HISTORY
EXHIBIT ARCHITECTURE is a studio founded in 2007, that aims to create and form a critical thinking regarding the quality of works and initiatives, combating architecture that generates harmful and unprofessional practices.
ROMANIAN DESIGN WEEK APPEARANCES
2016 // Single Family House
2015 // Cismigiu Humanitas Bookshop
2015 // Humanitas Bookshop in Brasov
2015 // Humanitas Bookshop in Ploiesti
EXHIBIT ARCHITECTURE is a studio founded in 2007, that aims to create and form a critical thinking regarding the quality of works and initiatives, combating architecture that generates harmful and unprofessional practices.
ROMANIAN DESIGN WEEK APPEARANCES
2016 // Single Family House
The strong architectural move that shapes this single family dwelling in the city of Brașov is actually meant to solve a basic contradiction in needs: the wish for privacy required an alignment to the street (solved by the ground floor), while good light exposure of both the interior spaces and the courtyard asked for the displacement of the upper floor towards the North-West part of the plot. The rotation also creates richer spaces and a smoother transition from public to private, while the controlled fragmentation and combination of materials fits the scale of the peripheral neighborhood and playfully answers its quite eclectic character.
At no other EXHIBIT Arhitectura project, have there been so many solutions offered as in this case. All of the proposals have tried to respond with a powerful idea to a big neutral space. All of these solutions were inevitably becoming more important than what they were supposed to accommodate initially, barely resolving one or another of the many pressing functional problems of a bookshop from which a lot was expected, an extremely flexible space to host events, a cultural pole that wished to revitalize a declining area of Bucharest.
This eclectic project resulted from an overlapping of simple gestures: heavy ceramic objects arranged with their hollow side towards the exterior, a layer of white paint across all surfaces that unifies different materials and textures, overlaid by golden graphics created by architect Razvan Luscov, furniture with a delicate silhouette and an ensemble of mobile elements which allow a rapid transformation and reorganization of space. Last, but not least, the most important gesture are the lighting fixtures created by sculptor Virgil Scripcariu.
2015 // Humanitas Bookshop in Brasov
The Humanitas bookshop from Brasov is situated on the southern side of Sfatului Square, right near the Black Church.The building which hosts the library on its ground floor is known as Albrich-Niemesch house, one of the oldest buildings in Brasov, dated as far back as 1566 by a stone slab found in its underground floor. In the late decades, this patrimony building has had a lot to suffer, being caught in a retrocession process, which ended with The Evangelic Church from Brasov being declared its rightful owner and thus being given a new destiny, that of cultural centre: on the ground floor, a library; on the first floor, a museum consisting of church related exhibits; in the attic, an art gallery which hosts temporary exhibitions; and, in the inner courtyard, the terrace of a literary cafe. The building, which was in an advanced state of degra-dation, underwent a scrupulous process of consolidation and restitution which ended with it be-ing reintegrated in the functional circuit of Sfatului Square.
Situated in an old patrician house, with arched volumes and recovered mural paintings, the space dictated the design concept to preserve the beauty and finesse of the house. Forms familiar to the house, inspired by passed times, but crafted in modern materials, have been used when conceiving the furniture. The furniture responds to the particularity of the rooms, creating distinct environments fit for each space, while it also supports the lighting fixtures, thus keeping the beautifully arched ceilings free for display.
The Humanitas bookshop from Brasov has a surface of over 200sqm, four rooms, a cafe and a special room – a museum room presenting the history of the building and a round table of gift books.
2015 // Humanitas Bookshop in Ploiesti
When reshaping a space, any architect wishes his/her intervention to be more than just a good design of objects and of decorative items. In its intervention, Exhibit Arhitectura sought to change the character of the library and present its new personality to the world. In front of the library, there is a portico currently clutched by the tables and chairs of a neighboring restaurant. The initial concept was to open up the library to this interesting space through removable display windows and shelves on wheels that would animate the portico. However, the reclaiming of this interesting space proved to be legally impossible.
Therefore, the concept had to be reshaped accordingly. Deciding not renounce completely on the library’s extension towards the portico, a medium height furniture artwork was created alongside the shop window, including reading spots which allow a visual extension of the library towards the exterior space. In the end, it may be that the final solution was more suitable that the one initially envisaged: the library did not have to undergo a schizoid process of a total change of personality. The rest of the story is design.
