25 YEARS IN THE SERVICE OF ROMANIAN HERITAGE AND COMMUNITIES
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March 05, 2021
Last year in October 24 children from Mihăileni and Vârfu Câmpului localities in Botoşani county, received musical instruments – blockflöte – and began lessons in the study of this instrument and in musical culture. The 600 hours of music education in 2020 took place in the yard of George Enescu’s House, when the weather was favorable, and afterwards they took place online.
The program initiated and developed by the Pro Patrimonio Foundation in partnership with the UiPath Foundation is entitled “The Children’s Academy of Music and Education”. As a music education program, complementary to the school one, dedicated to children from secondary schools around the George Enescu House in Mihăileni, it helps children develop their interest in current school activities and, in this way, to enrich their cultural knowledge. Music culture develops creativity, logical thinking, structures critical thinking and develops the artistic sensitivity of young people in training. In addition, music coagulates communities, helps preserve local identity and complements a correct perception of heritage. In an area with an instrumental and vocal tradition still present, but with a high risk of social vulnerability, such as the Botoşani – Dorohoi area, music strengthens the feeling of belonging to the community, a very important element for restoring social cohesion.
Mrs. Paula Gavriluţă is the music teacher who helps the children descipher the blockflöte scores whilst also teaching them things about a much needed musical culture. During the year dedicated to Beethoven, the emphasis was on deciphering excerpts from the Ninth Symphony, and around December they learned about Anton Pann’s patriotic song as well as about the great composer George Enescu, who sang to the wounded or organized charity concerts. With the help of interactive online games, children learn to recognize musical instruments and through musical audition they put the musical phrases in order according to their intensity and according to the instruments that appear in the orchestra.
At the beginning of 2021, the group of children in the music program received new scores and continues to develop their skills in using the instrument.
The program continues throughout 2021 in partnership with the UiPath Foundation.
George Enescu’s house in Mihăileni was again filled with sounds, happines and children at the end of October 2020 when “The Childrens’ Academy for Music and Education”, the music program developed by the Pro Patrimono Foundation in partnership with UiPath Foundation, debuted in several small series.
24 children received individual musical instruments and continue the program through weekly work. They are guided by Mrs. Paula Gavriluţă, a teacher in the community. The children experienced the sound of blockflots for the first time and had fun with the rhythms of the boomwhakers.
The In-Herit project, initiated by the National Heritage Institute, runs place 2020 and 2021 within the RO-Culture program with the support of the SEE Grants 2014-2021. The Pro Patrimonio Foundation, project partner, is responsible for creating the online application Salva-Monument, an integral part of the general online platform.
The web application will address the owners of historic buildings, specialists and the general public so that they can be informed about the practical and constructive ways of maintaining, conserving and capitalizing on heritage. An important component of the guide will be the presentation of practical issues regarding approval, documentation, economic or funding issues that may arrise.
All these themes will be presented in a format as accessible as possible, in formulas of expression as simple as possible accompanied by suggestive graphic images. The Salva-Monument Guide will be a content aggregator for heritage.
Motivation
Romania’s built heritage has been deteriorating, especially in the past 30 years, at a much faster pace than the owners’ ability to rehabilitate, maintain and use them. Society at large is poorly educated and informed about the ways of rehabilitation and maintenance, but also about the possibilities of capitalization of buildings and heritage complexes. However, more and more citizens are looking for information and tools to help them understand how heritage can be activated and revitalized in the context of insufficient collaboration and communication with public administration.
The Pro Patrimonio Foundation aims to create an interactive online platform – the Salva-Monument Guide – which will be integrated into the comprehensive program “In-Herit: National Center for Heritage Information and Promotion” developed by the National Heritage Institute.
The guide will be a support for the owners of historic buildings, specialists, the general public by which they can find practical and constructive ways of maintaining, conserving and capitalizing on heritage – both a cultural resource and an economic resource. The digital platform will also provide a link between citizens and specialists, from various fields – architecture, legal, economic, etc.
We aim to provide active free support for as many common situations as possible in which different categories find themselves in. The foundation receives an average of 10 questions per month on how to save, intervene, finance a historic building. The demands are diverse, but are based on poor public education and an acute lack of public information. In most cases, questions and requests reach the Foundation because public institutions answer vaguely or not at all. Interested citizens do not have at their disposal a simple document from which they can understand what the steps, the response times, the competent authorities and the laws are, as well as how to complete the applications and to whom should they be addressed.
The Salva-Monument guide will address:
In order to build this Guide as representative as possible, we set out to conduct a public consultation through a survey so that we can address as wide a range of possible situations and questions as possible from the public.
The survey in Romanian language only and is open to the public until March 3, 2021
http://bit.ly/SONDAJ-SALVA-MONUMENT
After all the studies we talked about earlier, the next step is to obtain the authorization to carry out the intervention works (a building permit). The procedure has several stages: a local planning certificate is requested from the local town hall, indicating what is permitted according to the local regulations and what other authorities must analyse in advance (mandatory bills) the project before issuing the permit. In the case of works on historic buildings (monuments) the views of the Directorate for County Culture and the State Inspectorate for Construction are mandatory.
The divisions responsible for culture evaluate (in theory) the way in which, through the project, the heritage value of the building is preserved and may request modifications of the solution so as to ensure a quality intervention in compliance with the principles of heritage protection. The culture divisions consult with the Regional Monuments Commission, composed of specialists in the field, for these approvals in order to issue relevant points of view. Unfortunately, in practice, more and more often, these opinions are conditioned by various interests, divergent from those of heritage conservation and enhancement. The project presented to the Directorate for Culture and implicitly to the Regional Commission contains the preliminary studies and the proposed architectural solution in which all the intervention works, repairs and possibly additions, modifications with the related justifications are made explicit.
After collecting information about the building – historical study – analysis of materials – geotechnical study – topographic survey – technical expertise – we can determine what we can do with it and how. It is natural for the architect to help establish the direction, but it is good to keep in mind that any building is used by people and therefore the establishment of the DESIGN THEME should be done while consulting its users, and the architect should be the conductor and moderator of the received ideas. The architect’s job is to harmonize the desires and needs of use with the constraints resulting from the first stage of analysis. Thus, the diagnosis shows where the problems that need to be remedied lie, what are the valuable elements that need to be preserved, what are the constraints related to materials and technique. In the case of the Neamțu Manor, for example, the Roman mosaic on the first floor is an extremely valuable element that must be preserved, so that any intervention on the floor of the rooms with mosaic on them must be avoided.
In order to reach a Design Theme dedicated to the Neamţu Manor from Olari, we consulted children who regularly participate in non-formal heritage education workshops. We considered them to be the main future users of the site and, consequently, their opinion very important. We have prepared a series of kit materials through which we conducted this investigation.
What the children want:
After the consultative phase, the role of the architect intervenes, who selects from these points of view what is possible and what is more difficult or not at all appropriate. In the case of the Neamțu mansion, solar panels are not an option because they alter the architecture – which all the “beneficiaries” (the children from the local community participating in the non-formal heritage education workshops) want to preserve.
Architect-client cooperation is essential for the end result to meet the needs of users. Even if some requirements seem fanciful and childish, the architect is the one who will know (should know) to translate them into concrete and realistic elements.
We Like the Project Catalog București (Bucharest Catalog) developed by ARCEN
In March 2017, the Romanian Association for Culture, Education and Normality (ARCEN) launched the Bucharest Catalog project, the first inventory of all the buildings in the historical areas of the capital scheduled to run run between March 2017 and November 2020 developed by volunteers and specialized architects, urban planners and historians, and will target the 98 protected city areas.
The project is urgent, necessary and useful because at the moment, the built heritage of Bucharest (over 14,500 buildings) is in an advanced state of degradation, hundreds of buildings are in a state of collapse or pre-collapse and represent real public threats.
The goal is to make an online platform that includes inventory of all properties in the 98 protected areas, tens of thousands of data and photos, analyses, and statistics available to state institutions, industry specialists and city dwellers.
http://www.arcen.info/portfolio/catalog-bucuresti/
We Like the Project “SoNoRo Conac”!
In 2013, the Sonoro Association started a new project – SoNoRo Conac, whose aim is to highlight the need for respect, attention and support for Romania’s extraordinary cultural heritage and resources by associating music with the architectural masterpieces in Romania. They performed concerts in heritage buildings such as Bran Castle, Petre P. Carp Mansion (Ţibăneşti, Iaşi County), Teleki Palace, Gorneşti, Udrişte-Năsturel Mansion, Hereşti.
SoNoRo Conac grew from the idea of resetting chamber music in its original space of an intimate nature, ideal for cultural dialogue and active listening in front of a small audience. This project aims to raise public awareness wit respect to the multitude of rehabilitated heritage buildings – fabulous, spectacular, elegant buildings that need to be reintroduced into the cultural circuit.
We like the French association Rempart which provides social insertion and trains volunteers for the restoration sites of historical monuments in France and abroad.
The Network of Associations in the Benefit of Heritage / L’union d’associations de sauvegarde, du patrimoine et d’éducation populaire – Rempart, France joins us in the workshops held at Carp Manor in Țibănești, Iași County.
We really like the complex project Grădina istorică (Historic Garden) created by Ierburi uitate (Forgotten Herbs) in collaboration with the Botanical Garden Dimitrie Brândză, University of Bucharest (opened in 1860!).
The authors of the project launched in September 2017 at the Botanical Garden reveal a bit of their concept to us:
”At the end of the field, after the amphitheater area where we plan to organize garden activities starting from spring, we designed a clearing. Now, of course, there is not much of it there, just barren ground, tiller hoed and finely raked, but a few days ago, after we finally got the seeds, we sowed our first plants on this patch.
The clearing will host a few bee hives and insect hotel, and for them as well as for us, we sowed a mixture of annual and perennial flowers only a few days ago, chosen to grow both in the sun and in the shade.
We selected a few dozen species, among which many melliferous plants are included (…): Erysimum, Malcolmia, Silene, Coreopsis, Eschscholzia, Alyssum, Saponaria, Cerastium, Bidens, Dracopis, Sanvitalia, Achillea, Borago, Papaver, Malva, Lathyrus, Digitalis, Aquilegia, Viola, Lobelia, Campanula, Mirabilis, Dianthus, Echium, Phacelia, Reseda, Myosotis, Lychnis, Centaurea, Oenothera, Lupine, Anethum, Lunaria, Cosmos. As you see, many of our insects will enjoy the best them from the first days of spring to late autumn.”
More details here:https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gr%C4%83dina-Istoric%C4%83/1343799599082433?hc_ref=ARQfRC6xTlN1XNeCzL9SMlFtN-pTh8ngcoL4A-vQg0fJiiNUxxWPA7oahDvY4GbR2xo
Work in progress: http://www.gradinaistorica.ro/
We like the French from Les Compagnons du Devoir et du Tour de France for the way they preserve, arrange and pass on traditional crafts that help save and rebuild the tangible heritage.
Pro Patrimonio has been working with Les Compagnons du Devoir since 2007 at the traditional craft workshop/school at P.P. Carp Manor from Ţibăneşti, Iaşi County.
http://www.compagnons-du-devoir.com/
