Johannes Honterus

Competition: Rehabilitation and planning of Johannes Honterus Courtyard, Braşov.

2nd Place

Team: Alex Axinte, Cristi Borcan, Radu Leşevschi (studioBASAR), Bogdan Gyemant-Selin, Ioana Tudora, Diana Culescu, Mihai Culescu, Ioana Streza, Christian Voinescu (RPR Birou de Studii Contemporane), Claudiu Forgaci, Alexandru Tudose (renderings), Şerban Popescu-Criveanu, Mircea Crişan (restoration experts)
Location: Brasov, Romania
Period: 2011

Types of spaces - Council Square / Honterus Courtyard / Paul Richter Square

The space around Black Church in Brasov, compared to nearby Council Square (Piata Sfatului), is a private courtyard, but open to anyone, with a mixture of religious and educational functions, which gives it a domestic scale and an almost intimate atmosphere, intensified also by the particularity of urban forms and materials kept in place for hundreds of years.

Honterus Courtyard deploys today between grandeur on one side and modesty and simplity on the other, a natural thing taking into account its history and the values it represents.

One Courtyard … 7 Courtyards

This duality of the space will be emphasized by subordinating the interventions to the courtyard’s image structured in time, and by the series of spaces - Courtyards - activated and generated in the project. The individualized character of these courtyards is also determined by the way they work and the way they are arranged. A series of urban furniture objects provokes and intensifies the specific use of each courtyard, delimiting them, and at the same time letting the space to be fluid and continuous.

We propose to highlight the space generated and centered around The Black Church, like it’s “parallaxis”. By reconfiguration of the existing stone gutter, we get a halo effect of the church’s outline and a series of perimeters that highlights the church.

Proposal

The series of elements developed around the church defines in space Honterus Courtyard. We propose elements that besides their practical role have an educational and reminiscent one concerning the protestant church in general and Johannes Honterus’ naturalist activities in particular: flower stands with aromatic and medicinal herbs as learning objects for children from nearby school; inscriptions on the stone slab about Honterus’s research. Thus the urban furniture setting is an information and education system for children and adults alike.

Types of aromatic and medicinal herbs in the flower stands

Image from Small Courtyard towards The Black Church

Towards Council Square is an articulation space with its borderline on the path of the former separation wall. Although the visual link is still open, the new space is no longer orientated towards The Black Church, or a simple passage between the two main squares. It has its own identity: Small Courtyard. An educational role has the bronze model of the Honterus Courtyard located in this space. Also here is a bench / slab that recalls the user about the city’s weighing machine that was here.

Image form School Courtyard

Image of Honterus Courtyard from School Courtyard

In front of Honterus High school a space is highlighted in the pavement. This space, although it always has belonged to the courtyard, is dominated by the spatial practices of the students. We propose thus a differentiation of the two spaces, without separating them: School Courtyard and Honterus Courtyard. This separation is at the pavement level and also at the visual level by the introduction of a gigantic stone slab.

On the northern side of the courtyard a small wooden terrace, together with the wall / bench, delimitates church’s space from the Baritiu Street, without discouraging the access. The separation wall marks the Tree Courtyard, and becomes an access and info apparatus.

Another link between Honterus Courtyard and Baritiu Street is by opening the Stone Coutyard, an enclosed space with the character of a small open air museum, a gallery for the decoration stones collected around - a museum that reminds of the lost functions of the courtyard: Saxons Museum.

The Books Courtyard is a semi-open space determined by the presence of the antiquarian bookshop. Three new openings are made in the wall, inviting passerby inside the courtyard.

The Balcony Courtyard is a simple space, like an observation point, with isolated metal “armchairs”.

Water drainage system / Existing and proposed situation

The proposed intervention is integrated in the original river stone gutter system from 1884 and is a typological extension - the same kind of stone, but different in colour. The rain water drainage system’s logic is kept in the proposed intervention as a functional, structural and identity mechanism for Honterus Courtyard.

Pavement

We propose to keep the image and the texture of the existing gravel (using stabilized gravel), emphasizing this space from the adjacent mineral spaces.