The ”Urban Personality” of the Contemporary Romanian Society. Case Study: Bucharest

Author(s): Andreea Acasandre / Language(s): English Issue: 03+04/2015

The study of the city from a sociological perspective was developed at the beginning of the 20th century, in Germany and the USA. Louis Wirth was one of the members of the Chicago School, together with Burgess, Park, Drake and Clayton. Wirth (1938) relates, from a theoretical point of view, the physical space of the city to the way of life of its inhabitants. Through his work, he develops the theory of the “urban personality”, which presents the modern urban way of life as being fundamentally different from the rural one. The differences mentioned by him were related to the number of inhabitants of the city, the social heterogeneity and density of the population. These are the three components that distinguish the “urban way of life”. Starting from this theory of the “urban personality”, through this article, we seek to define the urban personality of Bucharest, the Capital of Romania, in the context of the contemporary mega-trends: globalization, increased mobility, environmental issues and the technological developments. Our research started from the urban personality, defined during the 1930s, by both Louis Wirth (Chicago School of Sociology) and Cincinat Sfinţescu (Romania). In the intent of bringing this concept into the contemporary post-modern society, we seek to understand its interwar significance and to update it by overlapping the layers that belong to the post-modern society, globalization, mobility, technology development and environmental issues, which made the concept of urban personality a more fluid one in comparison with the significance it had at the beginning of the 20th century. The article treats the “urban personality” throughout the 20th and 21st century, by applying it to the specific case of Bucharest, a city that suffered many transformations, sociologically and architecturally.

A first Attempt to Determine the Partial Factors According to Eurocodes for the Verification of ULS of Steel Elements for Conditions of the Republic of Belarus

Author(s): Vitali Nadolski,Viktar Tur / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

The aim of the study is to develop science-based methodology for estimation the values of the partialfactors for design of steel structures for the conditions of the Republic of Belarus, taking into account the specified values of reliability levels. The object of the study is steel structural elements. Methods:mathematical modeling, numerical and analytical methods, parametric and graphic analysis. In January 2010 European standards (EN standards, Eurocodes) for the design, fabrication and erection of building structures were introduced in the Republic of Belarus. The system of European standards (EN 1990) recognise the responsibility of regulatory authorities in each country and guarantee their right to determine values related to regulatory safety matters at national level. According to the reliability concept of building structures adopted in the standard ISO 2394, EN 1990 the target reliability levels for designed structures are set. It caused a necessity to calibrate the partial factors of steel structures for Belarusian National Annex to Eurocode 3 based on the target reliability level using probabilistic methods.

Influence of Heat Treatment Regimes on Mechanical Properties of NSC-UHPC Composite Members

Author(s): Tadas Zingaila,Mindaugas Augonis,Evaldas Šerelis,Šarūnas Kelpša,Deividas Martinavičius / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

The applicability of ultra-high performance concrete which has clearly better mechanical properties than ordinary concrete is one of the most common topics in civil engineering scientific papers. Due to the high price of this type of concrete in comparison with ordinary concrete, and the absence of design codes,practical application of this type of material is still very limited, especially in less developed countries.The idea of partial usage of UHPC in some kind of structures is being developed by other scientists (Habel 2004), however it is still the lack of information about curing conditions of composite members and shear bond strength between ordinary concrete and UHPC. In order to make reliable composite structures, it is very important to ensure sufficient interface strength. In this paper experimental data is presented, which was obtained from tests carried out by authors. The aim of experiments was to establish the influence of different heat treatment regimes on mechanical properties (including shear bond strength) of normal strength concrete and ultra-high performance concrete newly cast composite members. Bi-surface shear test method was used to determine the average shear bond strength. Three different curing regimes were analysed. It was observed from preliminary tests that after heat treatment UHPC achieved its final maturity,however ordinary concrete did not gain the same strength as concrete specimens which were cured in 20 °C water for 28 days. It is a possibility that shear bond strength of heat treated composite members was significantly reduced due to the large shrinkage deformations during the short period of time. The results presented in this paper make a significant contribution to supplement the limited information about possibilities to use normal strength concrete and UHPC in new NSC-UHPC composite structures.

Evaluation of Base Ground Stiffness on Statically Indeterminate Framed Building Structures

Author(s): Ignacio Villalon,Deividas Martinavičius,Mindaugas Gricius,Šarūnas Kelpša,Mindaugas Kasiulevičius / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of the modulus of subgrade reaction in statically indeterminate framed structures. In building’s design the interaction between ground and foundation can be modelled variously: using springs instead of supports, modelling the wholesale soil as finite elements, etc.The most common situation in practice is that the interaction is modelled using the springs. Nevertheless,there is not just one approved method to calculate it, and engineers use different methods, proposed by various authors. In practice the settlements of foundations are usually calculated and compared with the limit value. However, in some cases the impact of settlements is not taken into account on the analysis of the structure. During the design process, the number of boreholes is always limited. Therefore, the real situation cannot be considered exactly. As a result, unforeseen settlements may cause the considerable redistribution of internal forces, leading to the cracking or even to the failure of the structure.In this research, different calculation methods of modulus of subgrade reaction are presented. Most of these methods are adopted for the base of foundations consisted of one soil layer. Therefore, an evaluation proposal of the modulus of subgrade reaction for multi-layered soils, using the reviewed methods, is suggested. Using those methods, the modulus of subgrade reaction of soils of 4 specific boreholes were calculated and compared. Furthermore, internal forces of two-storied framed building were calculated and compared in two different cases. In the first case the calculations are performed considering the settlements of the foundations. The settlements are calculated using 2 particular geological situations. In the second case all supports are assumed to be rigid.

Inquiries on the Idea of Margins in the Theory of Architecture and Urban Planning

Author(s): Kazmer Kovacs / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

Marginal Theory. Restoring Poiēsis in Architecture

Author(s): Simina Anamaria Purcaru / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

The paper attempts to explore the margins in architecture in terms of theory, not as a theorization of the concept, but as an approach to a marginal theory - marginal, because, although meaningful to architecture in our times, it is still away from the mainstream: the poetics of architecture. There’s no lyric utopianism in it; as a matter of fact, it calls upon the Greek poiēsis as creative process. In this key, the text follows possible contemporary echoes in a critical inquiry of two peculiar architectural writings, arising from different times – the Renaissance and the present – but having a common feature – reinforcing the value of “making”: Filarete’s Trattato di Architettura (around 1464) and Christopher Alexander’s Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth (2012). Both writings – “construction diaries” of an ideal citadel and a college campus – address poiēsis, mimesis and praxis, as creative process, creative interpretation and practical life in the attempt of building living environments. Restoring poiēsis in architecture lies within the act of creation itself, questioning the idea of wholeness and the condition of the architect in relation to partners, beneficiaries and towards profession itself.

Making the Brain of the System Mad. Or Not. Critical Encounters between Marginal Practices and Their Narrated Self

Author(s): Valeria Federighi / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

Practices of architecture, which are by their very ambition marginal to the discipline – such as declaredly transgressive practices and practices that tackle the informal dimension of the built environment – are occasionally (though strategically) appropriated by the grand narrative of mainstream architectural discourse. The effect of this transition is twofold: on the one hand, it produces a consistent increase in the impact of these practices by virtue of their enhanced visibility; on the other, the contradictory side to challenging the discipline from within its boundaries is evident, as the paradox of dissidence is that its success is “secured by the annihilation of itself”. The paper will analyze two such instances of appropriation - the Patio and Pavilion installation at Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1956, and the Torre David/Gran Horizonte at the Venice Biennale in 2012, and unpack its effects both on the practices themselves and on the disciplinary discourse.

Informal Structures. A Eulogy to Making

Author(s): Luísa Alpalhão / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

With the proliferation of participatory architectural interventions over the past decades (Blundell Jones, 2005) an emergence of constructions with a DIY aesthetics has converted an otherwise marginal style into a familiar and accepted form of alternative beauty (see the works of raumlabor, Marjetica Potrč, atelier d’architecture autogerée, amongst others). The use of reclaimed everyday materials, re-invented in unexpectedly creative ways triggered a new design language that reflects the current period of uncertainty and scarcity of resources. This paper will look into the analogy between, on the one hand, contemporary vernacular constructions that emerge from need and result in inventive, pragmatic constructions of unique beauty, responsive to specific geographical and social contexts (Coxito, 2014) and faithful to the available materials and skills of those who make them, as illustrated in Álvaro Domingues’ documentation of marginal constructions across Portugal, and on the other hand, contested constructed spaces of resilience that embed the everyday life practices (de Certeau 1984) of those who co-produce them along with architects and artists. The paper will investigate both the formal and material qualities of these two types of constructions (intuitive or premeditated) and their social role in nurturing creative environments by re-restoring the desire to work with one’s own hands (Sennett, 2008; Ingold, 2013).

Analogous Urbanism as Discourse. Robert Adam and Urban Space in Contemporary Split

Author(s): Ivana Vlaić,Ana Šverko / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

Through an analysis of the consonances between the architecture and urban design of the Late Antique Diocletian’s Palace in Split, and the architecture that drew upon it in neoclassical London (including the Adelphi Terrace of Robert Adam and Somerset House of Sir William Chambers), the Croatian urban planner Ivana Šverko developed a considered account of the role of urban space in underdeveloped and peripheral areas of contemporary Split. Šverko’s collected ideas are characteristically original, and distinct from the kind of research usually based in an analysis of architectural and urban planning typology. In this paper we follow, and endeavour to develop further, her distinctive approach. Robert Adam (1728-1792) appropriated the architectural philosophy of Diocletian’s Palace that he had explored on the ‘peripheral’ shores of the Adriatic, and transposed many of its qualities into his British designs. In this paper, we apply his interpretation of this hybrid, adaptable building to urban landscapes on the periphery of Split. By pursuing Adam’s interpretation of the Palace, an architectural reading that stemmed from his five-week stay in Split during his European Grand Tour (1754-1758) and was published in the Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia (London, 1764), we identify an archetype of urban design that can be used in reflections upon the urban space of contemporary Split. This archetype will be elucidated in two specific environments on the edge of town, both of which were created during the second half of the twentieth century. One of these spaces was illegally built, unplanned, and self-organised; the other was built according to established principles of urban plan and design, but without any proper articulation of urban space in relation to its physical and functional urban contexts. In this paper we test out our experience of the marginalised urban space within contemporary Split through two methodological approaches: the historical and the empirical. Our objective is to indicate opportunities for the identification and foregrounding of the hidden qualities of urban spaces created by runaway development (that is, spaces formulated without the benefit of architects or town planners) but as a result of the immediate needs of the inhabitants.

“A Fabulous Painting in which I Would Live” Paul Delvaux’s Pictorial Poetic of the Railway Periphery between Art and Urban History

Author(s): Cristina Purcar / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

This article investigates the construction of marginal railway cityscapes in the painting of the Belgian artist Paul Delvaux (1897-1994). Marginal sources like art and literary history may provide unexpected insights into architectural and urban history. Likewise, a marginal, urban-historical reading of Delvaux’s oeuvre might cross-fertilize art-historical interpretations. It might highlight how his artistic vision critically evaluated urban reality by distilling strong iconographic statements, painterly parti pris, which may, at their turn, influence individual or collective cultural perceptions of architecture and the city. We argue that Delvaux’s work both contributes towards and expresses the emergence of a taste for the industrial and the minor urban heritage, just like the eighteenth-century capricci painters, such as Pannini, Piranesi, Hubert or Guardi famously contributed to the dissemination of a taste for Antiquity. It is during the late 1950s and the 1960s that Delvaux creates a particular body of railway-inspired work, rendering the railway periphery poetically, as a place of revelation and enchantment. Delvaux’s paintings anticipate, inspire and profoundly resonate with the interest of the post-war literary avant-gardes in the poetry of banality. The contrast between the major railway works going on in central Brussels and Delvaux’s contemporary painting is read as an intentional reaction to the dialectics between (urban) history and historicity. By sublimating the railway landscape of the periphery into dream-like, poetic images, Delvaux foretells, and subtly resonates with, the emergence in the 1960s - 1970s of the post-war urban conservation movement, wherein Belgium and Brussels played a key role.

On the Nation’s Margins. Territorial and Urban Policies during the Romanian Administration of Southern Dobrudja (1913-1940)

Author(s): Toader Popescu / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

Southern Dobrudja (the “Cadrilater”) was granted to Romania in 1913, after the Second Balkan War. During the almost three decades of Romanian administration, the authorities embarked on an ambitious colonization and nation-building process. In just twenty-seven years, the share of Romanian population soared from only 2.3% in 1913 to 29.1% in 1940. The paper looks into this dramatic demographic shift and into its territorial aspects. It investigates the instrumental role played by territorial and urban policies in the Romanian project of integrating (both symbolically and functionally) this marginal province within the narratives and the structures of the Romanian nation. Our conclusion is that, even though this enterprise started on good premises, and although the central authorities in Bucharest did extensively use territorial and urban policies as nation-building tools, a combination of internal and external factors (among which marginality – both geographic and imaginary – was crucial) led to the ultimate failure of the project.

Cities of Transylvania and the 1921 Agrarian Reform. Negotiations and Decisions Halfway Between Administrative Autonomy and Centralization

Author(s): Diana Mihnea / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

During the interwar period, the agrarian reform had a major impact on the cities of Transylvania, leading not only to drastic reductions of the communal estates, but also, in some cases, to massive expansions of the urban areas. The decisions that generated these changes were taken by specially constituted bodies; in many cases, that happened without any regard to the cities’ development plans, and without the municipalities’ approval. Thus, the first interwar decade was characterized by great turmoil, as the authorities of at least 23 cities challenged these decisions in court. Since the agrarian legislation of Transylvania was issued shortly after the Union, during a transitional phase, when the region was semi-autonomous, the authorities in Bucharest had not been aware of the situation until 1925. The gap between local and central administrative institutions during the first years after the Great Union and a series of deficiencies of the agrarian legislation allowed for the advancement of a decision-making process that had profound implications on Transylvanian cities, and for which there were no legal control mechanisms. The cities of Transylvania found themselves in a marginal, ambiguous position: no longer autonomous and not fully adopted by the administrative system of Romania.

Architectural Pluralism at the Edges. The Visual Eclecticism of Medieval Monastic Churches in Eastern Europe

Author(s): Alice Isabella Sullivan / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

Throughout the medieval and early modern periods, the regions around the Carpathian Mountains and the northern parts of the Balkan Peninsula stood at the margins of both the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. While at the crux of various cultural and spiritual realms— Western European, Byzantine, Slavic, and even Islamic—select elements from distinct artistic traditions shaped the architectural vocabularies of local monuments to surprising results. This is especially evident in the monastic churches (or katholika) of the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries from regions such as Serbia, Bulgaria, and the Romanian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. This article considers the compound visual and architectural vocabularies of select katholika built under princely patronage in Eastern European zones of generative creativity during the medieval period that reflect contemporary dynamics of cultural contacts in certain regions, and also demonstrate the delicate dialogue between the visual and the political dimensions of princely patronage in the ecclesiastical sphere at key historical moments. The analysis relies on the formal features of the monastic churches and their spatial articulations, as it seeks to demonstrate that stylistic pluralism persisted, to various degrees, in the architecture of Eastern European churches, and katholika in particular, well into the sixteenth century.

Monumental Marginalia. Borders of Space and Authority in Contemporary Australia

Author(s): Monique Webber / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

In the early 1980s the Australian city of Melbourne asserted its cultural authority with a redesigned city square. To complete the new urban architecture, Ron Robertson-Swann created Vault. With its vaulted steel structure, the sculpture’s blurring of art and architecture epitomised the cultural optimism of its space. Its role as architectural complement was, however, short-lived. Following an unprecedented public outcry at its challenging form, Vault was removed from the city centre and repeatedly relocated at its fringe. An object initially designed to ornament architecture, the sculpture came to define its original and subsequent spaces. As liminal spaces acquired an object that was not designed for them, their identities were altered by its presence. Disconnected from its original architectural context, Vault in turn strayed from its intended function as a sculpture to assume a marginal history as a monument. As the debate over Vault’s relationship with space deepened, this ‘monumental marginalia’ entered Melbourne’s cultural dynamics. The sculpture/architecture, exiled to the urban periphery, became a device for exploration of place and identity. Through the history of Vault and its architectural and artistic reception, this article inquires into who defines the boundaries of urban architectural discipline, authority, and identity.

Architecture as a Margin within the Negotiation between Reality and Utopia

Author(s): Giacomo Pala / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

In this paper an attempt is made to define “margin” from a disciplinary standpoint. First, “generic” design is identified as the characteristic of cities where real estate proliferates freely. Therefore, the essay pinpoints historical attempts of using the notion of the margin as a tool enabling the development of a radical alternative to the generic. Consequently, a number of artistic and architectural projects are discussed (Superstudio’s “Continuous Monument” and Rem Koolhaas’ “Exodus”). In these projects architecture is itself a margin, a boundary: a mega-shape that functions as a limit between reality and utopia. Still, these projects may seem to escape from reality, being daydreams. This leads the paper to investigate the possibility of Architecture to be a margin that negotiates utopia with reality. Such a possibility is spotted in projects such as the Barbican Centre in London: complex structures that use the margin as a tool for negotiating the utopia of an ideal world and the capitalist generic city. Several specific studies (among which Banham, Jencks, Aureli and Šklovskij) are introduced in order to propose a theory for architecture as margin. Finally, a number of questions are introduced in relation to the possibility of architecture understood as margin.

Protest and Marginalized Urban Space. 1968 in West Berlin

Author(s): Laura Bowie / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

This paper will explore the dynamic interface between politics, urban planning, architecture and culture, during the 1968 student protests in walled West Berlin. As a city that lost its function as a capital and its place at the forefront of global politics, the marginalised city, surrounded by the communist East, became place where new ideas about Germany’s identity were trialled and contested. In 1968, students held an exhibition that condemned current construction activities as being anti-social and reflective of greater issues within German society. In brief, the students condemned the zoning of the city, the denial of the past, the displacement of tenants into satellite settlements, and the destruction of nineteenth century tenements. The students campaign caused the remote Märkisches Viertel estate to become a ‘symbolic battleground for a struggle over the values of the modern city’. Thus the reflective connection between society at large and the urban environment was forged. This paper will bring into focus the dynamic and symbiotic relationship between protest and urban space, and demonstrate how the heated issues inherent in West Berlin at the time were both played out and mapped onto the marginalised spaces of the walled city.

Hubert Damisch, Noah’s Ark. Essays on Architecture

Author(s): Christophe Van Gerrewey / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

Elisabeth Axmann, Wege, Städte – Erinnerungen

Author(s): Kazmer Kovacs / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

Ilinca Paun Constantinescu, curator, Shrinking Cities în România. Between Reality and realities – an exhibition

Author(s): Liviu Ianăși / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

Record of Studies and Projects of the Department of History & Theory of Architecture and Heritage Conservation, 2015–2016

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016