25 YEARS IN THE SERVICE OF ROMANIAN HERITAGE AND COMMUNITIES
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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/
We like the project Ambulance for Monuments created and implemented by architect Eugene Vaida, president of the Monumentum from Alțâna, jud. Sibiu (link http://asociatiamonumentum.ro/cms/).
Ambulance for Monuments is a pilot project that aims to act effectively for safeguarding the intangible heritage by securing the objectives of major assets that are in bad condition or structural precollapse.
details here http://ambulanta-pentru-monumente.ro/
Wednesday, November 6, 2019, 6:30 pm in the Nod makerspace, MATER hall – Library of Materials in Splaiul Unirii no.160, we invite you to the opening of the photo exhibition “Forgotten textures: Inter-war Bucharest”, launch of the guide “Forgotten textures: Inter-war Bucharest . Plastering recipe book” and the collection of historical plaster samples.
This moment marks the end of an eight-month project where the Pro Patrimonio Foundation has researched four types of inter-war facade plastering: simili stone, mosaic, terracotta and stone dust plaster.
Inspired by the city of Bucharest, the project explored the “secrets” of the Modernist facades in the capital made between 1918 and 1940. A first stage involved library research to document the recipes of inter-war plaster mortars and their way of use – specific to Romania, but also comparisons with techniques from the same period from other countries. In parallel, these textures were photographically inventoried on the field, and in September a series of practical workshops were held to test the documented recipes and application techniques on 60x60cm samples in order to preserve and revitalize the old techniques / technologies.
During the days of the European Cultural Heritage we organized a series of guided tours to observe the lot left over from Modernist buildings in Bucharest and we prepared practical site tests with the mason invited by the Maison Paysanne de France Association, Patrice Leu, specialized in traditional techniques. From the discussions carried out in the workshops and the debate on the forgotten texts of Modernist architecture, we have come to some conclusions also supported by our guest:
The result of this research period is a recipe guide, six plaster samples recreated in today’s context and a series of photographic observations of the city’s textures made by the architect Andrei Mărgulescu. The project aims to be a first step in the study of Modernist finishes in Romania. This is an original step of the period after 1989 and, at the same time, a direct invitation to all parties involved in the field of construction and architecture to continue the investigations.
“The searches were determined by the personal interest for the historical texts of the city and by a concrete case of restoration in which I was involved. These have materialized, within the Pro Patrimonio Foundation, in a research adventure. The guide was born due to the lack of specialized documentation in the field of constructions in Romania that could provide information on the typology of inter-war plastering”. – architect Ruxandra Sacaliş, the author of the recipe guide.
The guide contains useful information, both theoretical and practical, about materials, ingredients, recipes, finishing techniques, decorative textures and work tools, common degradation. The Forgotten Textures: Inter-war Bucharest. Plastering recipe is intended for practical use and will be available in a small print series, but also in a digital version. Also, the recipe guide aims to be an instrument of awareness for the general public and specialists in the field in relation to the cultural and historical significance of inter-war plasters.
“The plastering recipe book of Ruxandra Sacaliş and the working team represents a very interesting and useful step for the restoration and maintenance of heritage built during the inter-war period. The honesty of the participating teams’ approach – masters and architects – develops a future extended process and a communication system adequate to give a real chance to a still surviving culture of the built Bucharest still has and that we can enrich. The experiment and the research can be done in small groups, with different professions which communicate well with each other. I invite you to try it, it is a chance for the future architectural textures that we all need. Attention, the domain is inexhaustible. ” – architect Şerban Sturdza, project manager.
A Pro Patrimonio Foundation Project
Project manager: architect Șerban Sturdza
Documenting coordinator: arch. Ruxandra Sacaliș
Practical workshop coordinator: Arch. Andreea Machidon
Photo documentation: architect Andrei Mărgulescu
Guide editor: Mirela Duculescu
Graphic Design: Mona Petre
A cultural project co-financed by AFCN. The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or how the results of the project can be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the beneficiary of the financing.
Partners: Cella Cosimex, The Institute for Speleology, Hasit, Node makerspace, MATER hall – Library of Materials, Theda Mar and the Technical University for Constructions, Bucharest.
Resources
Facebook event http://bit.ly/Tencuieli
Attached photos
Picture 01 – Collage of combed, polished, sharpened interwoven textures and decorative profile …. Photo credit: Andrei Mărgulescu
Picture 02 – Example Spread of the Guide Plaster Recipe
