In Between Bucureşti
Authors: Alex Axinte, Cristi Borcan, Lucian-Sandu Milea
Period: August 2012
In Between Bucureşti is a healing manifesto of Urban Magic that brings back the love for the city, meets contradictions, unties ideological charms, provides remedies for daily cohabitation, removes negative energies, dreams the future by asking the recent history, and speculating on the immediate present through visits and on site surveying, through axonometric projections, writings or by word of mouth. In Between Bucureşti removes the disadvantages and turns them into advantages, tells about suspended places, and about the potential where everything is possible and nothing is sure yet. In Between Bucureşti also provides urban remedies for deficiency of utopia, for the fear of dreams, for exploring the city and for confidence in the future. If you have such problems don’t hesitate to contact the In Between Bucureşti, as problems will be resolved even from the distance, GUARANTEED.
Winter trails - After demolition and before the construction, the heaviest snow in the last 58 winters fallen on Bucharest. Snow settled over the whole city, over the houses and streets, and over the potholes and debris from Buzeşti-Berzei area, and it covered and leveled the site works, transforming the area into a plain landscape with hills and houses in the distance. Between the remaining buildings, in an atmosphere of the early world, snow recorded traces, crossings and transitions, joined in an ephemeral network of daily links that redesigned instantly and shy the possibilities of a disappeared and promised neighborhood.
Bazaar - From the columns to the McDonald’s is full of people entering and coming out of the subway, waiting for the bus, taking taxis, standing in front of the fast food, showing off their motorbikes, coming and going from school, movies, the bars or the bank, stopping by the shops or just hanging around. Especially in December and March, the area suddenly fills up with stands, folding tables and umbrellas, tents and shaky stalls, all piled into each other like in a corridor in a market, where if you enter at one end you have to line up to go to the other and you have to involuntary evaluate all sorts of odds and ends, trinkets, cards, little monkeys or inflatable hearts, accompanied by rushing people, vendors and horns.
Circus in park - In 2011, the land where the State Circus’s menagerie was, and where the animals got out for their daily walks or rehearsals, was returned to the former owners who requested the eviction, a part of the animals, like the felines, the lamas and the horses being moved temporarily to Tei-Toboc area from where they commute to shows and rehearsals. The other animals remained housed in the annex building, from where the elephant is sometimes taken for a walk around the building and washed in the alleyway with a hose. Meanwhile 11,000 square meters of the park were given for five years for the use of The Circus and were surrounded by a metal fence, some Caucasus camels being moved already there. Park lights are lit at night, benches, alleys and rubbish bins are temporarily useless, and into the alleys blocked by metal fence people gather to see the camels, all being in an unlikely cohabitation.
New TNB - The building of the new National Theater of Bucharest was built in the early ’70s, and modified and extended in the 80s after Ceausescu’s desire, using as examples 1:1 scale models of facades. In time, cultural centers, art galleries, bars and clubs have found their places in the new spaces created between the old and the new facade. In 2011 works began to return to the old form of the theater from the ’70s, and the demolition of the new extension of the ’80s and the eviction of the institutions operating in the newly built strip. Temporary-but-permanent, the building now waits for the new shape, the old one form the ’70s, until it will maybe return to the new one form the ’80s, or to a even newer one.
Fair in the lake - During winter, in Moghioroş park, the fair is set up on the cemented bottom of the lake in the shape of the ’60s kidneys. Rotating machine, crashed cars, jumping nets, farm animals, stalls with sweets, all climb down in the water drained lake and people fill the place. Thus, until the coming of spring, the fun time descends into the dried up lake, while the boats are waiting turned upside down.
The Four - For the first time in the last century and half, the University statues were moved temporarily in 2011 during works on underground parking and have been relocated in Izvor Park, at the end of an alley that crosses the park towards the side entrance of The House of the People. In the park they were placed in a new, but temporary place, looking for the first time face to face. One Sunday in May 2012, The Four have started their way back along Unirii Avenue, crossing Unirii Square, and going along Bratianu Avenue until they reached the University, where they were placed on sites only a little different from the old.
The project In Between Bucureşti is the contribution of Alex Axinte and Cristi Borcan (studioBASAR) together with Sandu Milea Lucian (graphic design) at the editorial project Soft Utopias, coordinated by Atelier MASS, in the framework of Arhitext magazine nr. 4/2012 (224).