
Cluj, the apartments are much more accessible compared to the prices in Cluj at that period. We wanted to see an apartment
in Baciu, and we couldn’t decide right away by seeing what was there. Afterwards, we found out from some relatives that an
Irishman had a project here in Floreşti and that’s the project we eventually chose. When we saw the place, we asked to see
some plans and when we saw the design, we knew that this is it and we didn’t even look for other apartments. It was practi-
cally the second apartment we looked at.
S: And did it suit you?
E: Yes, the price too, and we decided to buy an apartment here.
S: Do you know the neighbours?
E: Yes, even before we moved, I can say we’ve become friends with everyone. Compared to how it was in Mărăşti, where living
in an 8 storey building, for 6 years, I had no idea who my neighbours were. Here it was much easier to make friends. We are
all approximately the same age.
S: Do you go out, at night?
E: As far as free time goes, we prefer the city centre. If we do go out, we don’t come home, we go out directly for a beer or
something. We theoretically work till five, and practically till six or seven. We would lose too much time if we would come home
and then go back to town.
Előd, 31, journalist, Florești

1/8
THE SUBURB OR ABOUT THE LOGIC OF “NEITHER, NOR“

------
TEXT: ȘTEFAN UNGUREAN
According to Deleuze and Guattari, the frontier is a place of lib- The mechanism of creating private property was, initially and
erty. Should one open any book on town planning history, this inevitably, based on the right of inheritance. Meanwhile, after
is one of the main striking ideas. The governing body of medi- the opening of borders, a second mechanism came into being,
eval Braşov allowed for illicit transactions to take place outside related to the creation of private property. This time, it was a
the town walls, while at the same time, in Bucharest, those who Lockean type of mechanism, based on work. With western mon-
wanted to make illegal business simply had to move beyond the ey made from working abroad, Romanians had villas erected
city entrance barriers! There, on the outskirts of the city, the for themselves or purchased cars to mark their emancipation.
chances to flee from the control of the administration were high, This is the first thing that all of my acquaintances did; none of
opportunities built up and freedom reigned. them invested in any business, nor did any of them open their
own business. Our intention is not to find further explanations,
Built in the proximity of neighbourhoods made of collective we are suspecting that behind this behaviour rests the need for
buildings, the new suburbs of the post-revolutionary age have safety (a house is indeed the expression of this basic need), but
been perpetuating this archetype. For quite a long time after also the need for social acknowledgement and personal pride.
1990, the notion of ‘city perimeter’ ceased to exist. In fact, the Consequently, these people purchased some land and started to
instauration within society of a new functioning mechanism have their houses built. Without bothering to look left or right,
based on private property, cumulated with the widespread so- they just did what they thought best. In fact, they still believed
cial phenomenon of property retrocessions blew the principles in stability and sustainability, in the quality of the ‘place’ – all
of town planning into pieces. Why? Because town planning came attributes of modernity. Through these characteristics, suburbs
to be associated with a communist-type social organization. The are a continuation of a solid modernity; they are the expression
desecration that occurred after 1990 affected many spheres of of a primordial shelter.
social life: its management, forecasting and planning attributes,
work discipline, its social control functions. Simultaneously, a The ‘1989’ moment was equivalent to a tuning of the theories.
disinhibitory phenomenon occurred, which engulfed both pub- The notion of a ‘public good’ produced and managed by the
lic and private sphere (family), ultimately invading the intimate State was thrown to the garbage can. Proclaimed as absolute
sphere, which penetrated and settled, through the media, into truths replacing other ‘absolute truths’ (sic!), the new stances
the public space. maintained that the public good inevitably originates from the
individual good, without us bothering about it. Furthermore,
On the background of this disinhibition process, for a while, no State or any other authority is needed to impose regulations
the right of doing just about anything with one’s land didn’t as- that would go beyond individual initiative. In other words, if we
semble in any way with the principles of urban public policies. all build wonderful houses, we shall have wonderful neighbor-
THE SUBURB OR ABOUT THE LOGIC OF “NEITHER, NOR“ > ȘTEFAN UNGUREAN > 2/8
12
hoods. Since in the old regime people failed to see where their The fact that, after so many years, the suburbs still do not benefit
own individual interest lay within the collective good, the fact from the much-needed infrastructure emphasizes, on the one
that now the only focal point was the individual interest did hand, the absence of local governance, and on the other, these
not surprise anybody. Therefore, individual desires immediately people’s inability to organize themselves and cover the role that
found principles on which to build a justification. This is proof of should have been played by the authorities. However, a very big
the fact that the truth does not represent a unifying synthesis, step is needed to move from this to what Tocqueville calls “a well-
but a balance of power in the relations between a majority and understood interest”. This can be translated by the coming into
a minority. being of behaviours that require small costs and can be assumed
by everyone (for instance, picking up a piece of paper thrown
Indeed, that was the moment when it was clear that the means onto the sidewalk and putting it into the garbage can). A collec-
of accomplishing public good in communist times, through the tion of such small actions can engender a significant public good
State’s coercive methods, engendered a selfish logic and selfish – invisible at first; and this is precisely why this step is so hard to
behaviours and that the ideology of this 18th century liberalism take… because it is invisible. Hence the question: how much can
glued itself perfectly onto this mentality, whose origin lay in a dis- one learn, how much can one change and how can one do that?
course diametrically opposed to liberalism. In fact, people wanted Or, the key ingredient in creating coherent public policies that
more freedom; they wanted to escape from a system character- can be successfully implemented in the urban public sphere re-
ized by visual and auditory constraints and interferences, limita- sides precisely in people’s ability to understand that sometimes,
tions caused by the collective building reproducing the archetype however good their intentions are, their individual actions build
of a prison. They found a good place for this freedom on the up and can trigger unexpected, perverted, dysfunctional effects.
outskirts of neighbourhoods, on the border, somewhat against But can one truly learn otherwise than by current practice, other
society and the State. In a way, this was a return to the state of than from his own mistakes? By seeking more freedom, the own-
nature described by Hobbes, in which cooperation is refused ers of these houses found themselves caught in a network of con-
and the presence of a Leviathan declined. Consequently, these ditionings and privations more powerful and constraining than
suburbs, which came into being as a result of individual actions, the one governing the neighbourhood they had just left, which is
are ultimately an expression of selfishness and, definitely, not of something that they could not have anticipated, due to their in-
individualism. Because what separates a selfish person from an substantial cultural capital. Ulrich Beck’s quotation related to the
individualistic one is the inability of the former to cooperate so as solitary captivity of the ego as a mass punishment seems to de-
to bring forth a common good, inability deriving from a cognitive scribe the situation correctly. In other words, one could say that
limitation: either the person cannot identify his own interest with at the bottom of this stands an insufficient collective intelligence
in this greater common good, or he deems this action inefficient. coefficient. How did it come to this?
By seeking autonomy and freedom in relation to the State, the villas: their size. What I found most striking when I visited such a
inhabitants of the new suburbs chose an opponent that was dif- neighbourhood was the impressive size of the houses – a symbol
ferent than what it used to be. The ethics of the State’s responsi- of status and power, as previously mentioned. Any house design
bility in relation to a certain space disappeared from the logic of project is an attempt at recomposing one’s identity, at rewriting
the State policy. The suburb became a crossroads between indi- the story of one’s inner self. One’s identity is no longer a starting
vidual emancipation and political lack of responsibility. The politi- point, as it used to be in the Modern age, but a finish point. At
cal elite’s escape from responsibility in what space is concerned the end of one’s life, when the process of defining one’s iden-
was joined by a new definition given to the ‘public sphere’, which tity comes to an end, the house is an argument. For an imposing
ceased to be the area in which major social issues are dealt with, house expresses an accomplished personality, doesn’t it? And an
and was reduced, as we have previously shown, to a trivial curios- accomplished personality is indeed the mark of the final victory!
ity regarding the private life of public personalities. As it was no Through this character, by making a future project of one’s iden-
longer subject to social pressure and since it escaped civic con- tity, the suburb translates itself into a quest beyond modernity
trol, the administrative incompetence became associated with and into post-modernity.
the State-privatization phenomenon.
I assume the owners had made some calculations on how much
What is most unsurprising is the fact that all these houses look the building of the new house would cost, but I doubt that they
alike, as they are all characterised by two common features. The ever pondered on how much their maintenance expenditures
first of them is the fence. While marking the protection of the pri- would be. I know a business owner who had a twenty-room house
vate, intimate space, the fence also hints at the property owner’s erected, thinking that his children and parents will live there with
fear. These suburbs are spaces dominated by fear, by the desire him, thus embracing the model of the extended Romanian family
to keep oneself unseen by the others, to protect oneself from the of the past centuries, or that of the present lifestyle of the Roma.
others, hence the logic: big building – sign of wealth – fear – pro- None of his forecasted predictions came true, as neither his par-
tection fence. The notion of ‘neighbourly‘, commonplace in old ents, nor his children live with him. He spent about 20,000 Euros
communities, seems to be unknown in these parts. How can one on maintenance and when he finally started adding up all the ex-
persuade these people to collaborate, if they are dominated by penses, he freaked out. Now he would gladly sell the house, but
fear and lack of trust? Their problems are similar, but they do not he cannot find any buyer. This is the biggest paradox of suburbs:
form a whole since, just as Bauman states, the individual is the the fact that they belong to two worlds, one ruled by safety, by
citizen’s fiercest enemy. the community, by the belief that the future is nothing but an im-
proved past and the other dominated by freedom, in which one’s
That brings us to the second element that is common to all the identity is a life project, a breakaway from life’s initial framework.
This example indicates a problem. Should one stroll through

our villages, one can find sheds that have a room to the right
side. The stable is connected to this room by a door, and on the
other side of the stable there is the shed proper. The peasant
and his family used to live in that small room. By living next to
the stable, they were trying to cut down heating expenses and
were also able to intervene quickly, if animals were to give birth.
Back then, people had to sell milk or animals to get the money to
build a house. Therefore, the building of the house was directly
connected to the people’s production capacity. Time was not a
problem, and the reward came, as Tocqueville described would
happen in a desirable modern world, after long and strenuous
efforts.
13
So what is our point? That it would be worthwhile knowing how
the owners managed to find the resources enabling them to raise
such villas? How they forecasted the future of their business?
This is a much broader phenomenon, as it can be also seen at the
level of office buildings and especially at that of buildings meant
to be public institutions. Or, this is where things start to get plau-
sible. Our first guess is that the person never thought one bit
about the maintenance expenditures of a house, since he had
lived in a block of flats previously and that his first concern was
his need of space, and definitely not maintenance costs. Thus,
the villa is nothing more than an apartment taken out of its natu-
ral background – the block of flats – enlarged accordingly and
having no connection whatsoever to the neighbouring buildings.
Furthermore, we can suspect that the respective person had
thought his job was perfectly safe, as he did not have the capital
ist experience of people losing their jobs, precisely because he 14
had spent his life under the communist regime, in which all jobs an unexpected increase in people’s aspirations – not according
were safe. Finally, it is possible for the owner to have been one to their real possibilities, but based on their wish to live a life
of those initiated in the new economic game, for whom build- that was not theirs, the life not of those who were like them,
ing a house involved no sacrifice and the inhabitation issue was but of those who were different. Romanian women who worked
not connected to the money-producing machinery. Where the as social assistants for wealthy families in Italy wanted to have
idea of sacrifice is missing, the idea of value is missing, as well, houses like those of their Italian employers. Thus, there occurred
and, therefore, the building and maintenance costs cannot pos- a transfer of lifestyles into other spaces, transfer that has at the
sibly have been important. Accidentally or not, what some of our bottom the notion of ‘desire’ (which eludes the notion of a life-
capitalist fellow countrymen did was to reproduce the Phanariot style typical for a social class) and which is also a temporal amal-
model of consumption irrespective of costs. They did that be- gam. To live like a football player, like a model or like a pop singer
cause money-awareness had not been inculcated in their pre- became a commonplace dream, likely to come to life thanks to
vious education – proof of the flawed, imperfect modernity in the present-day banking system. Life, understood as an identity-
which they were raised. In both cases, the sense of precaution granting process, was accomplished through and was the out-
related to life’s uncertainties is lacking. In other words, the no- come of a certain type of political economy.
tion of time was neglected and time was actually turned into
a variable of desire. Basically, people were no longer willing to However, this reality is now history and the scapegoat carry-
postpone receiving their reward. ing the blame is the present-day crisis. All of a sudden, people
realized they do not have enough money either to finalize the
Should one look at other countries – some of which more pros- building of their house, or for the infrastructure. Hence, they re-
perous than ours – one can see the same phenomenon, which quested the support of the local administrations for space plan-
in Romania can be explained by historical factors, taking place ning. Promptly, the administrations discovered that the respec-
over there, as well, even though these societies have not under- tive buildings had been erected without an authorization. They
gone the same social-political experiences as ours. One might did so not out of legal prudishness, but because of the lack of
then ask if there cannot be yet another explanation, one related available resources, the idea being to hush dissatisfied voices.
to a strong economic mechanism, which engulfed the present- Politicians are now facing an ‘unnatural’ situation, as they are
day world and exacerbated the desire, while group-related refer- held responsible for the deficient management, so they put on
ences dimmed away. Let us explain. Fifty years ago, when people an irritated face when approaching their electorate. The ‘blame’
built houses, their reference systems were usually related to the is now searched for at the level of the individual or the govern-
groups they belonged to. The democratisation of desire, a phe- ing body, supposedly having nothing to do with management. In
nomenon whose beginnings can be traced to the 1990s, leads to short, the crisis revealed a paradox: although we have witnessed
the political actors’ lack of responsibility related to the social di-

mension of a given space, the inactivity proved to be too costly
and now, when the political body is being asked to re-assume
its integrating function, we find out that the resources needed
are lacking.
It is possible that this phenomenon of the political bodies’ refus-

al to assume responsibility be connected not only to the priva-
tization of the State by various interest groups, but also to the
shift in the power model, from one power structure focusing on
dominating a space, to one relying on dominating through time.
Therefore, we might witness a control transfer from classical
coercive means making use of physical force or money to more
subtle control means, such as values. The consequence? Those
15
operating with values, namely the media, became increasingly
powerful in the public sphere. This change in the domination inadequacy of the political system facing a new reality. The is-
type by controlling time is related to the economic logic of capi- sues that used to be solved within specialised institutions, fol-
talism, of the added value law, as it was defined by Marx in Capi- lowing long public negotiations, are now dealt with late at night,
tal, as being related to the decrease in the work time socially on television. Moreover, it seems that nowadays, no one is will-
necessary to produce a good. The place of a ‘social integrator’ ing to live in a world like the one described by Ulrich Beck, in
once held by the political was now taken by cultural integra- which life’s major problems are given a biographical solution and
tors, such as the media, for reasons pertaining to a control logic in which risks and threats are assumed by the individual. How far
derived from that of the market and audience. These new inte- are we going to push this refusal? Shall we answer to extremism
grators are legitimised by clear-cut financial measurements, by through extremism, thus heading towards a world in which any
their audience and advertising. We are thus witnessing a re-posi- private matter will get the scope of a public affair, requesting the
tioning of power relations between those who control the space, government’s intervention? Are we going to sacrifice our freedom
on the basis of financial means, and those who control time and now for a bit of extra security and comfort?
rely on signs and values. The crisis repositioned the relationship
between the public, private and intimate sphere and pushed so- In an analysis of the 1789 French Revolution, Tocqueville remarked
cial issues into the public sphere, while the press revealed the the presence of a syndrome: that of finding a radical, dispropor-
16
tionate solution to a small problem, as, said the thinker, when in which one is neither allowed to live, nor to die? This is in line Bibliographic notes:
a wild rabbit ran from one property to another, those involved with a Foucauldian interpretation describing the sovereign (medi-
Bauman, Zygmunt, Mo-
gathered together to discuss the need to reform the State. Are we eval) type of power, as having life and death power over his sub- dernitatea lichidă – Poate
re-living that story now? Will time bring back from the dead the jects, but letting them live, whereas in the disciplinary (modern) mintea umană stăpâni ceea
social class notion described by Marx in the Economic and Philo- type of power, the sovereign has no right over his subjects’ life, ce a creat mintea umană?
[Liquid Modernity], Filipeştii
sophical Manuscripts of 1844, in which he stated that the prole- but lets them die. In this case, the suburbs would be an illustration de Tîrg: Antet, 2000.
tariat cannot survive in times of crisis? Is it now obsolete to define of this ‘neither, nor’ approach, situated halfway between life and
one’s belonging to a certain social class through a way of life de- death, between the long-gone modernity and dying post-moder- Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guat-
tari, Kafka. Pentru o literatură
termined, among others, by owning a real estate property? Are we nity, between security and freedom. In the worst case, they would minoră [Kafka: Towards a
going to live to see villas getting sold so as the owners can survive? be more than the expression of a simple need, and in the best of Minor Literature], Bucharest:
Or are we going for a synthetic solution, of the type ‘neither, nor’, cases, something a bit more than the long-wished for desire. ART, 2007.
Foucault, Michel, Trebuie să

apărăm societatea [Society
Must Be Defended], Cluj-
Napoca: Idea Design&Print,
2009.
Marx, Karl, Manuscrisele

economico-filosofice
din 1844 [Economic and
Philosophical Manu-
scripts of 1844], in Scrieri
din tinereţe, Bucharest:
Politică, 1968.
Tocqueville, Alexis de, De-

spre democraţie în America
[Democracy in America], Bu-
charest: Humanitas, 2005.
17
Cosmin: It’s about a complete project used for doing the joint possession.
I consider it an apartment block. The only difference is that it’s horizontal.
This is why the address is 5H Sub Cetate Street. 5H is the house ‘number’.
The other row is 3H, 5H, 7H … H is actually the house, and the number is
the row. The houses are alphabetically ordered. Our complete address is
5H, apartment 2. Our street didn’t have a name until last year. In all legal
papers it was named the A Street and now it’s the Sub Cetate Street.
Superbia: But if you call a taxi, they know how to get here, right?
C: Yes, they learned. All the taxi drivers saw the big panel with the “Green
Paradise”.
Every bad thing has its good part. Because the cars are parked on both
sides of the road, you have to drive in slalom to get here. This implies low
speeds, so the children are actually safer here.
S: Do you know some particular mothers, with whom you talk to or sit
together with the children?
C: We are all quite alike. We didn’t have a lot of money, we wanted to
live in a house, we had an apartment or not, most of us are between 30
and 40 years old. Our neighbours are judges, journalists, lawyers, there’s
a football coach across the street, policemen, secret service agents, even
a family of pensioners. This family has a lot of land and they retired here because they found the area
good for them. Most of our neighbours are 35-40 years old, with small children or they are planning
to have children. Just a little bit up the road a family moved in with 2 small children. At the end of the
street there are 4 families without children, but planning to have some.
S: It’s growing quite a bit into a playing team.
Ancuța: There are 11 children already born, and another 3 to come.
C: It’s nice to live in such a complex. You have your own intimacy, but at the same time the surroundings
form a unitary atmosphere. It’s a complex that’s already been built, it’s something that I can see how
it is and I know it won’t change. And if it has a specific style, it’s even better.
We found the house in the newspaper: 128 square meters constructed, with garage, courtyard…
S: So it was exactly what they promised.
C: Yes. Except the alley, it’s so narrow.
A: There were small differences.
C: Because the plots were smaller, they had to adapt the same project to the different plots, reducing
10-20 cm here and there.
A: 20-30 cm from the kitchen or from the living room. Two houses are never identical.
C: At our house the stairs finish in one place, at my neighbour’s house they finish in another place. Al-
though, it’s the same project.
Ancuţa, 28, economist and Cosmin, 36, electronics engineer, Floreşti

1/7
PICNIC CITY
------
TEXT: PLANWERK
In Romania, the new peripheries seem to escape one’s under- to understand what is going on at the margins of our cities, the
standing of the Suburbia. Instead, one finds a conflicting and differences are more important than the overlapping. Moreover,
unpredictable land. A phenomenon worthy of criticism, but un- in order to be able to overcome our professional bias and cyni-
doubtedly inciting. cism, we need to understand the new peripheries in their own
rights.
As architects and town planners, we have certain knowledge
of the new peripheries, either through projects or by walking Suburbanisation, as a process, is replaced here by something
around. Probably most of us don’t live there and never would. closer to colonisation. The most important difference between
During discussions, these places invariably raise criticism, a the two lays in the fact that the latter does not exclude the un-
vague shame and, in the best of cases, a sort of ironic curiosity. known, the unexplored, and assumes it, even with some enthu-
siasm. Suburbanisation – a pejorative term for recent urbanisa-
Writing about the recent suburbs in Romania is thus a challenge, tion – essentially tames the next piece of land; it is, on another
in the sense that it seems difficult to understand them at first scale, the known neighbour who, until recently, had a garden
glance other than as chutes full of town planning and architec- and now has decided to start building on it. Colonisation is, on
tural garbage, ignored, somewhere at the end of the city, where the contrary, an adventure, and as such, it is equally triggered by
good quality architecture can only be found as an exception. This promises and threatened by dangers. Maybe even more relevant
is why we decided to visit these places, either by car, by bicycle for us, it has an open ending.
or by foot – sometimes bringing along a picnic basket – and to try
getting to know them better. Coming into being
Since 1999 the city of Cluj includes in its urban area 2000 hect-
The first conclusion: the new peripheries no longer correspond ares of agricultural land, pastures, forests and orchards spread
to the usual term of ‘suburbia’ and they cannot be approached in a hilly area almost devoid of buildings, raising by ca. 50% the
through the same means employed to control suburbia in places existing urban area. A few years ago, the officials of Sibiu were
it already has a tradition. The second conclusion: the new pe- ready to include in the city a large landscape (ca. 2000 ha, com-
ripheries deserve a closer, more tolerant look. pared to the less than 3000 ha of the city itself) under the simple
There is, of course, some resemblance between the Suburbia functional designation of “villas”. One can find similar examples,
and the new peripheries. Suburbia ‘is’ a periphery, the inhabit- on different scale, in the case of most cities in Romania.
ants of them both leave the city in hope of a better life and, seen According to local legislation and regulations, these lands are
from a distance, they might both seem to be the same thing: a equally buildable. Equally, that is no matter their location, di-
city dissolving into the landscape. However, in order to be able mensions, available facilities, type or way of occupation etc.
PICNIC CITY > PLANWERK > 2/7
18
In other words, they create a territory of uniform urban sig- plot, homes of all sizes come one after the other: from ten-floor
nificance, vague and with restrictions limited largely to existing blocks, villas for several families and one-family houses of all
topographic challenges. scales, to garden sheds.
The permission to occupy these lands only depends on technical In a society living predominantly in rural households and social-
and bureaucratic formalities, which are relatively uncomplicated, ist-era blocks of flats, the new peripheries seem laboratories for
and one can obtain them as a private individual. The increased testing little known habitation forms: aligned houses, terraced
accessibility in obtaining bank loans and the co-enthusiasm of houses, multiple-level apartments, penthouse apartments etc.
the administration in the generation of a new type of settlement And, besides the important categories, the new ones, typical of
was all that was needed. the peripheries: houses that look like blocks, blocks that try to
look like houses.
Today
Ten years later, a walk through the new ‘neighbourhoods’ of the Not far from the southern periphery of Cluj, on the same hill-
city resembles rather an architectural safari than a traditional side, one can find Andrei Mureşanu neighbourhood, result of a
Sunday afternoon spazier. The new territories must be explored plotting action of the 1920s, neighbouring on the opposite end
in the proper sense of the word: since they are not covered by the central area of the city. Extrapolating to another era, Andrei
the tourist maps of the city, finding one’s direction becomes a Mureşanu corresponds to the suburb of Cluj in the interwar pe-
thing of intuition and what would feature in architectural guides riod.
as a recommended site is a surprising discovery here. The land
cannot be considered neither urban, nor rural, nor a landscape, Even today, in relation to the set of morphological, typologi-
despite the fact that it contains all three. What we would expect cal and anthropological characteristics of the ‘classical’ suburb,
to call a ‘network’, according to a professional reflex, proves to Andrei Mureşanu resembles the Western-European residential
be a rather unfinished puzzle, composed of pieces taken from sprawl more than the new peripheries. It is a neighbourhood
different sets: hyper urban isles, with absurd density, rural set according to the ‘good’ rules of town planning, with a regu-
fragments, hypermarkets with flocks of sheep roaming in their lated street and plot network, with houses of similar dimensions
parking lots and an infrastructure left untouched since the 80s. and the good quality architecture of that time. Although Andrei
It is all framed by or frames a landscape sometimes so intact Mureşanu offers, consciously or unconsciously, a model for the
that the built surroundings seem puzzling. The variety of home periphery rising at its southern border, what we discover there is
types is probably larger than in any of the ’normal’ neighbour- not a continuation or extension of the former, but a fundamen-
hoods of the city. Lacking any order and mediation, plot beside tally different structure.
So what are the differences between the Suburbia, in its generally of the new residents do not know for themselves, but only imag-
accepted meaning, and the new peripheries of the Romanian cities? ine the simple things they want. The ‘improved normality’ of the
suburb is replaced in the new peripheries by the TV stereotypes
Safety vs. unpredictable of the suburbs and the role of direct previous experience is taken
The European suburb is, par excellence, a place of safety, a cra- over by real estate commercials. Most of the apartments in the
dle of the middle-class family, and even – what triggers the most new residential complexes are sold even before the start of the
criticism – a place of uniformity brought to boredom, even if it construction sites. Using credit, that is, virtual money, people
is good quality boredom. By contrast, living in the peripheries buy scale models and graphic illustrations, that is, virtual homes.
does not seem to be very reassuring. The luck factor is omni- The illustrations employ hyper-realistic graphics and they fo-
present and inevitable, depending on the number of floors of cus on the private precincts exclusively, departing from reality
the next neighbour’s house, the year when sewerage network and touching on the dream: neighbours never feature in these
was introduced, and extending to each person’s capacity to pay representations or they are replaced by inexistent landscapes,
the instalments. But the most important unknown element, for apartments look bigger than they are etc. Renaming places helps
both optimists and pessimists, is its development in time, a thing annulling the context, thus the unwanted reality. A simple inven-
radically opposed to the planned immobility of most suburbs. tory of the new toponyms measures the distance between re-
ality and the distant horizon of promises: Bonjour Residence in
Known vs. dream Bună Ziua neighbourhood, Ansamblul Oxygen (Oxygen Complex)
The families which 80 years ago moved to Andrei Mureşanu, in the margins of the polluted chicken farm in Floreşti and Ameri-
probably came from other parts of Cluj, a city mostly occupied can Village Condominiums on Hoia Hill.
by houses with courtyards. Despite being new, the neighbour-
hood they moved into was known to them, in the sense that Real estate commercial,
September 2007: the
they were familiar with a certain residential typology and a cer- pieces of furniture are
tain lifestyle. Determined by their wellbeing, by demography or depicted on a different
simply on a whim, the new owners were taking an aware step scale than the apartment,
making the rooms seem
towards something obviously better and in the same time within much bigger. The dimen-
their reach. Compared to them, most residents of the new pe- sions of inner spaces and
ripheries are taking a brave leap into the unknown. Just like their the degree of completion
grandparents, they want normal and simple things: a better life, are the most appreciated
qualities of homes on the
a happy family, the tranquillity of their own courtyard, social Romanian real estate
standing, a safe property etc. Yet, unlike their forefathers, most market. 19
No doubt, far from being a land of accomplishment, the new not rarely conflicting mini-communities – the family, the condo-
periphery is, at least, the scenery against which many people’s minium, associations in law courts – each with its own rules, its
dreams are distortedly projected. distinct way of architectural expression and, as seen above, with
names telling of ‘personalized’ dreams. The lack of public space
Common rules vs. individual will is compensated on the spot by the wide pastures around, by the
The Suburbia, despite being promoted as an act of liberation forests that the inhabitants discover with the same curiosity as
(running away from the city), is generated by regulations and that of the weekend tourists. In the new suburbs, common, but
governed by rules. Starting from the shape and dimensions of not shared value is everyone’s freedom from the others.
the house until the professional, ethnic or economic profile of its
inhabitants, the Suburbia is a place of conformity. The feeling of Instead of a conclusion
belonging to a group in which one easily recognizes his/her own The new peripheries are not inevitably lost, nor are they cer-
features and interests, even the desire for freedom and private tainly salvaged. The disadvantages of their creation are obvious
space, lays at the foundation of community formation. There and the arguments against them are too well known to be de-
are self-aware communities, which recreate, on a suburb scale, tailed here: the alienation of the inhabitants through isolation,
the symbols of the larger community they consider to be part the fragmentation of the landscape, the rendering of the city
of, namely that of the city. Public areas, squares and neighbour- ugly, infrastructural and ecological costs that cannot be covered,
hood plazas (scaled down replicas of the city centre) coagulate social risks on the long run etc. Nevertheless, these places can
the suburbs abound them – these mini-, semi-independent cities also be seen other than manifestations of administration’s fail-
– as a built testimony of the fact that they are more than a sum ures, of real estate manipulation and of specialists’ incompe-
of private destinies. tence. Beyond the criticism – otherwise funded and useful – one
also needs to shed a different light on the matter, searching for
The new peripheries are an area of manifestation of individual- qualities or, at least, for opportunities. From a quantitative point
ity and pioneering. The families that retreat here subject them- of view, the new periphery is the most important visible prod-
selves to a situation of refuge on their property, which they try uct of the society we have lived in for the past 20 years. This is
to protect from the vicinities. Just like in John Ford’s movies, the why it contains, besides the errors of this society, certain traits
new colonists pursue their dream of freedom through isolation that cannot be ignored: the will for and enjoyment of freedom,
and when they form communities, they do it forced by external self-assertion, the proof of the capacity to overcome various ob-
impulses or menaces: the appearance of unwanted develop- stacles through spontaneity and inventiveness, the readiness to
ments in the neighbourhoods, the competition for infrastructure adapt and learn and, maybe even more importantly, the often
etc. The rest of the time, life goes on in isolated, autonomous and naïve enthusiasm of a new beginning.
House around Cîmpului

Street, Cluj, 2010: spon-
taneous colonization of
the landscape. The inhab-
itants of the large block-
of-flats neighbourhoods
move in places where not
long ago they went out
for picnics. 20
Following the administrative measure mentioned in the begin- For this reason, instead of offering conclusions, we aim at continu- 1
according to a classifi-
cation created on a glob-
ning of this text, from a statistical perspective, Cluj is now in the ing our exploration of the new peripheries. The aim of knowing and
al scale by the MioTech-
top 10 greenest cities in Europe!1 This is of course a calculation, understanding them is raising responsibility, as unique means of nology company, part
in both meanings of the word: a statistical abstraction and an bringing them out of isolation and drifting. This is why, instead of of the campaign “I Love
electoral strategy. Since then, a large part of the landscape in- a conclusion, we invite you to walk around and collect ideas in the Green Cities” (source:
Ziua de Cluj newspa-
cluded in the city has been transformed; without remaining a Picnic City. per). According to the
part of nature, still, it has not become a city. Hundreds of fami- same study, Braşov oc-
lies now live on the former picnic spots of the inhabitants of Cluj, cupies the 30th position,
Bucharest the 38th, and
but the picnics did not cease there either. Constanţa the 46th.
In the end of the 90s, the urban perimeter of Cluj was clearly
divided in a relatively compact urban body and several hundred
hectares of untouched landscape. Today, ironically, the survey of
green areas touches upon reality: a large number of the inhabit-
ants of Cluj live in a ‘city’ as green as it gets. A city that is a focus
of controversy: criticised by the NGOs, promoted by real estate
agents, regarded with bewilderment by the administration and
largely ignored by specialists. However, we all agree on two
things: (1) the new peripheries are an irreversible reality and (2)
their development seems impossible to foresee and even less,
to control. How could these areas be integrated in the city? Is it
possible to ‘forcedly’ implement there public infrastructure and
equipments capable of producing local cohesion and autonomy
from the centre? Will they be, on the contrary, generated by the
same ‘spontaneous’ market mechanisms that led to the creation
of the entire area? Is there a risk of formation, under the impact
of the crisis, of future ‘luxurious’ ghettos, and if so, what can we
do about it? In order to answer these questions, the first step is
to integrate the new peripheries and bring them in the focus of
public and professional discussions.
sometimes going nowhere
21
can lead you somewhere
Superbia: How long have you lived here?
Andrei: We’re not from Cluj. We’re from Baia Mare. We stayed in Cluj for 3 years, renting a bachelor flat in the Grigorescu
area. After that we looked for an apartment or house to match our desires and expectations. In the city we found old and
expensive apartments, not very well taken care of. We didn’t actually look for a finished home. We wanted to be able to do
the finishing the way we wanted, but the prices were the same as for this house. By then, in 2005, it was under construction,
and the price seemed very appropriate, taking into account that it’s definitely more than an apartment. We have a small
courtyard that makes all the difference.
S: So you also have a garden?
A: Yes, it’s our place where we can go outside. We were both working for companies that gave us cars, so the distance didn’t
seem very important.
When we started the construction work here, it was just the corn and us. It should’ve been just a row of houses here, and
another row mirrored across the street.
S: How many houses are in a row?
A: Six and instead of that block of flats, there should have been another six, but they built the block right in front of us, be-
cause it’s more profitable than six houses.
On the one hand, they crowded us with the blocks and population, but, on the other hand, we were also lucky, because this
is why the entire infrastructure was made. It was just a village road going to a field of corn.
Andrei, 37, economist, Baciu

22
1/4
ON THE CATASTROPHES, POTENTIAL, AND RECENT DEVELOPMENT OF ROMANIAN PERIPHERIES

------
TEXT: ȘTEFAN GHENCIULESCU
C. works in one of the main Bucharest headquarters of a well- urbia without touching on the latest episode of this develop-
known international company. It takes him one our by car to ment, namely the invasion of office buildings and apartment
reach the ‘office park’ where the building is located, a complex of complexes on lands, which until recently were only used for
office buildings in a hardly accessible area surrounded by waste building crowded villas. It seems to me that, more than any sta-
lands, industrial areas dating back to the socialist era, groups of tistics or territorial analysis, the things mentioned above indi-
villas and remains of the former villages once surrounding the cate the chaotic development of peripheries and the non-urban
capital. way of creating the post-socialist city. Maybe, as we shall see at
the end of this article, these developments also indicate a pos-
The building is modern, with glass curtain walls, air conditioning, sible change of paradigm and the changing of a wild suburb in a
super communication technologies and employees in suites, but sort of city, in fact just as wild in itself.
there is no sewerage in that area and the problem of evacuat-
ing residual water is solved through a large septic tank. It is the Of course, no suburb in the world is coherent, but in compari-
same solution employed by the residents of the nearby villas, son to the scale of development of metropolises in Southeastern
but on an aberrant scale. One day, all employees in the building Europe which did not undergo Communism, such as Athens or
received a message on the intranet in which they were being Istanbul, the Romanian phenomenon might even seem benign.
politely asked to refrain, as much as possible, from using the toi- What is shocking, not only in Romania, but in all former socialist
let, because there was trouble with the functioning of the septic Balkan states, is the extremely autarchic nature of all interven-
tank. Just like the house owners, the companies patiently await tions, their departure from all planning and infrastructure proj-
for the administration to build the necessary networks. ects, and also (or most of all) the suppression of development
stages and the complete and absurd discrepancy between the
Given the narrow streets in the area and the over-crowded park- maximal investment in the individual dreams and the almost null
ing lots, the representatives of neighbouring companies tried to investment in everything related to the community or at least to
establish a timetable of arrivals and departures, changing their a pragmatic coordination. The passionate taking over of western
schedules in order to relieve some of the monstrous traffic jams models comes in contradiction of principles with their deeply
at the entrance. One company, a bit further away, ensured for non-western and, eventually, non-urban implementation.
employees not driving to work a service of hired buses that run
between the headquarters and the closest metro station, each Ultimately, the present tendencies only take over on a larger
morning and evening. scale and with other functions the logics of post-totalitarian oc-
cupation of the periphery. The Romanian suburb started with
I believe one cannot discuss today about the post-socialist sub- the first people who managed to accomplish their dream of
ON THE CATASTROPHES, POTENTIAL, AND RECENT DEVELOPMENT OF ROMANIAN PERIPHERIES > ȘTEFAN GHENCIULESCU > 2/4
23
owning an individual house and returning to nature after years glomeration of villas during the first fifteen years of wild capitalism,
and years of living in socialist blocks of flats. Villas were built leading to segregation and collisions, the destruction of natural envi-
on gradually bought village lots and former agricultural fields. ronment, pollution and severe traffic problems, non-existing urban
Along the growing appetite for new homes, people built more and architectural coherence and, an extremely troubling aspect, the
and more, increasingly chaotically and crowded. Eventually, as absence of public space.
a natural consequence, the prices reached such high levels that
the construction of individual houses simply could not make the At the same time, though, the wild liberalism brought a type of de-
land profitable, thus the logical step towards erecting apartment velopment that does not exist in western-type suburbia: firstly, a mix
buildings was taken. Ironically, the first inhabitants of the subur- and sometimes overlapping of functions and, secondly, an increas-
bia ended up in the blocks of flats they wanted to run away from, ing density. Either way we look at it, these are typical elements for
not as a form of politically imposed habitation, but as a prod- the city and not the periphery. Maybe the explosion of the scale
uct of the market. Of course, nobody planned buildings with and the sudden creation of new functions during the last years in-
adjacent functions such as shops, schools, kindergartens and dicate not only a galloping deterioration of a territory, but also the
churches, therefore, these started to be built strictly as a result tendency to city production, aberrantly yet authentically. Indeed, it
of peoples’ demands. The raising of land prices and the acquisi- is a city lacking in urban character, a city that does not deserve to be
tion of most of the plots inside the city (which, in any case, were thus called. Instead of accepting passively what is happening or, on
even more expensive), were the main reasons for the erection the contrary, trying to control it (which has proven to be impossible),
of isolated buildings and office complexes. The primary financial why don’t we try to see the potential of the situation, to guide the
efficiency, probably doubled by the prestige of the spot (eventu- process and introduce a minimal (thus more efficient) order in the
ally, a luxurious area of the city) surpassed all other consider- way people are building?
ations; obviously, the promoters or owners of those areas were well Given such a perspective and knowing that the combination of
aware of the accessibility and actual functionality problems. One financial speculation with the authorities’ weakness and corrup-
can only presume that, just like the inhabitants, all the people count tion makes any limitation of density and height level impossible,
on the fact that, in the end, the local and central administration will maybe we should allow investors to build, to fill in gaps, to bring
solve the infrastructure problems and, therefore, the constant wait- in people and activities. Obviously, rules should be set; leaving
ing and the troubles are but a small price to pay in comparison to the everything to the market, as was the case until now, would be
expected increase of value. completely irresponsible. However, I think that, especially in
contexts such as the Romanian one, regulations that are both
What is the result so far? I mentioned before the almost identical restrictive and permissive might work better. We could identify
logics of development of the new and large investments and the ag- some intangible areas, an urban reserve containing the still sur-
viving parts of nature or just empty lands still in public property.

Such areas might host, when the authorities will allow it, the
public equipments on local or metropolitan scale. This might
guarantee a minimum sustainment, not only from an ecological
perspective, but also from a social point of view. Besides such
reserves, one might encourage an increase in building density,
making the investors happy, yet imposing on them some simple
rules that will allow the creation of an urban character: continu-
ous street fronts instead of blocks and office buildings in the
middle of ridiculous courtyards, and ground floors with public
functions, opened to the street.
Nobody can control the periphery, at least not through ample

24
urban projects and gestures; but, maybe, we could get used to
thinking in terms of ‘positive shifting’ of unstoppable develop-
ments, a pragmatic reconciliation of individual dreams and pub-
lic interest.
25
Romania
pămant îngrădit
(Romania, fenced land)26

27
The land is flat, you can practically have easy acces and direct transport.
There was once a rumor they will introduce some sort of a rapid line.
So theoretically it wasn’t a bad choice. But then again the lands were
in fact agricultural ones, with their specific parcelling, and the people
didn’t get along and few of them connected the parcels, cause you
know the people here, they’re holding tight every millimeter... And then
this situation was generated. Plus the wish of having...800% profit.”
Marian, 58, civil engineer, Becaș
You have a very nice view from inside, but from the outside ... pieces of
wood and who knows what else … a construction site.
Adriana, 25, architect, Floreşti

1/9
FABRICATING THE SUPERBIA. WHERE DOES THE CHAOTIC URBANIZATION COME FROM?
------
TEXT: NORBERT PETROVICI
“One of the disadvantages is that the houses are much too close “Thanks to the crisis, I say that we are saved”. The owners of the
to each other. [...] It’s like an apartment block laid on it’s side [...] new suburban villas feel relieved because the 2009 economic cri-
disadvantages – the infrastructure is terrible, the roads are cata- ses devaluated the land values in their neighbourhoods. That is
strophic and Floreşti Town Hall is a mess, to get rid of the problem, somehow unusual; the devaluation of one’s property in general
they transferred all roads in the administration of the County Council is a matter of anxiety. The whole process of urbanisation and
two years ago. Those people don’t do anything because they are a suburbanisation was privatised by the state, and the booming
governmental agency that never does anything. And, of course, in markets took advantage and built on every square meter avail-
the meantime the road deteriorates. When we moved here, it be- able without providing adequate amenities and thus producing
longed to the village and the mayor went «we will take care of it»... very dense areas. Even the new villas erected by private devel-
it was also time for elections. We went by his word because we had opers look like ‘horizontal block of flats’, in stark contrast with
no choice. The condition of the road after all was 1% of the decision the post socialist middle class dream of the single-house family,
to move here, for the same money you get a house (and a flat in the where kids can run in the playground.
city). [...] Now we are facing the problem to find a kindergarten. We
work in Cluj, so we’d need it in Cluj. [...] Between the houses there’s The crisis called a halt on almost all building sites or building
no playground for the kids. During the day the driveway is almost plans, leaving many empty plots in the chaotic spaces of the
empty, 2-3 cars. In the evening after five-six and in weekends it fills new post socialist neighbourhoods. The crisis somehow installed
up. The playground is a real flaw; it’s in the driveway. Here, behind a temporary feeling of normality. The market was tempered by
the [semi-detached] houses is a training ground for the army, a large the market itself, because apparently the state was not capable
flat land. You can do whatever you want there, nobody bothers you, of doing that. “Somehow, it’s very Romanian to think that we do
it’s just that the playground is not next to you. Somehow, it’s very Ro- not have a playground in our backyard, because abroad not ev-
manian to think that we do not have a playground in our backyard, ery building comes with a playground. If you need a playground,
because abroad not every building comes with a playground. If you you have a small park made by the City Hall [for everyone].” It
need a playground, you have a small park made by the City Hall [for is a gesture of normality to be provided by the City Hall with
everyone]. If there were a public playground [...], it would mean that the adequate public spaces; however, it is unfair if the same City
the City Hall bought those plots, but, when they don’t even care for Hall hinders the real estate market through various urbanisation
the roads, what else do you expect? They ditched the roads so they requirements simply dismissed as read tape. I intend to explore
don’t have to worry about repairing them.” here the contradictory relations entertained by the middle class
[Testimony of the owner of an apartment in a row of five duplexes in in the city of Cluj with the public administration and the local
a suburban area near Cluj; from his yard, while gazing at the newly state.
emerging neighbourhood]
FABRICATING THE SUPERBIA. WHERE DOES THE CHAOTIC URBANIZATION COME FROM? > NORBERT PETROVICI > 2/9
28
On the one hand, the middle class opted out of any individual so- extent, destatised the practices of urban government and plan-
lutions and of any public provision of housing, through pressures ning. The substantive authority of expertise in regulating urban
for the privatisation of the urbanisation process. On the other development was disconnected from the apparatus of political
hand, the same middle class, once confronted with the spatial rule and most of the responsibilities of managing real estate
effects of privatisation, has envisioned the local state as an im- properties were transferred to the owners. Property was rei-
paired, public, good provisioner. I discuss shortly the socialist fied, was transformed in a simple object; ownership was no lon-
roots of the post socialist privatisation and the way it preceded ger a social relation between social actors regarding an object;
in the first and second post socialist decades. a relation based on the mutual recognition of the condition of
handling real estate possessions. The emergent hope was that,
The Socialist Roots as soon as the properties had been given back to their rightful
The socialist administration was the proprietor of most of the owners, they would be taken care of, meaning that properties
urban land stock. When a specific terrain was manipulated by a would be governed or, more precisely, they would self-govern.
state agency, it was from the perspective of the owner, not from Through reification, property rights were schematised, leaving
the perspective of an urban manager. Urban space was not imag- aside any possible social relations, thus rendering the object of
ined as a space to be regulated or controlled, but as a discretion- possession manoeuvrable only by the ‘owner’. The political ap-
ary playground for systematisation and development. This spe- paratuses were excluded from the ownership relations, reducing
cific political rationality became even stronger after 1970, when the range of legitimate urban management interventions, even if
Ceauşescu’s industrialisation project of Cluj started. The urban some owners would abuse their rights. The sum of private own-
real estate market was heavily restricted and there were barely ers came to be imagined as the market, the perfect device ame-
any land transactions or private building projects. Moreover, in nable to regulatory functions.
order to make way for the socialist block of flats neighbourhoods,
important parts of the previous urban stock of houses were This idealised schema of the self-governing property was easily
pulled down. The restrictions on the real estates markets, the amenable to political action through the idea of market. So as
misused and the discretionary way of managing property during not to impair the ‘property rights’ of the owners, the local admin-
socialism delegitimised subsequent regulation of property in the istration negotiated the official urban regulations on a case-by-
post socialist era. case basis. What came to be actually enacted was not a real mar-
ket, but rather an emergent informal network that was lashing
The 90s Villas up together political and administrative forces with private own-
At the beginning of the 90s, these socialist rules for the order- ers of land and real estate proprieties. Building became possible
ing of the city triggered a series of reactions, which, to some even on pieces of land lacking the adequate amenities (roads and
1
A frustrated local politician public utilities). The local administration had the legal responsibility
argues: “Yes, yes, yes, this is the
to prepare the territory for urbanisation, but it did not have enough
situation. They win also in court.
We have a lot of litigations and financial resources to make the necessary infrastructural preparation,
we lose. Those who started to therefore, the owners were entitled to provide for themselves all the
build an illegal construction ob- necessary facilities.
tain through lawsuits a kind of
legalisation. I don’t know any
more [what to do]… it’s the soci- However, most of the building plots were irregular, being
ety who has to decide, because former agricultural fields, and their limits were most of the
both the authorities and the
times unclear. Therefore, it became very difficult to state
justice, and even the civil soci-
ety, and… the environment, the some urban-planning regulations; even to sketch the street
health authorities… and what- structure or fix the building height standard were very dif-
ever… do we rather want to live ficult tasks. Thus, the strategy was to wait for the first build-
in a healthy environment, or we
just allow everybody to erect ings and use them as guides for the subsequent regulations.
illegal constructions wherever In fact, every new construction had to provide first a zoning
they want to?…” (56, M, elected plan, which had to be approved by the local government. This
politician occupying an adminis-
opened the door to a case-to-case negotiation of the building
trative position in The City Hall)
parameters (height, percentage of the land used for building
2
In addition, when a big plot etc.) between the administration and the owner, and between
was split up to be sold, the the owner and his/her neighbours. However, even if these ne-
owner made pressure on the
notary to use any legal means gotiations were important, still, they were less consequential
to maximise the marketable for there had been no precedent in tearing down an illegal
surface. The notary, without building 1.
having any guiding urban plan,
usually, was giving up to such
request. The buyers of the The legal system was working according to the paradigm of self-
smaller plots were reluctant to governing property, and, in the end, always favoured the ‘own-
give away expensive land after- er’2. In addition, when a big plot was divided in order to be sold,
wards, in order to facilitate the
construction of proper roads. the owners would pressure the notary to use any legal means to
The effect is a bent and narrow maximise the marketable surface, by ignoring the actual require-
street structure or sometimes ments, especially because such kind of situations were loosely de-
no streets at all. 29 fined by the existing urban regulations. Since, after the purchase,
the buyers of the divided plots were reluctant to give away expen- 3
“Here, if a brick is put
atop of another it cannot
sive land so as to facilitate the construction of proper roads, the be demolished. But when
result was a bent and narrow street structure and, sometimes, you look and see the
even the complete lack of access streets. All these unwanted ef- chaotic layout, no align-
fects proved very frustrating and created tensed relationships be- ment, no... urban plan-
ning, no structuring...
tween neighbours3. So, virtually, your living
there will be in discom-
In the 90s, there was a great deal of pressure towards deregulation fort. One buys a piece of
land, but the plots are
and real estate market creation. Yet, what came to be actually enact- so mazy and mixed up
ed was not a market for single-family houses, but an unstable system as pastures before them
of case-by-case negotiations. On the one hand, the self-governing were... and then every-
property rights of the families investing in villas was restrained only one: I’ll do something
in that corner, another
by the oversized and constraining post socialist bureaucracy. The one does it here, some-
state appeared as the limiting bureaucracy that had to be bypassed one else disturbs some
through informal arrangements with the state agents themselves. neighbour over there...
roads cannot possibly be
For the urban planners, the incoherency reigning within the market drawn...” (56, M , politi-
forces was pointing out to the weakness of the unable politicians, cian and resident in a
whose responsibility was that of issuing adequate legislation, where- villa neighbourhood).
as, for them, the most important task of the centralised power was
to retreat by any means from the economy. ‘The market’, just like
anything else coming out of the process of curtailing all that is ‘politi-
cal’, is made up of all the forces embodied by the private owners. The
outcome of this configuration was a privatised and chaotic process of
urbanisation, which led to a specific post socialist landscape: the new
misshapen, yet prestigious villas neighbourhoods.
The 2000s Villas

The second post socialist decade meant for the city of Cluj, as for
most of other major Romanian cities, an economic expansion cycle.
While the pace of urbanisation until that date was rather slow and it 30
4
The shifting perspective entailed only the construction of houses, after 2002, the rhythm favoured, because they had enough resources to furnish the
is excellently captured by
grew steadily and more and more blocks of flats were built in- new developments with the adequate public amenities. Inves-
an architect at the begin-
ning of 2002: “Normally, stead of villas. The local administration was overwhelmed by the tors could also get an exemption from the zoning rules, if their
the licences should be is- new situation and a new political rationality was needed to tack- were willing to invest in the necessary urban infrastructure4.
sued like this: whether the le the rapidly changing situation. A new schema able to handle Even if this was just a small change to the privatised urbanisa-
building is located in our
out of town, they should reality took shape by perfecting the privatised urbanisation tech- tion scheme, in fact, the effects brought paradigmatic changes.
require the owner to build nique. Yet, the scale of the transformations asked for a change Until then, the rules for regulating an area were being produced
the sewerage as well. Or in the privatisation of the urbanisation: big investments were during the building process of a certain zone, rules were derived
a stretch of road... Why
should they issue a licence
knowing that you propose
to alter the local regula-
tion of the area, maybe
also the allowed uses, or
even build higher and so
on? But then at least, they
should oblige you to pay
for part of the infrastruc-
ture. In my opinion, this
is how the council should
have done.” (M, 56, archi-
tect)
31
from the first few cases and then applied to all the subsequent 5
An official from the
City Hall observes: “The
cases. The planners were still trying to impose a consistent geom- major good thing [with
etry to the new neighbourhoods, even if it was not always success- derogations from the
ful and most of the time rather impaired by the self-regulating ide- rules] is that lots and lots
ology. Now rules were becoming negotiable if the developers were of apartments were built,
the downside is that they
auctioning for bigger investments in urban amenities. It became disturb the neighbours.
clear that the owners of small lots were interested in introverted At this point, I don’t re-
private spaces, while the market driven developers were putatively ally know what’s best.”
(M, 50, building engineer
more interested in high quality urban amenities. at the City Hall)
Therefore, it became easier for the politicians and public admin- 6

And she continues: “[…]
istration to negotiate the production of public spaces with the big the flats are built very
close to the nearby hous-
developers: roads, public utilities, green areas, kindergartens and es. That is not ok. Just an
spaces for convenience stores. Even if the planners and architects example, our neighbour
32
employed in the public administration had to give up to some reg- built for himself a very
nice house, with great ef-
ulations, making more flexible the conditions for giving permits, it forts. He suddenly found
was still a win-win situation: the politicians could pose as agents himself with a six storey
of change and development, the planners got some public spaces block of flats in front of
and the big capital investments could be carried out according to the house and with half
of his alley collapsed in
their planned terms (for execution, return etc). The losers in this his foundation. Once
new power alliance were the smaller investors, the villa builders, the blocks have been
the middle class dreamers, those who were searching for the per- erected, he’s going to
find himself with a lot of
fect spot for a single-family house, where kids could grow in open
people staring directly in
and fresh air, far from the urban bustle. The quiet single-family his house.” An important
houses were constantly threatened by the risky eventuality of end- detail is that she and her
ing up with having as neighbour a six storey block of flats with tens family are living in a block
of flats, which initially
of eyes staring at their blue water pool5. The reaction of those who was causing the same
where living in the new areas was very bitter: “There’s no tangible problems to her future
urban planning, they are building chaotically, no respect for the neighbours.
neighbours already there”. (F, 23 years, economist, mother of one)6 33
7
“The town hall plan
was not complied with,
the builders dug right un-
der our fence, our fence
is running loose, the
electricity pole is loose,
as well. We sent a litiga-
tion to the town hall, one
complaint after another,
yet nothing was solved.
After we sue them, we
hope to have something
solved. At least, they
should comply with the
plan, not exceed the sur-
face they were approved
to build on, obey the
working timetable and
the silent hours during
the day and they should
not destroy our founda-
tion, our new founda-
tion. I don’t know, but if
they continue building
like this, we think of mov- 34
32
ing to someplace else,
someplace where no
further building would Collective action against big developers was hindered by the con- The inadequate urban planning provisioning and the power al-
be possible.” (F, 23 years, flicting interests of the inhabitants of the villa neighbourhoods. liance between big investors and politicians were translated by
economist, mother of
one)
On the one hand, the landowners are interested in increasing the frustrated middle class into a complex discourse about the
the exchange value of the land on the market; therefore, they immoral economic game played both by the developers and by
were supporting lax zoning regulation and were pro-blocks of the local state7. The market was imagined as a space dominated
flats. On the other hand, those already leaving in a villa or a flat by private interests and unethical behaviour and misconduct,
were interested in maximising the use value of the land, there- while the City Hall was held responsible for the chaos repre-
fore, they were pleading for strict zoning regulation that may sented by the unordered geometry of the space and the unfair
impede further big developments. spatial relations. That is because the ‘state’ should intervene to
moderate any misconduct, and, when this does not happen, the state clients of the public administration and as experts of the local profes- 8
A public servant working at
the urban planning depart-
is suspected to be corrupt and unable: “The circumstance which al- sional state –, the middle class was very consequential in shaping the ment of the town hall recalls:
lows the noncompliance to the plan is corruption. Bureaucracy makes urbanisation processes in the first post socialist decade. As a conse- Public Servant: In this case,
things move very slowly”. (F, 30, economist). Moreover, both institu- quence, much of the urbanisation was privatised. The market came the inspector, my workmate
tions, ‘the market’ and ‘the City Hall’ are permeated with interests to be imagined as the real salvation and the answer to all social prob- here, goes on the site and as-
certains whether the building
because at this level the actors know each other and form a local lems after the demise of the socialist regime, and was transformed in licence was compliant to the
network. As the people from these new neighbourhoods see it, the the foremost mean to attain the suburban single-family house, built licence it had received. And if
muddy waters of the local interests can be avoided only at the ‘higher’ by the enterprising new middle stratum subject. The effects were: he finds out it didn’t comply,
he will not release a fine...
state levels: “Interests of both sides. Of the town hall as well as of the urban sprawl, ill equipped areas with public amenities and practical
Me: He’ll make a notice...
builder. It would be necessary to have a superior intervention here, be- no public areas and services. However, the very mean to attain the PS: He won’t make any
cause locally a lot of hidden games can be played, town hall included middle stratum housing fantasy was the Trojan horse, through which notice. The errant comes
and all, because everyone knows everyone here”. (M, 21 years, stu- the entrepreneurial-capital colonised the middle stratum neighbour- with a project to modify the
building licence, but only in
dent, resident in a new development). Moreover, the existence of ‘the hoods in the second decade. The new projects and blocks of flats of the end. What is there to be
state’ becomes problematic, not only in the eyes of the inhabitants of the second post socialist decade were erected wall-in-wall with the done, demolish his house?
the neighbourhoods, but also in the eyes of those who are supposed post socialist villas. The public planner’s hope was that, this way, No one dares anymore if
the errant comes with an
to embody it. The ‘examination commission’ is a special administra- some public spaces could be produced, even with the cost of sacrific-
amendment to the project
tive department meant to check out if the buildings are constructed ing some regulations (building heights, densities, distances between and sets it legal, this is what
in conformity with the approved plans. Yet, in practice, the building constructions, mixing of villas with blocks). Yet, this solution only I’m saying, ...
inspector has merely a formal role, because the authority that she or deepened the lack of genuine public spaces and services; most of the Me: And why doesn’t it never
get demolished?
he is supposed to enact disappears when faced with the materiality of developers actually sold ‘the public spaces’ to their clients. The eco- PS: Because when private
the building. Once a building is erected, it becomes ‘private property’ nomic crisis came as a blessing for the new middle stratum inhabiting property is in matter, you
and it cannot be demolished any more. This is why, generally, the in- the single-family houses, because it stopped what they perceived as a need trials...
Me: And you get in court...
spector instructs the developer to submit for authorization a second the ‘real estate massacre’ of these neighbourhoods. Once again, the
PS: Of course.
round of plans that incorporates all the changes to the initial plan8. sum of small private owners could resume their introverted lives in Me: And in court, as usual, it
areas with no public spaces, far from the intrusive entrepreneurs that won’t be approved. Is there a
Conclusions were upsetting the equilibrium and the energies of these quiet places reason for this? Why?
PS: Yes... why tear down the
“Superbia” is a complex product of the middle class dream for a pri- with their greed and bulldozes. This is the positive side of the crisis, as poor man’s house? Because
vate home far from the putative urban post socialist ills. The weak perceived by the middle stratum in want of privatised spaces based of the 40 cm he exceeded by?
state was colonised by the ‘self-governing property’ imaginary and on their restrictive image of what beautiful family life in a suburban (M, 53, engineer in public ad-
ministration)
suburban desires of the middle stratum. With their double status – as area means.
33
35
34
36
Kinga: The Floreşti suburb didn’t exist then. When we bought the house, all the Eroilor area was an agricultural field. It was
known that apartment blocks would be constructed there, but none of them existed. The site where our house is constructed
is privileged, because it is hard to build on 50 meters in front and behind.
After a year, together with our neighbour, we built a wooden terrace, with roofs on each part of the fence. We negotiated
a good price with a timber structure contractor and he built a sort of pavilion. We didn’t choose the area because of the
neighbours.
We go out together about once a month. The mothers, we find ourselves talking on the street, standing because there are
no sidewalks or benches.
Superbia: By ‘private street’ you mean that the developer invested in it.
K: Yes. We don’t have a public lighting system, nor telephone lines, but the street is very spacious. I have raised the first child
from the age of one year and 8 months and the other one since his birth. You can let your children play in the courtyard or
sleep outside.
The public lighting and the asphalt are missing and I don’t think the problem is going to be solved. What’s quite disturbing
is that right near us, a 6 storey building is being constructed. We were glad that the financial crisis stopped the construction,
but after stopping the work for one year and a half, they started again. They only finished one staircase out of five.
Kinga, 34, cultural manager, Floreşti

1/9
THE POST SOCIALIST NEIGHBOURHOOD: FLORESTI (CLUJ NAPOCA)1

------
TEXT: GABRIEL TROC
Context somehow significant, due to a dramatic decrease in the real es- 1

The article is an ab-
stract of field research
The unspoken promise of the regime, which took hold in Ro- tate and building sector during the 1990s – was amplified by the performed in June 2010
mania in 1990, was that the recently acquired freedom will en- desire for many people to get out of the communist block of flats together with students of
sure the context for the rising of a society similar to those in neighbourhoods perceived as ‘grey’ oppressive, unaesthetic and the anthropology and soci-
the ‘West’, where wellbeing seemed widely distributed and hard lacking in comfort. As a consequence of this demand and due ology departments of the
Babeş-Bolyai University.
work seemed to be rewarded accordingly. The middleclass ideal, to the opportunities triggered by the relative democratisation
in particular, became the norm and the ideal to follow in Roma- of real estate loans (another ‘sudden’ element, if one thinks of
nia, with all its presumed characteristics and benefits – promo- the simple fact that in the beginning of the second decade, one
tion through education and merit, an abundance of opportuni- could not even buy a vacuum cleaner in several installments),
ties on an always open labour market, consumption of goods the construction of family houses and apartments rapidly revi-
beyond the basic needs, accessibility of consumerist lifestyles talised. Relatively soon, new habitations were erected in all the
etc. After an entire decade when these expectations were not large cities in Romania. Various ‘real estate developers’ (a novel
met, with the start of the new millennium and increasingly after term as well, which became part of the new entrepreneurial
2005, the economic growth made one believe – at least in the wooden language) exploited in a short period all the available
large cities and for some layers of the population – that their land, from plots in the central areas to those inside socialist
hopes had been founded. From 2005 until the start of the eco- neighbourhoods, the areas around cities and the agricultural
nomic crisis in 2008, a number of real opportunities – due to the land pertaining to neighbouring villages. If the buildings erected
influx of foreign capital, the creation of a good business envi- in the old perimeter of cities (before 1990) led to an agglomera-
ronment and of a market which required qualified labour force tion and high density of buildings, continuing in fact a practice
–, doubled by an optimism accelerated by the recent admission used by the communists in the 80s, the constructions in the lim-
of the country to EU, led to the impression that, in Romania, inal areas of large settlements reveal the introduction of certain
individuals too could rationally plan their lives on the long run. types of habitation arrangements that can be considered typical
Thus, young professionals in particular could set themselves on of ‘post socialism’.
the predictable and conformist ideal of the middle class, which
consisted of establishing a family, buying a home and a car, hav- The new real estate structures, either in the continuation of pe-
ing children, reaching a status of consumption etc. ripheral neighbourhoods or new urban structures farther away
from the city, represent landmarks for the transformations un-
The possibility of buying a new home, in particular, became a dergone by Romanian society today – economically, legislatively,
sign of the opportunities triggered by the new era and, at the socially and culturally. The analysis of these structures can reveal
same time, a symbol of social accomplishment. The demand – the limits of the ways in which one can imagine living under the
THE POST SOCIALIST NEIGHBOURHOOD: FLORESTI (CLUJ NAPOCA) > GABRIEL TROC > 2/9
37
35
conditions of private property of lands, the absence of strict reg- ban neighbourhoods was done under the conditions of state
ulations, in the context of people pursuing the quickest possible property and centralised planning. It is well known that from
profit and so on. At the same time, such an analysis can account the origins of progressive town planning, providing habitation
for the phenomenon of social stratification, the emergence of for large masses of people relied on blocks of flats understood
new ideals, new tastes and new forms of self expression, but as ‘machines for living’ (Le Corbusier) and that the new urban
also the emergence of new disappointments and disillusion- setting could only be efficient as a result of centralised plan-
ments which were, until recently, impossible. ning. The communists had at their disposal the necessary con-
Among the big cities, after Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca knew the ditions for such a living arrangement; moreover, in Cluj-Napoca
most intense activity in the field of constructions and real estate they also had, at least for a certain period, the will to make it
market. The city developed in all directions: towards the south, happen, as proven by the initial plans of neighbourhoods such
through the Bună Ziua neighbourhood and in the continuation as Grigorescu and Gheorgieni. We also know what followed:
of Andrei Mureşanu, Zorilor and Mănăştur neighbourhoods, to- the initial plans were abandoned or modified and the erected
wards the north-west, in the former Baciu village, towards the neighbourhoods were the result of restrictions typical for the
east, in Someşeni and further on towards Apahida and, finally, on socialist economy of the 80s.
a larger scale towards the south-west, in the village of Floreşti.
Compared to this enterprise, the neighbourhoods built after
Among these, only Bună Ziu-a and Floreşti can be considered 2000 lacked both a building-type pattern (the ‘block of flats’
new, self-standing structures, unaffected by previous town plan- increasingly became a hybrid, at the intersection of a modern-
ning restrictions and thus of interest for the analysis of ‘post so- ist block and an obscure-origin villa) and a strict general town
cialist residential town planning’. planning. The result, of which Floreşti is a good example, is a
chaotic form of residence, only structured in the context of pri-
One cannot understand this form of organisation of habitation vate property over the land, pursuit of fast profit, introduction
without relating it to the social need it fulfils, i.e. the need to on the market of architectural forms that meet the uneducated
ensure residential conditions for large masses. In other words, taste in the field and schizophrenic relationships between the
one needs to define it through its typical characteristic, that of local administration and private real estate ‘developers’.
being a need proper to the ‘population’. As a solution formu- The inhabitants of these neighbourhoods, largely representa-
lated in the context of a country that had recently passed from tives of the local ‘middle class’, who counted on these new resi-
a socialist regime to a capitalist one, it becomes evident that dential neighbourhoods, be that Pipera in Bucharest or Floreşti in
the analysis must compare it to the corresponding socialist op- Cluj-Napoca, find themselves nowadays literally prisoners there.
tion. The contrast is obvious: before 1989 the building of ur- These inhabitants, with their incomes diminished by the eco-
nomic crisis, unable to benefit from the mobility of a job market modern neighbourhood set out to open up space, to suppress
which no longer presents opportunities, indebted to banks for the narrow streets, and to include attention for hygiene (“water,
decades to come and already facing parental responsibilities, are air, sun”). It intended to isolate residential units among green
forced to live on the outskirts of cities, in improper urban areas areas, encouraged simple outer forms, without ornamental or
which pose bigger problems than the socialist neighbourhoods colour peculiarities, and interiors so conceived as to satisfy the
and have less and less chances that such problems will be solved residential needs of the average individual. The modern neigh-
in the predictable future. bourhood, in the original intentions of its architects, was meant
to become a park and, through the opening up of space, it was
Town Planning intended to narrow down the distance between the ancient vil-
Born from the fever of a massive and apparently diversified de- lage and the ancient city.
mand, Floreşti is a land marked by town planning experiments.
Some might wrongfully believe that these are vanguard experi- Unintentionally, and largely due to the rules of the rapid repro-
ments, based on reflections on the issue of optimal habitation, duction of capital, the post socialist neighbourhood renounced
but they are, more modestly and less visibly, the result of meet- all the above-mentioned principles. The result does not repre-
ing the offer of residential space with habitation needs only sent a new, better form of town planning – as a reflection of the
intuitively and superficially anticipated. On a restricted area, a long since theorized limits of the modern one – but it is a hetero-
meadow used until recently for agriculture, one may find the clite, hybrid form, the negative which appears when the above-
embodiment of a large part of the spectrum of possibilities an- mentioned general directions are only negated and not replaced
ticipated, on the one end, by Charles Fourier – the solution of by something else.
collective habitation in a building complex that fulfils elementary
functions – and, on the other end, by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon – Thus, one may find again, on a massive scale, the habitation unit
the individual home, with ‘garden, water, lawn and tranquillity’. of the block of flats, which is no longer subscribed to the simple
geometry of the parallelepiped, but it is ‘interbred’ with various
The above-mentioned references are not randomly chosen, forms of villas, of various dimensions and roof heights, housing
since compared to the modern neighbourhood – with every- increasingly smaller attic apartments and with cut-in-terraces or
thing that modernist town planning imposed after the first inserted terraces with transversal roofs. These complexes of hy-
world war (the principles of which led in Romania to the cre- brid blocks of flats, facing together tightly, aligned along a strip
ation of the new interwar Bucharest and, later on, to the erec- of land that residually becomes both courtyard and street, or ar-
tion of the omnipresent workers’ neighbourhoods) – the post ranged around a rectangular yard militarily enclosed, represent
socialist neighbourhood is a regression. It is well known that the a repertory for the creation of differences in the conditions of
using minimal resources: each ‘developer’ (with the complicity

of architects?) imagined another type of balcony rail, another
roof shape, various colour combinations, varied shapes and
types of windows, excessively narrow or wide terraces, with
diverse ornaments etc. Inner spaces are no longer built bear-
ing in mind the social category of the potential residents, nor
do they observe a rationally anticipated standard for the func-
tions an apartment is meant to fulfil. Consequently, the very
same building can house one- to four-rooms apartments, inner
spaces that have functional delimitations and those with such
compartments hardly have any functionalities (these are to be
completed later by each inhabitant according to his/her own
desire). The type of block also varies largely: from the simplistic
ones – with one- or two-rooms apartments, reminiscent of the
workers’ colonies of the Stalinist era, plus a roof and thermo-
pane windows, to the seemingly posh complexes – with ter-
raced apartments and so-called penthouses. Besides blocks of
flats, one encounters various individual houses, as well. They
may be: lined up, for a single family or duplex ones, with one
floor, an attic and the corresponding garden; scattered individ-
ual houses, isolated by strictly delimited gardens; and, finally, a
‘neighbourhood inside neighbourhood’, a ‘select’ area, strictly
delineated by impenetrable fences with entrances benefiting
from barriers and video surveillance systems, housing sumptu-
ous, often excessive villas (excessive in terms of size, colour,
surrounding vegetation and ornament), connected through
properly asphalted roads with sidewalks, zebra crossings and
miniature traffic signs. In a nutshell, these are artificial mini-
towns, clear expressions of the desire for social class isolation,
so manifest in the case of the post 1990 new rich. 36
38
This diversity reveals in fact the main purpose of the entire en- ism aimed to erase the difference between urban and rural, by
terprise called the neighbourhood of Floreşti: not inhabiting, but engulfing both in a new form of habitation, the post socialist
selling, not meeting the need of the population, regarding di- neighbourhood takes to paroxysm the poor development typical
rectly the local community as a political and administrative unit, of some Romanian villages. Large, unfunctional houses, lacking
but strictly exploiting a market characterised by an enormous all artistic value, are either lined along the main street, which
demand and a wide confusion regarding the taste and quality in time became a county or national road (with the traffic that
of its products. The result, not al all surprising considering the comes with this change of status), either crowded along dusty
route taken by Romanian commerce after 1990, from boutique, side roads whose transformation into modern streets keeps be-
to bazaar and mall, is a real estate bazaar with something for ing postponed.
everyone, something for each pocket: colorful products, gilded
ones, showy ones, products with hidden flaws that become obvi- Habitation
ous at the first use. The Law of Private Property rules over all of this, tracing deci-
sively the coordinates of habitation.
The natural surroundings, a given good in our case, was not only
used as a landscape resource but it was also seen as an obstacle Each strip of land bears the mark of property here, a fact that
and treated in a similar fashion as the extraction industry does. significantly limits access, movement, determining the circula-
Entire hills were excavated, segmented, terraced and covered tion flux of both individuals and vehicles. One finds this framing
in concrete in order to make room for complexes of blocks or on various levels: each ‘developer’ delimited through fences the
rows of individual houses that seem placed on top of abandoned complex he built, each piece of land around the blocks is a pre-
stone quarries. According to the logic of minimising costs, the cisely set parking and numerous inhabitants of the ground floors
residential units are crowded around the utility network, lead- surrounded the piece of land behind the block they bought to-
ing to a landscape in which concrete agglomerations alternate gether with the apartment. As a result, the only accessible areas
with ample empty spaces, former agricultural lands which be- that could be transformed into socialising areas, playgrounds for
came sordid waste grounds, where the flocks of the village of children or walking zones, are the car ways: either the narrow
Floreşti occasionally pasture among the debris. In the same way, ones between the blocks, or those along the roads that allow
the streams crossing the neighbourhood that could have been access to the neighbourhood. Departing, again, from the com-
used as landscape resources and a natural means of refreshing mandment of modern town planning that supports ‘opening up’,
the air, were treated in a rural manner, becoming just unwanted post socialist town planning condemns the residents of the new
bluffs, crossed by poorly made concrete bridges, full of domestic neighbourhoods to living enclosed (a twisted ‘gated communi-
wastes and nesting parasites. In fact, if architectural modern- ty’), where physical mobility is limited to a restricted number of
routes and where the narrow street, criticised by the moderns

in favour of gardens and squares, becomes once again the main
locus of the community.
It is a community unwanted, as a matter of fact, but created by

force of circumstances, from the need to face common chal-
lenges: after 1990, the general tendency was that of breaking
with the community, of isolating each individual in his or her
apartment, of becoming autonomous as a reaction to the old
restrictions of living in common. Such rupture was accomplished
by cutting off from the central heating system, by strictly divid-
ing the parking lots, by closing in balconies etc.). The new in-
habitants of Floreşti, most often coming from the old workers’
neighbourhoods, where anonymous living gradually became
a reality and local communities and vicinities dissolved, found 39
themselves, to their great surprise, in the same situation their coagulation, the re-emergence of urban vicinities, a personali-
parents had faced 30 or 40 years before, when they moved to sation of social relations, unanticipated and often unwanted in
neighbourhoods such as Mănăştur, Grigorescu and Mărăşti. They the beginning – a community where one can also express ac-
discover that they are part of the same social categories, being cumulated discontent. The community acquires an actual shape,
surrounded by people of the same age, with similar professions, it becomes an inclusive ‘us’, whereas the ‘other’, with opposing
incomes and lifestyles. The resemblance does not stop here; interests and attitudes, is the identified source of all the faced
just like their parents, they must solve the problem of childcare problems; either the ‘developer’, the real estate agencies that
while they are at work, they face recurrent power, water and cheated their expectations, the local administration of Floreşti
gas cuts, they must deal with the sudden appearance of a new that does not become involved in paving the streets, collecting
building in front of their sunny windows and put up with the an- the garbage etc, or the town hall of Cluj that no longer provides
noyance of permanent working sites. In addition, they also have public transportation, forcing the inhabitants to use the services
specific problems, such as: acquiring legal property documents, of a private company.
dysfunctions in the companies providing various services, issues
related to public transportation and, more recently and press- The gulf between expectations and reality is, no doubt, one of
ing, paying the instalments. All these elements force community the most typical traits of living in the post socialist neighbour-
hood. As mentioned before, most inhabitants had previously house) is accompanied by the absence of any real intimacy in-
lived in the old workers’ neighbourhoods in Cluj or other towns. side the block. Due to the poor materials used, the walls just
Naturally, both the reference point people had when they decid- as the floors, resonate at the slightest noise: one can constantly
ed to buy a home in Floreşti and the evaluation of their present hear the neighbours’ steps, their washing machines, the TV sets
homes are determined by comparison with socialist apartments. etc. Eventually, the discovery of the precarious nature of such
Most often the inhabitants decided to move here after a long buildings is an everyday experience, unanimously shared by
experience as tenants or after living together with their parents the new inhabitants: the installations do not work properly, the
– in most cases sharing life in small spaces, designed by others. fresh wall painting on the block starts to flake, the walls are not
The apartments in Floreşti seemed attractive, with prices below straight, the doors do not close properly and so on.
the Cluj average, with open areas and minimal inner partition-
ing. The generous interior space, with its luring promise of per- Confronted with such a situation, those, more than few, who
sonalised design, is constantly invoked, yet after living there, this cannot come to terms with their choice, have two main options.
quality is perceived as a flaw. The downfall of inner openness, The first one, typical for young professionals who are still con-
not immediately apparent at the time of the acquisition, is the fident that their future holds promises, is to stick to the belief
absence of storage and intermediate spaces in the apartment’s that their living in Floreşti is just temporary. They see their pres-
structure; there are no storage or transit rooms. When actually ent home as a mere step in their life plan, which will eventually
inhabiting these spaces, people discover that their apartments lead to an ideal habitation in an individual house with a garden.
only seem to be, on average, larger that the socialist ones. More- The second one, rather typical for workers whose economical
over, the absence of hallways, closets, pantries, division walls situation rapidly deteriorates, is to dream of returning to the so-
and doors between rooms with different functions, raises seri- cialist neighbourhood, which they revalue after having lived in
ous difficulties in organising daily life (and, of course, they are Floreşti and – who would have believed it just a few years ago?
inevitably reminded of the fact that socialist apartments were – perceive the former as ‘airy’, ‘green’, provided with ‘well made,
not that badly structured after all…) As a result, the ample ter- solid’ apartments and means of public transportation; in short,
races, the dream of every inhabitant of the socialist neighbour- they dream of ‘returning to the city’.
hood, become extensions of the interior space, housing storage
areas, closets and shelves. In extreme cases, again taking over
the model of crowded habitation, the terraces are entirely sup-
pressed and enclosed with thermopane windows. The limitation
of private areas inside the apartments, with poor sound insu-
lation (a turned on TV or radio may be heard throughout the
40
41
I can’t explain you how it used to be here before. What we have gone through...hmm....During one year it was a
nightmare. It was mud all around here. Going to the office, wearing suits and rubber boots, putting the boots in a
plastic bag and then putting on shoes.
Andrei, 37, economist, Baciu

1/8
PSEUDO-MODERNIZATION VS. WEAKENED MODERNIZATION

------
TEXT: COSMIN CACIUC
Debate on the new residential peripheries – a diffuse phenome- Habituses and generic patterns 1
Pierre Bourdieu, Raţiuni
practice – o teorie a
non, structured from an economical, social, town planning and ar- On one hand, we become accustomed to a new consumerist so-
acţiunii [Practical Reason:
chitectural perspective on multiple levels – can become extremely ciety, embracing it superficially, obeying the rules of its game with On the Theory of Action],
troubling through its implications that go beyond the image of the desires and identities. On the other hand, the persistent residues Ro. transl. Cristina and
built environment, touching upon that of collective identity on a of a closed society that longs after the values of a lost and idealised Costin Popescu, Bucha-
rest: Meridiane, 1999
regional level. I would like to start from four basic hypotheses: past puts a distance between us and the ideals of profound mod- [1994], 15. See especially
ernisation. Lifestyles and habituses are born somewhere between table on p. 14 entitled
1) The problems of habitation in Romanian society, caught in the these two coordinates, if one were to make reference to Pierre “The space of social po-
sitions and the space of
never-ending drifting of the economical transition period, are Bourdieu’s terminology: “The habitus is the generating and unify-
lifestyles”.
caused by the difficulties related to a profound modernisation and ing principle that re-translates the intrinsic and related character-
the perpetuation of pre-industrial patterns of cultural behavior. istics of a position into a unitary lifestyle that is a unitary complex
2) The condition of urban modernization has a generic character resulted from a selection of persons, goods and practices”1.
and is projected against a wider regional background: Serbia and
Bulgaria, for example, are confronted with similar problems of One can start from the hypothesis that a house is the expression
pseudo-modernisation, which goes on according to a ‘turbo town of a habitus, thus of a lifestyle with a series of coherently asso-
planning’, the diffuse extension of metropolitan peripheries, cha- ciated values. We can therefore better extrapolate the idea of
otic conformity, aesthetic collages and social segregation. habitation as a collection of lifestyles determined by two funda-
3) Cultural and social tensions can be mainly explained by the su- mental coordinates: economical capital and cultural capital. Let
perficial adaptation to the western-type consumerist society, fol- us then identify generic architectural types (by reference to the
lowing the trauma of the totalitarian communist regime, in the single-family house in the urban periphery) corresponding to cer-
absence, by a profound reconsideration of the fundamental con- tain lifestyles, and let us associate them with negative and positive
ditions that imply assuming modernity both on an aesthetic and marks (- and +), the latter involving mostly a future aspiration, a
ethical level. desire for improvement or a coherent potential development in a
4) Pseudo-modernisation is our lived, dysfunctional model, based cultural sense:
on laissez-faire, one’s indifference towards the context, simulating
western models, maximizing economical profit and cultural irre- • Boyar-residence-type villa, built relatively coherently, on the ba-
sponsibility. The weakened (or profound) modernisation is a de- sis of certain traditional motifs restricted to the facades. Its ben-
sirable model, based on the idea of cultural sustainability, ethical eficiaries, who may own over average cultural capital, against the
respect for the context and assumption of more critical theoretical background of a generous economical capital, seek refuge in an
practices. idealised, out of time image.
PSEUDO-MODERNIZATION VS. WEAKENED MODERNIZATION > COSMIN CACIUC > 2/8
42
(–) Detachment from contemporary reality; anachronism; indi-

vidualism; nostalgia for life in the countryside and for another
century; discomfort against cultural modernisation; free and
‘abstracted’ interpretation that puts out of scale the vernacular
image it uses as historical reference; placement indifferent to the
eclectic existing context of the periphery; disjunction between the
‘modern’ interior (adapted to contemporary functions) and the
‘traditional’ exterior.
(+) Traditionalist rigour; honesty in respecting typologies; appro-
priate size of a building’s volume; traditional materials and crafts;
a correct association of vernacular building styles with their origi-
nal context. The rehabilitation of an existing boyar-residence is
anyway preferable to an imagined and nostalgic reconstruction.
Helpful tools: works on the history of Romanian architecture, examples of Neo-Ro-
manian architecture (Ion Mincu, Petre Antonescu, Grigore Cerchez), studies of folk 43
architecture, Village Museum in Bucharest and “Astra” Museum in Sibiu.
• Declarative classical monumental villa, ‘crushing’ through sheer

mass (not style), built of expensive materials and suffocated by
the clichés of luxurious living. Its beneficiaries own significant eco-
nomical capital, but lack any cultural capital.
(–) Egocentricity; megalomania; cult of personality; lack of cul-
ture; dominating attitude and indifference towards the context.
The beneficiaries seek to express through their way of habitation,
with an aggressive soberness, the idea of their social and business
success, territorial domination, longing for an aristocratic tradi-
tion, which they lack from a historical and education perspective.
Modernity is reduced to the technology of simulating a ‘classical’
image, with out of tune and coherence themes and motifs accord-
ing to a stylistic code. 44
(+) British neoclassicism, used as a model, would have offered a • The neo-functionalist villa which combines modernist, post-
valid lesson on the tectonic quality of building, adaptation to the modernist and traditional themes (on various levels of coher-
context, sense of proportion, constructive honesty and the deep ence), expressing the inner organisation through the outer im-
knowledge of the classical orders and composition principles. Let- age, with almost the same aesthetic language. Its beneficiaries
ting aside their anachronism, anti-modern reactionary attitude and populism, the own large economic capital and average cultural capital.
representatives of the Anglo-American neoconservative movement (Leon and Rob
Krier, Robert A. M. Stern, Demetri Porphyrios, Alan Greenberg, etc.) could serve
(–) Modernity is assumed with hesitation and a certain fear, so
today as models. that pitched roofs covered in semi cylindrical tiles/metal tiles and
curtain walls/glass walls for the living room occupying two floors
• Ranch-type villa, result of repeated extensions, agglomera- coexist in tension, beside various details for windows, rails, stairs
tion of volumes, a disproportionate labyrinth-like composition, and terraces, imposed rather by constructive systems and con-
with visual barriers toward the street, random collages of styles, temporary technology than by an assumed aesthetical attitude.
themes and exotic motifs (even taken from several continents) (+) The practical design of the interior space imposes a sense
wanting to ‘appear’ respectable in the absence of a sense of hu- of proportions and balances the representation on the façade
mour that would well fit here (or of a postmodern cultural back- of the idea of comfort or social status, despite the ample vol-
ground). Its beneficiaries have taken a sudden leap up the social ume. This type of villa is better adapted to its context than any of
hierarchy and own, almost exclusively, economic capital. the other above-mentioned types; this is accomplished through
(–) Lack of cultural capital and refusal to integrate aesthetic and openings, transparencies, fragmentation of volumes and means
ethical models; implementation of personal phantasms through of connecting to the existing topography. Helpful tools: regional mod-
ernism (Alvar Aalto and Henriette Delavrancea-Gibory)
juxtaposition; identity crisis; the beneficiaries’ superficial educa-
tion and the architects’ professional confusion regarding stylistic
contexts. • Chalet-villa or “box with a roof”-type villa, occupying two
(+) If this pattern were coherently articulated with a postmod- floors; it also combines modernist and traditional themes but
ern playful attitude, with a sense of proportion and humor, the on a smaller scale, due to the restrictive compact typology. Its
cultivated eclecticism and the control of the architectural lan- beneficiaries own average economic capital and do not excel in
guage would resonate, delayed, it is true, with an international cultural capital.
tendency which started four decades ago and which was critical (–) Although it looks small, the chalet-villa has nothing to do with
at that time. Helpful tools: the principles and examples of figural postmodern- the scale and typology of vernacular chalets, which it ‘inflates’
ism (Charles W. Moore, Robert Venturi & Denise Scott Brown, Michael Graves) or and ‘embellishes’ with the help of modern techniques, without
abstract postmodernism (Ettore Sottsass, after the mid 90s) which take a reverence following the idea of development/ pavilion-type extension or
in front of the context.
the traditional building principles (structure and wooden clos-
ings). On the other hand, the beneficiaries’ desire to isolate them-

selves amidst nature has little to do with the real context where
such villas are located. The ‘box with a roof’-type villa is an ur-
banised and simplified version of the chalet-villa, often inspired by
the global outlook of the communist blocks of flats, only placing
the accent of functional pragmatism and adding a few ‘touches’
on the facades.
(+) The idea of ostentatious representation is replaced by that of
discretion and austerity. Its beneficiaries do not usually have the
same economic status as the owners of ranch or classical monu-
mental villas. If aesthetic moderation results from an ethical self-
limitation consciously imposed by the beneficiaries, although they
do have the funds for much larger villas, the aspect can be even 45
worthier of appreciation. Helpful tools: examples from contemporary Swiss
architecture.
• Late-modernist and minimalist villa, the most recent and rare

species of building in the context of the periphery, stands out
through its elaborated parallelepiped volumes, the terrace roof,
generous glass surfaces, inner spacing communicating horizon-
tally and vertically, and a relatively unitary aesthetical language.
Its beneficiaries own over average economical capital and superior
cultural capital.
(–) On one hand, the aesthetic explorations inside this category
can often lead to excesses in composition, redundancies, clichés,
inconsequence and rhetorical abuse on the level of their details
and their use of materials. On the other hand, its beneficiaries
associate minimalism with a new exclusivist lifestyle, with luxury
products intended for the elites. The minimalist villa is placed
above the pattern of the neo-functionalist villa due to its high level 46
of architectural shape elaboration, being preferred by high-level Collage-periphery and improvisation

professionals. The main problem with contemporary peripheries is related to
(+) Through reference to the precedents of the international the superficial assimilation of the idea of modernisation in Ro-
modernist tradition, which started in the first decades of the mania, against a background dominated by the pre-industrial
twentieth century, through aesthetic discretion and the atten- culture of the basic individual values. The stereotype of ‘classical
tion it sometimes pays to the context, the late-modernist pattern beauty’ (with its various stylistic sub-variants) is simulated in the
involves a maturing of architectural thought beyond the borders periphery house with images stylistically falsified (narrow wavy
of this profession, substantially reaching the issue of profound small balconies that are in fact of no use, pointy windows and fat
modernisation. Helpful tools: interwar modernist architects (Horia Creangă, rails…) in the absence of a classical or pre-industrial ‘world’. The
Marcel Iancu) and the recently awarded items in architecture annuals and bien- dream house may be located on an unpaved street, lacking sew-
nials.
erage and running water. The absence of infrastructure alone
cannot justify the problem of the superficial modernisation
• The pseudo-vernacular improvised villa, the widest spread
of the periphery, just as the idea of modernisation cannot be
type in the peripheries, typical home of the social strata with
simplistically reduced just to the implemented infrastructure or
either average or low economic and cultural capitals.
the number of mobile phones per inhabitant. People’s mental-
(–) Compositional gestures appear spontaneously, even irratio-
ity remains un-modernised, with or without septic tanks, deep-
nally, often entering the realm of kitsch, through the random
level water pits, optical fibre cables or asphalt on the urban side
juxtaposition of hybrid and redundant elements chosen on the
street. The location on an existing lot, the relation to neighbours,
basis of personal ’fixations’ or aesthetic idiosyncrasies. There is
the understanding of the structure and spirit of the place are
no proper professional control over such projects and building
still not among the basic criteria of suburban design (and this
decisions are taken on the basis of the uncritical influence ex-
regards both beneficiaries and those architects who are servile
erted by an existing situation, which adds to personal whim or
towards their clients). Pre-modern patterns are visible in the way
the advice/offer presented by those who sell building materials
habitation becomes ‘territorialised’ in an individualistic fashion,
and systems for the facades and covers.
totally departing the need for a community space.
(+) One can detect practical reasons in the free intervention of
the beneficiaries, the logic of the extensions and even a good
On this level, one must make clear the distinction between the
sense of proportion, in the absence of knowledge of professional
formal resources of pre-modernity (vernacular architecture,
aesthetical principles. Spontaneity, intuition, lack of prejudice on
which remains a valid source of essential principles, as long as
what is considered to be ‘beautiful’ can generate valid participa-
it is interpreted in a critical manner) and the myth of the village
tory practices. Useful tools: guides on participatory design (those written by
Christopher Alexander for example, but with critical remarks).
community, which Henri Sthal stripped of ideal traits in his stud-
ies2. The ‘citizen solidarity’, as opposed to the ‘extensive solidar- The new market for building materials and the magazines with 2
Viorica Nicolau, Istoria
socială a satului românesc
ity’ of the village community, is a western product, crystallised typical ground plans and examples of decoration and design play
[Social History of the Ro-
only a few centuries before the Industrial Revolution and pol- an essential role in modelling lifestyles, suburban image and ter- manian Village], Bucha-
ished through architecture and ‘intensive’ urban organisation3. ritorial identity. The paradox of representing pre-industrial ideals rest: Paideia, 2003.
In our case, industrialisation and dictatorship brutally overlapped through the most recent possible means and technologies may 3
“The peasant com-
a rural world, with space-related and cultural patterns bases on not be so much in focus today, since it has become a conditio munity is another myth
gregariousness. Public behaviour (from that of discourse to that sine qua non, just like gypsum wallboard, ‘thermopane’ win- of our pre-modernity,
of everyday life) is still manifest in a primitive fashion in Roma- dows, painted polyester and sandstone plates that suffocate the through which we resist
the urban culture and
nia, by comparison to the western model. Communism – in the elevations. Problems of identity and style feature symptomati-
solidarity born along the
sense of a civic interest that goes beyond each one’s back yard cally in the image of facades and fences – the true places to test modernity in the German
and in that of the reactionary or anti-modern neo-traditionalism individual representation. cities, in the city states, in
– is an urban value activated ‘contractually’ and by ‘inter-relat- Florence, Sienna, Padua
and Venice…” Dumitru
ing’, which we did not fully manage to understand. Hence, the Eventually, one must discuss the positive perspectives of resi- Borţun, declaration in
feudal mentality of aggressive cuts in existential space, of fortify- dential peripheries, which hold a remarkable potential for ex- an interview with Stelian
ing oneself with walls and of territorialism, at the level of indi- perimenting, mostly on an aesthetic level. I do not believe that Ţurlea entitled “We live
in a late Middle Ages”,
vidual habitation. Peripheral residential occupation is born out the easy replacement of kitsch with minimalist single-family
March 5, 2009, ZF –
of pastoral nostalgias and gregarious principles of organisation. houses worthy of awards during architecture annuals and bien- “Ziarul de Duminică”
The ideals of beautiful countryside life, of owning a large garden, nials alone can solve all the problems of the periphery, as terri- [The Sunday Newspa-
of extensively occupying the yard, are pursued with a lack of in- torial organism, and its cultural aspects, on the level of inter-re- per], http://www.zf.ro/
ziarul-de-duminica/in-
terest for infrastructure and, especially, with a lack of interest in lations. Balkan-type wild urbanisation or ’turbo-town-planning’ terviu-dumitru-bortun-
the structure and spirit of the place, things that do not depend imply spontaneous, unexpected hybridisation, stylistic mix and traim-intr-un-ev-mediu-
on technology or administration. The rural population that has improper implementation of constructive systems with unex- intarziat-021403/.
migrated to the cities during the last half of a century has bru- pected visual effects.
tally adapted to a consumerist society over just two decades. If
one takes into consideration the fact that most inhabitants of Ironically, what Christopher Alexander and Robert Venturi sup-
the cities are the first or second urban generation in their family ported from university pulpits in the early days of postmodern-
and that, in fact, half of Romania’s population is composed of ism (the collage-architecture designed by its beneficiaries fol-
inhabitants coming from the rural environment, one can better lowing general guides and “shelters decorated with symbols”,
understand the failure of urban acculturation, the nostalgia for respectively) are created spontaneously in the peripheries of the
countryside life and the rarefaction of the periphery. Balkans, but on a disarticulated and derisory level. The idea of
4
Ivan Kucina, “Învăţând city and architecture seen as collages, made from fragments put lage and ingenious, on the spot interventions. The new ‘handmade
din lecţia Balcanilor Oc-
together, would make sense here, since juxtaposition is the key working site’ would imply adapting to new situations through the
cidentali” [Learning the
Lesson of the Western principle of self-organisation, but it does not imply kitsch or feudal criticism of existing systems applied with no reason and genetical-
Balkans], Arhitectura #71: individualism. ly cloned. On the one hand, spontaneous aesthetic hybridisation
Feb. 2009, 58-63. characterises the entire Balkan world on a spectacular level and it
5
I find several examples The poor inhabitants’ vernacular shelters in the urban margins, on offers numerous examples4, while on the other hand, the western
extremely significant and the border between village and city, for whom academic discourse world tries to bring these regions closer to its ‘disciplined’ archi-
useful: Okö Haus in Berlin on ‘collage’ does not even exist, can display, on a closer look, valid tecture, using ever since the 70s and 80s participatory discourses
(Frei Otto, 1990), Straw
aesthetic principles and even a number of ecological traits that as an excuse5.
House in London (Sarah
Wigglesworth & Jeremy educated architects, authors of the luxurious villas in the periph-
Till, 2001) and the small ery, ignore with great ease. The lesson of suburban architecture is Habitation and responsibility
(but legendary) projects more significant when it comes from the poor areas of improvis- The incompleteness of the periphery must not be reduced only
signed by Rural Studio in
the US between 1994 and ing: a primary shelter can display remarkable tectonic qualities, in to the success of individual initiative, indecently inflated on the
2004. the absence of all theory, generated only by out of time common level of representation, or, on the contrary, to its failure, expressed
sense and the logic of materials that gravity requires. through the financial stop of megalomaniac palazzetto-type proj-
ects, fossilised in a brick and mortar state in the existing urban
Instead of refining the essential building principles, the benefi- texture. The periphery, through the phenomenon of spreading,
ciaries of the new wellbeing simulate mostly an image of success defines the postmodern urban condition. We can no longer make
through cloning, falsification and never tiring multiple encoding. appeal to economic excuses in order to avoid the problem, which
The over decorated architecture of retrograde and disarticulated in fact runs much deeper; this problem is cultural and, during the
significations in Romania has no connection with the “shelter dec- past twenty years, we have been unsuccessfully searching for our
orated with symbols”, described by Venturi, that involves subtle identity and that of the built environment. The confrontation of
irony and semiotic multiple encoding. It also has nothing to do urbanity, of civility, implies therefore a critical interpretation of
with Christopher Alexander’s preaching of a kind of vernacular the social conditions and the effective transformations in daily life.
common sense mysticism combined with neo-populism. Unfor- Assuming the ‘image of incompleteness’ traces, in fact, a larger
tunately, we remain trapped in the hilarious sequence of feudal backdrop of late modernity, a weakening of ‘strong’ cultural, social
retard (with images of castles and little towers), in which the do- and political determinations. This weakening implies, beyond aes-
mestic representation is based on a soap-opera-type of scenery. thetic liberties, an increased role played by ethics: responsibility
The lost of craftsmen’s building tradition and the tempting new for the context, the environment and the society; in short, the
materials can open the way for brave experiments based on brico- burden of an immense worry.
47
48
Location! Location! Location!
49
Adriana: When I moved here, if you can imagine, this whole area was a field.
Except those semi-detached houses and the cemetery, there was nothing else here.
Superbia: When did you move here?
A: In 2007. It was very beautiful. Open space, no noise, not a crowded place. It was just how I
wanted it. Me, the forest and a beautiful sight.
I moved here at the end of the summer. Right after that, they started to dig here, near the build-
ings, and they began with this one next to me. I even have pictures of a rainy morning with an
excavator making noise.
S: So you didn’t have a garden or anything in the back, just the house itself.
A: That’s right. Afterwards, all these semi-detached houses started appearing like fungus after
the rain. What can I say to them, that they don’t have a 3 meter distance to their own property
limit? Should I sue them? What can I say? There’s nothing to say here.
S: Does it give you joy to invite someone into a beautiful home like yours?
A: Yes, provided you close your eyes till you get here, and open them when you are inside.
Adriana, 25, architect, Floreşti

1/7
LIVING BEYOND THE CITY. THE EXTENT OF AN URBAN PHENOMENON

------
TEXT: VERA MARIN & ANDREEA MATACHE
“It is 2005 in Pipera, an area that seems to be close to Bucharest, parked on both sides and a pedestrian finds it hard to make his/
but far from the City. Our family has grown and our flat became her way between them. And the next neighbour seems very close,
insufficient. We hear of a new building complex starting to be con- but if we are not curious to see him, maybe he is not so curious to
structed and the low price of a home there seems tempting for a see us either.
time when owning a house there equals having a lot of money.
As we are interested in buying a home, we study the project and We are still fortunate to have the field in the back of our house, a
the real estate agents assure us that our building complex will be plot still not built upon due to the crisis. Here we take our dog for
different: unlike others, it will have a park, a kindergarten, a neigh- walks and sometimes socialise with our neighbours. Otherwise,
bourhood shop, a leisure community center; and the streets look houses and again houses. The image in the catalogue is still pres-
so nice in the catalogue they show us, the houses are surrounded ent in our mind and there alone. Still, we own a house in Pipera,
by vegetation and one can hardly see the next neighbour. We think and even one with a garden!
we’ve hit the jackpot and we must buy as soon as possible, since
who knows if we will be able to find something else. When we The period encompassing the years of transition from the social-
went on our first visit to the working site, the foundations were ist to the post-socialist city has stigmatized the configuration of
hardly finished, but the image of those streets was still so vivid in Bucharest through the lack of urban development policy and the
our minds. That was it; we decided to go for it. abundance of private real estate initiatives, differentiated urban
dynamics being a consequence of this change. New habitation
We go and sign the paperwork; they’ve convinced us! A few programs, of which ‘gated-community’ type closed residential
months later we are called to occupy our homes... there seem to complexes are part of, rapidly found the needed land in the areas
be a few changes? We can’t see the trees flanking the street, but around Bucharest, similar to most city suburbs in Eastern Europe.
it is certainly too early to think of such things, we should wait for These programs reflect a preference for villas, as a rejection of
them to grow, but we can’t see where! living in block of flats apartments. The restrictive density of the
collective complexes built during communism was replaced by in-
We move in and we are happy to have our first house with a gar- dividual houses grouped in complexes that are pretty dense them-
den. We wait for the complex to be finished, since we’ve moved selves, enclosed between opulent surrounding elements and with
in among the very first. After a while, during a period in which we an elaborate arsenal of home security systems.
got used to the area and especially to the difficult roads to the
city, the complex is finished. Unfortunately, it is just a complex of In this article, we aim at bringing into discussion the characteris-
houses and again houses, no trace of the other buildings, and the tics of house groups north of Bucharest, as measuring unit for the
streets we believed to be full of vegetation are only full of cars, recent developments of the city, in an attempt to understand the
LIVING BEYOND THE CITY. THE EXTENT OF AN URBAN PHENOMENON > VERA MARIN & ANDREEA MATACHE > 2/7
50
way these complexes reflect or not specific values and ways of Living “beyond the City”
living. Our working hypothesis starts from the fact that this type In Bucharest, like in other large Romanian cities, the creation
of habitation represents neither a copy of imported models of ‘closed’ residential complexes, with typified lots, represents
(of a ‘gated community’ type), nor a taking over of autochtho- the tendency of the past twenty years in the expansion of urban
nous models. As a local interpretation, with its strong and weak space. These are groups of homes with a low height level, up-
points, this way of living represented at a certain point (the be- held under the notion of ‘complex’ or ‘neighbourhood’, terms
ginning of the 2000s) an attractive offer for those marked by which in most cases do not reflect the de facto reality. This huge
the lack of diversity in living conditions during the communism. wave of constructions, reaching a peak in the 2000s, makes us
analyse the phenomenon under two respects: first, that of the
As professionals, we recognize the importance of understanding context built with specific elements and second, that of the
the needs of the people who will use the spaces we design and social and cultural context that determines the selection of a
their capacity to enter in possession of, to inhabit, to feel and to certain habitation style in the northern periphery of the city of
adapt the space designed by architects and town planners. It’s Bucharest.
just that in the case of plotting for type houses, the relationship
between the professionals and the users of the designed space The proliferation of plotting in the suburbs is a response to ur-
is filtered by the financial interests of real estate developers. In ban population growth, but also an aspiration towards a ‘lost
Romania, these interests are balanced neither by the inhabit- normality’ of habitation in the city, in the continuation of the
ants’ knowledge of what ‘quality living’ is, nor by the authorities residential complexes with individual houses created during the
designated to check and approve such buildings, who should interwar period. Paying attention to an existing urban model in
act as filters for the protection of general interest. Real estate the history of Bucharest, which, unfortunately, has not been
developers have dictated too high densities and improperly analysed, nor taken over nowadays, we see that, in the case
located houses made of cheap materials, yet sold as luxurious of interwar residential complexes, one could speak of cohe-
houses. The developers presented their ‘accomplishments’ in sive communities, of neighbourhoods with their own identity.
commercial brochures that exploited their clients’ lack of ex- Plotting was conceived around an element of identity of that
perience and their desire to express their financial potency by respective residential community: a park or a building fulfilling
acquiring a home in a ‘prestigious’ perimeter. People bought a public function. In the same sense of creating identity, there
houses basing themselves on representations with seductive- was an interest in the stylistic unity of architectural details. The
ly furnished interiors, generated by attractive 3D simulations, complexes were built in coherent relation to their urban vicini-
which were often false, impossible to build on the respective ties. The ‘new’ Bucharest of the interwar period appears as a
sites and did not respect the real proportions of spaces. collage of urban identities.
1
Andreea Matache, “Lo- The northern area proved to offer good-quality residential fea- The images shown to the prospective inhabitants during market-
cuirea în Ansamblurile
tures, destined for people with over-average financial possibilities. ing campaigns replace the simple ‘house’ with the notion of ‘villa’,
rezidenţiale închise. Zona
Pipera – Voluntari” [Living We mention here the residential complexes located near Kiseleff and the group of houses, that have nothing else in common than
in closed residential com- and Aviatorilor boulevards, Herastrău Park and Lake (the former the perimeter of the same plotted site, is replaced by the notion
plexes. Area Pipera-Vol- Bonaparte and Filipescu Parks that have generated Dorobanţi and of ‘residential complex’. Using terms not fitting reality, real estate
untari], PhD dissertation
defended at the Ion Mincu Primăverii neighbourhoods). Around the 30s, these were periph- developers aim at attracting rapid success for their investments.
University of Architec- eral areas, but a periphery for the rich social classes. The present- The improper use of these terms has led to confusions regarding
ture and Town Planning, day period indicates continuity under this respect: towards the life in the periphery, confusions that the specialists have not suf-
March 2010, supervisor
north, the city has grown to include real estate developments in- ficiently criticised.
Prof. Ph.D. Arch. Sandu
Alexandru. tended for the rich, while the southern area belongs to the middle
or even the low class. Despite all of these, one can note that the Fieldwork research1 indicates that habitation in closed residential
way real estate developments are promoted in the south is simi- complexes located in the suburb does not constitute a specific
lar to that in the north of the city. In fact, in all peripheral areas, case continuing the development of the city, but a ‘borrowed’
real estate developers focused on each respective group of homes typology related to a western model of urban expansion. In the
promoted by a private investor and managed as ‘islands’ that ig- case of American cities, the ‘closed communities’, as source of
nore the context where they were located and the rest of the city. inspiration for transition-period accomplishments, appeared as a
We most often speak of significant inner dysfunctions in such consequence of fears existing in the American society, but also as
groups of homes, that become typical repetitive elements, such a tendency to counteract insecurity by isolating and deliberately
as: predominance of the built areas, absence of essential ameni- enclosing the house complexes. In the case of Romanian suburbs,
ties for living comfort, monotonous and bad-quality architecture, the model was used as means of asserting the social status of the
problems related to parking lots and even traffic inside that group new urban elite, through spatial detachment from the existing
– extremely important elements, considering that these plots de- urban territory and through symbolical delimitation of the new
pend on the traffic of the inhabitants’ own cars, since, most of the territory.
times, there is no public transportation.
In the USA, the ‘gated community’ residential model is also the
The elements of built space organization reflect as well on the consequence of urban sprawl, stimulated as well by the low cost
cultural-symbolic and social realities of present-day residential ar- of land in the suburbs, supported by the developed town infra-
eas. On a symbolic level, the ‘house’ is no longer a simple element structure and the quality of road networks connecting them to the
connected to immediate necessities, but a cultural construct of city, that insure the daily traffic between the residential suburbs
social class image, illustrating the class status of the ‘newly rich’. and the ‘down town’. In the case of Romanian suburbs though,
one cannot discuss about a phenomenon of similar proportions. Actors and Motivations 2
Local adaptation of the
term ‘gated communities’;
‘Closed communities’2 develop over increasingly smaller surfaces, In conclusion, we are talking about closed residential complexes ibidem.
where the density of buildings is much higher and thus more un- as manifestations of the need for emancipation, of the individual
comfortable and, in most cases, the corresponding infrastructure pursuit of diversity in habitation. As regarding the choices made
is insufficient. Paradoxically, peripheral areas in the north of Bu- on the characteristics of the built context, one may notice a brake
charest (Pipera area) end up being more expensive than urban in urban models and architectural styles in the rest of the city of
ones. Equally paradoxical is the tendency to limit private space, Bucharest. One may notice, as well, the intention of real estate
which rather generates small and very small space fragments, developers to generate a marketing identity proper to the new
both through an over dimensional and aggressive treatment of the residential areas (Pipera, Voluntari), an identity referring to the
fences around individual properties and the enclosure of groups new urban ‘elites’.
of homes built according to typified ground plans. Therefore, one
cannot speak of the closed character of an area, but rather of the Reality shows a simple juxtaposition of residential units: the ab-
enclosure of plot sequences, whose dimensions depend on the sence of buildings with community functions and of public space
plotted land. makes good-quality urban living impossible, as an identity-related
Another idea that takes us further away from the original model component of the city. They create enclosed and self-sufficient
is related to the value of enclosure and isolation from other areas groups, inside their physical boundaries, through the lack of social
of the city; the enclosure is in the same time physical, social and cohesion manifested in residential complexes, but also through
symbolic. In the case of ‘gated communities’, the focus is placed poor connections with elements of the street. The latter is a
on interiorizing community relations between the material limits simple, small access way, lacking sidewalks and designated green
of the surrounding walls or fences. Community represents the for- areas. The street thus exists as a sterile space, lacking in the ur-
mal legitimising “instrument” of the new urban actors, defined ban quality of socializing and the existence of public space. In the
according to ethnic criteria or social, cultural and professional sta- same time, through the poor connection with the city’s function-
tus. The type of living becomes an accessory of a lifestyle created ality, the new residential areas remain isolated archipelagos com-
through stereotypes and copying, affiliated to a community that posed of singular individualities lacking any community fusion.
would correspond to these ideals. In areas with groups of houses
built in the north of Bucharest, in the 90s, the concept of commu- Through the succinctly presented analysis in this article, we could
nity is rather replaced by that of collectivity, made up of the new note that those coming to live in the recent suburb complexes do
area residents, who want to be part of the new urban elite, as a not take this step because this way of habitation expresses values
sign of the new fashion, rather than in search of a living area, that that they recognize as their own, but in order to express their fi-
should express common lifestyles, preferences and values. nancial success, to be together with other wealthy people. More-
51
49
over, they seem to reject living in block of flats complexes or the sional organisations, and, last but not least, by refusing to draw
density and drawbacks of the city. Without having clear criteria on “as they are told” projects that they certainly know to be bad.
what quality of habitation means, nor the opportunity to enter
in dialogue with designers, architects and town planners, in the
2000s, many people made choices they now regret, as indicated,
as well, in the account presented in the beginning of this article.
Communication among all actors involved in the development of
these residential complexes is the only possible starting point for
reaching less frustrating living experiences or design experiences,
which could make professionals proud.
As long as the financial interest ‘dictates’ and all others follow this
logic, the chances of failure are great. By better understanding
what has happened during the past twenty years – the preferenc-
es, the imaginary and the accomplishments of the transition pe-
riod – professionals might become more efficient in their mission
to educate the beneficiaries to require more from real estate de-
velopers and to keep a balance between all these tendencies with
irreversible effects in both time and space. However, the equation
has more than two unknown factors: beneficiaries/developers, on
the one hand, and architects/town planners, on the other hand.
Professionals working in public administration and enforcing the
law should no longer treat lightly the interest in durable urban
development, whereas politicians should plead, in their speeches
and projects, for higher quality living by assigning local budgets
that will ensure the growth and revitalisation of settlements.
Thus, architects and town planners would have a stronger influ-
ence on the process of building houses in the periphery. Profes-
sionals could accomplish this mission by becoming more public
through informational programs, possibly supported by profes-
52
53
Marian: One day a fox went through there with the dogs chasing it and came out this side. A rabbit used to come here a few
weeks ago; it liked the grass here, it used to come in through there, eat and then leave.
Superbia: What we got so far from for answers is that the reason for them moving here was based on a finances. More
space for less money compared to the city.
M: There was a category of people who categorically refused Baciu or Floreşti. Maybe the younger ones, married with chil-
dren, thought that it may be more financially accessible to stay a few years, and after a while move out.
S: Yes, but those with other expectations also chose these places eventually.
M: Yes, but maybe they weren’t so young, around their 40’s. It matters that it’s very close to Cluj, and that the public admin-
istration allowed them to build more or less in a chaotic way. Probably there, in Floreşti or Baciu the land was cheaper. The
investors started off with minimum investments and took less loans from the banks. There surely is a financial explanation
behind it all.
Marian, 60, civil engineer, Becaș

1/5
ABUNDANCE, DEFICIENCY AND COMICS

------
TEXT: MIRUNA STROE
What do we actually talk about when the issue is the Romanian ertheless, on various occasions, I joined the voices that expressed
recently developed suburb? On one hand, theory tells us we dis- the discontent of the professional milieu about the chaotic devel-
cuss ‘deficiency’ – many aspects of deficiency: legislative, of public opment of towns through suburbs.
space, of taste, of culture, of administrative interest, of strategy,
all in all, lack of urbanity –, generally speaking, all those aspects Especially because I have experienced both situations, I tried to
that shape the sphere of ‘discontent’ surrounding the public dis- find the specificity of dwelling between these two poles and cap-
cussion on the recent estate development of Romanian towns. ture it in a ‘name’ that could function as an instrument in further
On the other hand, for the architectural practice, until very recent theoretical approaches. With no pretence of being an onoma-
times (just before the beginning of the economic crisis, this un- tourgos, I am rather interested in the process of naming, where
expected occasion for reflexion), the suburb meant abundance. the differentia specifica meets the tools of the copywriter and be-
Abundance of projects, both individual houses and estate devel- comes the emblem.
opments, projects for established design offices and for young
emerging architects – basically, a rich field of experiment without The term suburb, with its Latin etymology (sub – under and urbs
much discernment. Actually, the motive behind the development – city, an ‘undercity’ referred to the housing area of the less for-
of the suburb was exactly the abundance, the financial surplus of tunate inhabitants of Rome, outside the Roman hills), contains
the emerging middle class, which was eager to express its newly many nuances nowadays: from the diverse urban growth patterns
attained status. throughout history, to the privileged housing areas outside the
overcrowded city centres, to slums. Suburb thus proves to be an
This difference between the theoretical and the practical aspects all-comprising word. Instead, there are many words in different
in the Romanian architectural milieu is not surprising; however, languages that name a particular kind of suburb, each specific for
when it comes to the suburb, the gap is bigger than expected. a certain cultural area. Browsing through various dictionaries, the
A new kind of dwelling takes shape between the two extremes: abundance and inventiveness of terms depicting poor suburbs is
abundance and deficiency, plus and minus. I would like to name it obvious, while more luxurious housing areas are generally named
in a more precise way than the general term ‘suburb’, that is why suburbs (or different equivalents, without negative connotations).
I shall start the quest for a proper name. My professional experi- As the higher social status generally comes with the pretence of
ence is situated in this twofold reality, previously described. I, just differentiation, the rich housing areas are not considered homog-
like others, had the opportunity to design houses in such areas, enous (as is the case with poor neighbourhoods), they are col-
where the relation with the context is mostly a problem of resis- lections of unique elements. But what happens in the case of an
tance and, inevitably, all negotiations are turned exclusively on inflation of ‘uniqueness’? Doesn’t it become the norm and turns
the architectural object, producing self-centred architecture. Nev- into a homogenous mass? This seems to be the case of our sub-
ABUNDANCE, DEFICIENCY AND COMICS > MIRUNA STROE > 2/5
54
55
urbs, which further emphasises the need for a new name. the improvised houses of the Moroccan peasants on the outskirts 1
See the article ‘Bidon-
ville’ in Pierre Merlin and
Let us look at some terms that define mass, even poor housing. of Casablanca1. Most of the building materials used for the over-
Françoise Choay, Diction-
How do the names pinpoint the specificity of a certain kind of crowded barracks were reclaimed junk, among which, petrol cans naire de l’urbanisme et de
housing and what is that specificity? I chose the most interesting (in French bidon), hence the particular name. l’aménagement, troisième
names regarding their composition, their origins, without aiming édition revue et augmen-
tée, Paris: Presses Univer-
to provide an exhaustive list. Banlieue. In the French cultural space, the generic name of the sitaires de France, 2000,
suburb, banlieue2, bears, as the same dictionary notes, the mark 118-120.
Favela. The Favela hill (on which the first slum of Rio de Janeiro of an administrative definition; in Medieval Latin, banleuca repre-
2
See the article ‘Banli-
developed in 1946) gave the name of all Brazilian slums, as most sented the area influenced (leuca, lieu fr. – place) by a restraining eue’ in Merlin and Cho-
of them are located on hills outside cities. The proper noun Favela order (ban – ban). As noted by the authors, in reality, suburbs are ay, 99-107.
became a common noun and described this kind of settlement, too complex to be explained by a term that sums up only territo-
in which the ‘viral’ growth and the slopes of the streets make it rial and administrative aspects. This is the reason why banlieue
impossible to go by car. grew in complexity over time, becoming the most comprehensive
term. There are two characteristics that generally define suburbs:
Baraccopoli. The Italian name seizes the huge difference between the dependence on the city and their development towards a
the existence of the community, suggested by the prestigious greater complexity of their functions and towards solving multiple
Greek polis, and its formal dwelling, in barracks. aspects of dwelling that span longer periods of time (“a system-
atic, almost continuous occupation of space”). The observations
Shanty town (a term established at the end of the 19th century), of Merlin and Choay draw the image of a dwelling area that, on its
slum or squatter settlement. The English terms denoting poor apparition, is imminently “unfinished” and not completely devel-
suburbs are very general, but this is usually compensated for by oped functionally, administratively, network-wisely. Moreover, it is
several local denominations, as for example: tent city, trailer park, inhabited by people who generally have their jobs in the city, thus
colonias (for the Mexican settlements bordering with the United being alternating migrants. This image, not yet an entirely urban
States) or even hooverville (an explicit reference to the political one, could be representative for the Romanian reality we are deal-
regime of Herbert Hoover, who, in the time of the Great Depres- ing with. So, is the recent Romanian suburb a work in progress?
sion, increased the number of people forced to live in spontane- Can we blame the lack of public space on the complexity that has
ous settlements). not yet matured? Given the long periods of time that take a sub-
urb to become a complex urban entity, we could get to the regret-
Bidonville. Pierre Merlin and Françoise Choay identify the appari- table point where public space might not “fit” in the physical area
tion of the word sometime before the Second World War to name of the suburb.
3
The urbanism of the so-
cialist period is not essen-
tially different from what
was practiced throughout
the world at that time; the
difference resides in the
unidirectional application
of a single model, neglect-
ing any experiment. Thus,
while in the western coun-
tries there was a moment
of critique towards the
functionalist urbanism, in
Romania its use contin-
ued for at least two more
decades.
4
Augustin Ioan, Sacred,
Safe and Busy. Oraşele
mari în extincţie [Sacred,
Safe and Busy. Great Cit-
ies in Extinction], 8-15 in 56
ACUM2.
In the case of Romanian towns, there is something else to be growth proposed by the socialist planning, but not a comeback
5
On the other hand and in
another context, it might
pointed out: the traditional logic of the town’s growth was bru- to the traditional logic; let us not forget that we are in a moment
be interesting to comment tally interrupted by the urban practice of the socialist period3 defined by speed, automobiles and remarkable distances. The
on the ease with which and, in the meantime, nobody claimed its revalorization. By for- desire to turn against all rules (here I am following an idea is-
the same inhabitants ac- getting the traditional logic of city growth around certain values sued by Augustin Ioan)4 goes so far as to give up the connection
cess the new virtual social
networks; maybe their (public space being one of them), the inhabitants themselves to any network (including some essential ones, such as plumb-
novelty makes them less forgot they needed those values. We have created a generation ing or gas), for fear of interaction with ‘power’ networks. Recent
susceptible. of people who are content with living in the given conditions suburbs are like perforations in the widespread territorial (and
and will not claim a radically different space when they afford state) network, large perforations that require a certain inde-
to buy a new home. Speculating on the psychological profile of pendence, even if only formal.5
the the recent suburbia’s inhabitant, we could discuss about
a certain subconscious resistance towards the logic of the city After browsing through terms coming from so many different
languages, a question might arise: why the Romanian word mahala6 inspiration. However, this influence comes with an unavoidable im- 6
Mahala is the wide-
spread term in Romanian
is not sufficient enough to denote that particular kind of suburb we pact on public space, by organizing the suburbia in strict interdepen-
language when talking
are discussing about? Given the importance, already accounted for dence with the Mall. The Mall supplies whatever need one has for about poorer neighbour-
in a detailed manner7, of Bucharest’s development on a network of authentic public space, even if it turns it into a ‘cardboard’ version. hoods, but not neces-
mahalale and parishes, the role of the mahala cannot be neglected. The moment when the generation raised in Malls will need Squares sarily at the periphery,
also in the centre of the
Still, it depicts a certain historic moment in the development of the and Streets might not come soon. As Dana Vais noticed8, introducing cities. Its Turkish origin
city. A certain social context, together with a development pattern, the Mall in our cities exposed us to a condensed (a few years) version speaks about a certain
defines what we call mahala and such conditions are no longer met of a history that spanned more than fifty years in the United States. period in the develop-
ment of our cities and
today. Besides, the term mahala does not refer solely to the urban As a result, the Romanian version overlapped stages and, obviously, may fail to express the
development in the outskirts of the city, it can be encountered in did not stop to assimilate critical moments. Thus, we now have, in contemporary reality.
central areas as well. One of the few common aspects between the an undifferentiated manner, suburb malls and central malls whose N/A
old mahala and the recent suburb is the inhabitants’ so-called ‘up- public spaces absorb and confiscate the citizens. We cannot help but 7
See Adrian Majuru,
startism’. The old inhabitants of the mahala (named mahalagii), who, notice the highly criticised process of ‘mall-ification’ of the city itself. Bucureştii mahalalelor
in spite of their lack of refinement, aspired to a higher social status, It suffices to observe the pedestrian area in the centre of Braşov or sau periferia ca mod de
are not entirely different from the recent well-off inhabitants of the the recent situation of the Lipscani area, which, in order to ‘save it- existenţă [The Bucharest
of the Outskirts or the
suburbs, with their fast cars and measureless houses. self’ became a large food-court (not to say a generalised pub). Periphery as a Mode of
Existence], Bucharest:
This is why it is not surprising that there is no need for public space My paper is dedicated to justifying the suffix ‘ville’ within the term Compania, 2003.
in the suburbs; as long as there are places for ‘going out’ (and pa- that I propose. Since the English language has become a common 8
Dana Vais, Cultura
rading one’s wealth) in the city, areas meant for entertainment and choice in naming almost all ‘estate developments’ (it would be in- mallului in Korunk no.
commerce and often identified with the Malls showing up in every teresting to see whether they will keep their English names in daily 12/2009. For the world
city, they are enough. Thus, we come to another feature of our re- use) and the American influence has been immediately adopted, we of the Mall, see www.
korunk.org.
cent suburbia: a certain relation to the American way of developing have built a ‘cartoonish’ reality that deserves a name close to the
a city. Although, in the past, Bucharest, for instance, went through ones found in comics.
its Balkan and French period, and the cities in Transylvania through
the Central-European period, nowadays, following the good tradi- As I have started from the extremes – on one hand, the profes-
tion of globalization, they readily embrace the American model of sional milieu and the abundance and, on the other, the theoretical
suburbanisation. It comes naturally that the nostalgia for America approach centred on deficiency – and noticed that the reality we
(i.e. the United States of America) and for its values makes some of observe is a roughly sketched imitation of the globalized American
our clients – more than a few – ask us to design houses of American suburb, I can finally introduce to you the term Plusminusville.
INSIDE
OUTSIDE
57
Laura, 29, interpretor
58
Europa residential area
59
59
Előd, 31, journalist

60
Florești
61
Eleonora, 61, retired teacher and Alexandru, 62, engineer
62
Bună Ziua residential area
63
61
Mirela, 50, technician

64
Bună Ziua residential area
64
Andrei, 37, economist
66
Baciu
67
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
Fooooooam: 7, 10, 11, 21, 26, 27, 35, 37, 41, 42, 48, 49, 52, 53
Silviu Aldea: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 15, 16, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36, 39, 51, 68
Marius Cătălin Moga: 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67
Daniel Șerban: 22, 34, 38, 40
Planwerk: 18, 19, 20
Cosmin Dragomir: 23, 24, 25
Cosmin Caciuc: 43, 44, 45
Lucian Șuvaina: 9
Benedek István: 13, 14
Bogdan Stănescu: 47, 56
Vlad Voica: 54, 55
Anca Rusu: 57
Dana Vais: 6
Alina Tudor: 12
Tamás Sisak: 17
Ciprian Pașca: 46
Laura Panait: 50
Larisa Sitar: 8
68
AUTHORS
Silviu Aldea was born in 1980 in Piatra Neamț, Romania. He studied Architecture at Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and graduated from Ecole
d’Architecture Paris La Villette, France. He collaborated with several offices in Paris and Rome, amongst others Feichtinger Architectes and Massimiliano
Fuksas Architetto. He is a PhD student in Architecture at Technical University of Cluj-Napoca.
Marius Cătălin Moga was born in 1980 in Turda, Romania. He studied Architecture at Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and Ecole d’Architecture de
Grenoble. He worked for Planwerk, Cluj and B.A.U., Cluj. He received an honourable mention at the “Refurbishment of Ștrandul Tineretului” competition
in Bucharest, Romania. He co-organized Z.A. Architectural festival in Cluj in 2003.
Laura Panait was born in 1983 in Bucharest, Romania. She is currently a PhD student in Urban Anthropology at Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca. She
completed Bauhaus Kolleg VIII, “EU Urbanism”. She organized several cultural projects from Cluj (including Fabrica de Pensule) to Luxembourg concern-
ing analysis and artistic interventions in public spaces.
Tamás Sisak was born in 1981 in Tîrgu-Mureș, Romania. He studied Architecture at Technical University of Cluj-Napoca. He worked for local offices in
Brașov and Cluj-Napoca. He received an honourable mention at the “Refurbishment of Ștrandul Tineretului” competition in Bucharest, Romania.
Camelia Sisak was born in 1982 in Sibiu, Romania. She studied Architecture at Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and Ecole d’Architecture de Grenoble.
She has been working for ProiectIN. She is currently an assistant teacher at Technical University of Cluj-Napoca.
Areta Soare was born in 1980 in Baia Mare, Romania. She studied Architecture at Technical University of Cluj-Napoca. She has worked for several offices
in Cluj-Napoca.
Daniel Șerban was born in 1982 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He studied Architecture at Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and Sint Lucas Hogeschool voor
Wetenschap&Kunst, Brussels. He is currently an assistant teacher and PhD student in Architecture at Technical University of Cluj-Napoca.
TEXT CONTRIBUTORS
Cosmin Caciuc is a lecturer at „Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urban Planning in Bucharest, where he graduated in 1999 and earned his PhD in Ar-
chitecture in 2005. He is the author of Supra-teoretizarea arhitecturii (Ed. Paideia, Bucureşti, 2007) and Avangarda Americană: 50 de ani de arhitectură : de la
modernism la minimalism (Editura Zeppelin & Editura Universitară „Ion Mincu” Bucureşti, 2010). Since 2008 he is editor of Arhitectura magazine.
Ștefan Ghenciulescu is architect, publisher and researcher in Architecture and Urban Planning. Editor-in-chief of Arhitectura review, lecturer in Architecture
at “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urban Planning. He graduated the Architecture faculty (in 1996), the Master (in 1997) and the PhD in Urbanism
(2004) at the same University. Author of architecture, urbanism and design projects. Several articles in architecture magazines and human studies publications.
Andreea Matache is architect, university lecturer, author of PhD thesis Ansamblurile rezidenţiale închise. Pipera, Voluntari, the first interdisciplinary study of
the northern peri-urban area of Bucharest that uses the methods of urban anthropology, author and co-author of a number of architectural, urban planning
projects and publications in specialized journals.
Vera Marin is an architect and an urban planner who does not see any dissociation between theory and practice, between teaching and research
and getting involved in civil society actions. She strongly believes in the need for dialogue in urban planning and urban design as well as in the
need for interdisciplinary approach of urban or rural development. She holds a PhD in housing policies and urban regeneration of collective hous-
ing areas, and a master degree in integrated urban development. She is currently teaching at “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urban Planning.
Norbert Petrovici is assistant Professor of Urban Sociology at Babeș-Bolyai University Cluj, Romania and a visiting fellow at New Europe College, Bucharest,
Romania. His 2009 PhD Dissertation examines how different post-socialist Romanian economic forces are assembled in the frame of various power fields so as
to create relatively coherent urban spaces for a certain time-span. He is currently researching the role of business circles and networks in articulating a politic of
place that transforms the city in a spatial resource mobilized in the post-socialist economic games.
Planwerk Cluj was initiated in 1998 as a network of Romanian and German architects and planners. Now, the team, under the name SC Planwerk SRL is involved
in research, urban design, communication and social development and teaching. Planwerk received several awards at the 2002, 2004 and 2008 editions of
Bucharest Architecture Biennial.
Miruna Stroe is a teaching assistant and PhD student in the Theory and History of Architecture Department at “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Ur-
ban Planning of Bucharest. Her thesis deals with aspects of dwelling during the 60s and 70s in communist Romania. She is also part of the architectural office
MoodFactory.
Gabriel Troc gives courses in Social Anthropology at Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca. He published the book Postmodernismul în antropologia culturală
(Ed. Polirom, Iaşi, 2006) and studies on cultural and social changes in post-socialism, in different specialized reviews.
Ștefan Ungurean is lecturer at the Transylvania University Brașov at the Faculty of Sociology and Communicaton. From 1999 he is PhD in Sociology (at the Bu-
charest University). He is manager of the „Study and Research Centre”, Brașov.
Dana Vais is researcher and critic of architecture. She is associate professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca,
where she teaches theory, modern and contemporary history and architectural design.
EXHIBITION
Radu Cioca was born in 1982 in Baia Mare, Romania. He studied at the Art and Design University of Cluj-Napoca and L’Ecole Superieure des Arts Saint Luc de
Liege, Belgium. He is one of the co-founders of Slash Gallery in Cluj-Napoca .
Ilarie Pintea was born in 1982 in Cluj. He studied Design at the Art and Design University of Cluj-Napoca.
Ionuț Țințoc was born in 1980. He’s following a tradition of leather ware manufacturing transmitted from father to son.
Teodora Vlad was born in 1983 in Cluj. She studies Film&TV at the Edinburgh College of Art. She currently lives and studies in Edinburgh.
FOOOOOOAM
Alina Bradu was born in 1985 in Cluj, Romania. She studied graphic arts at Art and Design University of Cluj-Napoca, L’Ecole Superieure des Arts Saint Luc de
Liège, Belgium and in 2009 she finished a Master Program in graphic art at National University of Arts in Bucharest, Romania. She attended several art residen-
cies in Bucharest, Berlin, Cluj-Napoca and Lille.
Carlos Carmonamedina was born in 1982 in Comarca Lagunera, Mexico. He studied visual arts and Mexican literature at the Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico
City, Mexico. In 2010 he finished a Master’s Program in Painting at the Art and Design University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Carlos attended art residencies in
Romania, Serbia, Croatia and France. He has 3 solo shows in Mexico and his work has been featured in numerous exhibitions in Mexico, Ukraine, Romania and
Serbia. In the beginning of 2010, he started an online art magazine: www.miremagazine.com.
Silviu Medeșan was born in 1984 in Târnăveni, Romania. He studied Architecture at Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and Institut Supérieur d’Architecture
Saint-Luc de Wallonie in Liège, Belgium. He co-organized Z.A. - Architecture Days in 2007 and 2009 in Cluj. In 2010 he was awarded second prize for his final work
as student by the O.A.R. (The Chamber of Romanian Architects).
This publication is part of the project SUPERBIA presented at the New Gallery of the Romanian Institute for Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice / Institutul
Român de Cultura și Cercetare Umanistică de la Veneția - ROMANIAN NATIONAL PAVILION AT THE 12TH INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE
29 August 2010 – 21 November 2010
© The authors for the project concept and catalogue layout.

© The writers for their respective articles.
© The artists and photographers for the reproduction of their respective work.
© The Romanian Cultural Institute and the Romanian Insitute for Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice for production rights.
The authors wish to thank:

Dana Vais, Attila Kim, Doru Pop, Mihai Pop, Salvador Pintea, Ciprian Morar, Cristina Matei, Adrian Pop, Alpár Katona, Lazăr Sidor, Claudia Pilcă.
Special thanks to Florin Bican and Jesse McKee.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from the copyright owner.

Superbia Catalogue

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Superbia Catalogue

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Superbia Catalogue

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What was the purpose of the exhibition?

What was the purpose of the exhibition?

What institutions were involved in organizing the exhibition?

What institutions were involved in organizing the exhibition?

Authors of the project „Superbia” CATALOGUE EXHIBITION

Silviu Aldea, Marius Cătălin Moga, Laura

DANIEL ȘERBAN, SILVIU ALDEA

SILVIU ALDEA, RADU CIOCA

MARIUS CĂTĂLIN MOGA, LAURA PANAIT

ALINA BRADU, CARLOS CARMONAMEDINA, SILVIU MEDEȘAN

SILVIU ALDEA, LAURA PANAIT

PICNIC CITY > PLANWERK >

PSEUDO-MODERNIZATION VS. WEAKENED MODERNIZATION > COSMIN CACIUC >

ABUNDANCE, DEFICIENCY AND COMICS > MIRUNA STROE >

SUPERB SUBURBIA. THE DEGREE ZERO OF URBAN SPACE

Előd, 31, journalist, Florești

THE SUBURB OR ABOUT THE LOGIC OF “NEITHER, NOR“

This example indicates a problem. Should one stroll through

the political actors’ lack of responsibility related to the social di-

It is possible that this phenomenon of the political bodies’ refus-

Foucault, Michel, Trebuie să

Marx, Karl, Manuscrisele

Tocqueville, Alexis de, De-

Ancuţa, 28, economist and Cosmin, 36, electronics engineer, Floreşti

House around Cîmpului

Andrei, 37, economist, Baciu

ON THE CATASTROPHES, POTENTIAL, AND RECENT DEVELOPMENT OF ROMANIAN PERIPHERIES

viving parts of nature or just empty lands still in public property.

Nobody can control the periphery, at least not through ample

(Romania, fenced land)26

Marian, 58, civil engineer, Becaș

Adriana, 25, architect, Floreşti

The 2000s Villas

Therefore, it became easier for the politicians and public admin- 6

Kinga, 34, cultural manager, Floreşti

THE POST SOCIALIST NEIGHBOURHOOD: FLORESTI (CLUJ NAPOCA)1

Context somehow significant, due to a dramatic decrease in the real es- 1

using minimal resources: each ‘developer’ (with the complicity

routes and where the narrow street, criticised by the moderns

It is a community unwanted, as a matter of fact, but created by

Andrei, 37, economist, Baciu

PSEUDO-MODERNIZATION VS. WEAKENED MODERNIZATION

(–) Detachment from contemporary reality; anachronism; indi-

• Declarative classical monumental villa, ‘crushing’ through sheer

ings). On the other hand, the beneficiaries’ desire to isolate them-

• Late-modernist and minimalist villa, the most recent and rare

of architectural shape elaboration, being preferred by high-level Collage-periphery and improvisation

Adriana, 25, architect, Floreşti

LIVING BEYOND THE CITY. THE EXTENT OF AN URBAN PHENOMENON

Marian, 60, civil engineer, Becaș

ABUNDANCE, DEFICIENCY AND COMICS

Előd, 31, journalist

Mirela, 50, technician

© The authors for the project concept and catalogue layout.

The authors wish to thank:

You might also like