Reconstructing the deconstructed path of Romanian Vernacular Heritage-BA Architecture Dissertation

fig. 1 Traditional House (Stanuica, 2019)

What is the vernacular heritage?

National vernacular heritage has been part of each country’s identity and has resonated with the morals of the society (CONSTANTIN and PAVEL, 2019). The ICOMOS Charter-International Charter of Monuments and Sites, defines it in the Built Vernacular Heritage in 1999 as being “ the traditional and natural way by which communities house themselves. It is a continuing process including necessary changes and continuous adaptation as a response to social and environmental constraints.”(Going Beyond, 2015) The reason why it has always been a critical item of everyone’s inspiration is that it has always shocked people that such a simple, hands-on built product can have a more remarkable outcome than the result of modern technologies and ways of building both in terms of durability and sustainability as well as unique aesthetics. Understanding the built heritage is fundamental in understanding both sociologic and anthropogenic

factors that have led to the present outcome. Unfortunately, these vernaculars have been endangered by the high tendency of homogenisation of the world’s cultures both architecturally and economically.

would lead the way to the house where I was the princess of my grandparents. I grew up understanding that every plant or insect has a soul and needs to be respected and adored, and so I learned how to use nature to craft different traditional things. Once I moved to London, memories of my childhood in the countryside that were long forgotten started to unfade. Fragmented recollections of the daily activities I used to do with my grandparents started gaining another meaning to me, one closer to my heart. However, this idyllic childhood image of the perfect place started having tones of gray. Slowly, I started understanding how the village traditions, crafts, and houses were getting lost in the trace of time. The impact of emigration has taken shape rapidly.

In light of recent events such as the pandemic and financial and energy crisis, the spirit of what we call in modern times

Cottage Core - a newly developed aesthet-

Down the memory lane

The political tensions that have affected the countries in the Eastern Bloc have also dramatically changed the rural world, irreversibly diminishing the existence of traditional crafts. Navigating from the city to the idyllic Romanian villages, the marks the communism has left are more than visible. As a child, you do not really realise what is happening around you or how the smallest things will play such an essential part in your adult life. Like many kids in Romania, as soon as the school would have ended in summer, we would hop in our parents’ car and slowly transcend into the world of all possibilities. The sad figures of the communist blocks of flats would disappear, and a realm of happiness would start slowly shaping itself. The poetical perfection of the natural landscapes

ic in design magazines that promotes the idyllic traditional countryside houses, has regained its forgotten meaning, as an effort to lead a simpler, happier life (Francu and Ghenciulescu, 2021). It is the architect’s duty to transform the urban-rural migration into a smooth process that would allow both the rural community and the ‘strangers’ to overlap softly without causing any disruption in the course of their lives. A recent Forbes article highlights that people that have moved to the countryside might consider staying indefinitely outside the cities due to the multiple benefits of leading a traditional life such as creating a circular economy, not being necessarily affected as much by the ongoing energy crisis or the living crisis major cities are facing as well as maintaining the wellbeing and tackling health issues caused by urban living such as intolerances and allergies due to the consumption of processed foods.

(Farrer, 2022)

fig. 2 My classmates and I during a school trip learning the craft of traditional pottery (Unknown, n.d.)

fig 3. Kids playing near the road to my grandparents village (Stanuica, 2016)

fig.4 Lake hill in the village (Stanuica, 2020) fig. 5 My grandfather’s bees (Stanuica, 2022) fig. 6 The village (Stanuica, 2020)

fig. 7 Port by the Danube (Stanuica, 2020) fig. 8 Grandmother’s tomatos (Stanuica, 2022) fig. 9 The Danube beach in the village (Stanuica, 2022)

My aim

In my dissertation, I am going to create a brief radiography of the current situation regarding our vernacular heritage, by analysing the factors that have led to the situation of the disappearing traditional crafts in Romania and I will investigate how we can preserve them, by using methods of designing deeply rooted in the history to achieve architecture that answers to our modern needs such as using naturally crafted materials. Romanian traditional crafts are starting to get more and more promoted by different associations or international names such as King Charles—founder of a heritage preservation programme in Romania through the Prince’s Foundation, thanks to his passion for our country, funding different initiatives focusing on artisan work and vernacular heritage. (The Prince’s Foundation,n.d.)

However, there is still a big part of the real inhabitants of the Romanian villages who have denied their authentic properties for so many years as a response to the high rate of emigration the country has suffered after the fall of communism. People faced the need to move abroad and earn money that they could send back to their native villages in a desperate attempt to build grand houses to make up for the lack of possessions in the communist period. The main trauma transmitted generationally in Romanian culture post-revolution is the fear of having less to show off than your neighbour, so slowly the traditional morals are transformed into a marathon of demonstrating how well you are doing (Dumitru, 2022). This has further led to the deruralisation and negative modernisation of the villages that resulted in the loss of connection with the traditional values that have so long been the core of Romanian culture. In his short documentary “Pride and concrete’’, Petruţ Călinescu is trying to investigate the potential reasons behind the “round houses’’ built

by the people that have gone abroad to work and have brought money back to their families. He focuses on the phenomena that has emerged in Tara Oasului, a part of the Romanian region of Maramures when 70 villagers left in the winter of 1997 to work in Paris to sustain their families that were struggling after the revolution facing really rough conditions both on the way there and when they had arrived, not having a right to work or live in the country because they didn’t have any legal papers. They have endured horrific circumstances, starved, and shared flats with loads of other people just so they could send money back to the country where slowly any shape of vernacular architecture was transformed into a concrete soulless structure. (Calinescu, n.d.)

fig. 12 Old house in Transylvaia slowly decaying (Iabrasu, 2023)

fig. 10 Moieseni, Tara Oasului, The elders’ house is attached to the duplex built by their nefews gone to work in France (Calinescu, 2013)

fig.11 Montmagny, France, The way they have to live in the suburbs of Paris because they can’t afford rent (Calinescu, 2013)

fig. 13 Old house in Oltenia slowly decaying (Stanuica, 2022)

BEFORE THE CHANGE

PA S

TTHEThe space of the traditional countryside where all of these crafts have emerged from has been seen throughout history as a ‘canvas on which every movement, ideology, political bloc, and individual revolutionary projected their own intentions’(Rem Koolhaas, Office For Metropolitan Architecture and Guggenheim, 2020, pp.2–3). For almost three decades now society has been only going towards one singular ideology: a metropolitan, capitalist, over gentrified, and western expectation.

To be able to better understand the situation of the traditional space in Romania we have to first analyse the events that have led to the disappearance of the crafts for so many decades. The communist period has been the trigger button of the modernisation of the rural forms of inhabitation as it has represented the moment of economical and technological change. For example, if traditionally the houses would be built as a collective project between multiple people-relatives and neighbours, willing to help from a certain village, transforming the process into an occasion to socialise, eat, drink, and have a good time whilst working, with the modernisation of the building techniques brought by the communist party, the culture of this form of work deeply rooted in centuries of anthropologic heritage started fading away. The villager that traditionally was crafting shoes or would build houses lost his craftsman’s name due to the expansion of the market and the change of political economy from simple traditional agriculture to collectivisation during the communist time and capitalist aftermath (Cosma,n.d.). At the moment the traditional Romanian village is facing an unprecedented crisis finding itself at the thin border between a romanticised realm and practical abandonment, struggling to reenact its lost sense of identity that has been the core of the culture and history of the country (Badescu, 2019, pp.285–326).

Prior to 1948 the year when the nationalisation process has started due to the instalment of the Communist regime after the forced abdication and exile of King Michael, artisans would initially sell their goods when going into rich people’s houses and later on developed to either selling them in markets either in the small shops that they would have in their houses, in the room closer to the street so people could access it. Once the collectivisation has started, these merchants were highly affected. (Chiripuci, 2019)

fig. 14 The Obor Market- the most important artisan market at the time (Istorie pe scurt, 2014)

ARCHITECTURA’ S COVERS THROUGHOUT THE YEARS

Fig. 24 Page from ‘Architectura’ s issue in 1991 showing the interest for nonindustrial design and crafts

fig 25 Page from ‘Architectura’ s issue in 1991 showing the interest for nonindustrial design and crafts

fig 26 Page from ‘Architectura’ s issue in 1990 showing the interest for nonindustrial design and crafts

1906 19311933 1956

1957 1962, no.1 1962, no. 2

Introduction

The previously mentioned documentary ‘Pride and concrete’ that has aired in 2013 is frankly showcasing the result of the migration phenomena that widely happened after the fall of the communist regime. They highlight that the Romanian diaspora tends to show off their possessions by demolishing the rustic homes inherited generationally and building these monstrous concrete buildings in an attempt to prove their social status within the community that has been influenced to regard traditionally crafted houses as signs of poverty (Calinescu, 2013). The documentary is showing the moving image of the elders left behind, growing old alone and having to watch the concrete palaces raising. This phenomenon of mass emigration has had a great impact on the sense of identity of people in this position, giving them dilemmas that are clearly materialised in the chaotic building of these houses as well as in the need of showing off their expensive cars. The new generations call this process the “ Concrete nightmare’’, feeling obliged to stick to the style and rhythm of building back in their villages. The vernacular methods that have fascinated the world have now been transformed into “mammoths of concrete’’ that might sometimes present a remaining fragment of a forgotten house.

The new market that has been created implies bringing in professionals that would know how to use the new desired techniques for building with concrete, and modern foundations making it harder and more expensive to build a house. Even if within the family there are some professionals that are able to help with the construction, the relationship is not one of interdependence between the relatives but one that enables the capitalist market to progress in conformity with the report between demand and offer.

(Cosma,n.d.)

ISSUES

Another problematic that is reflected upon the desire of preserving the remained heritage at the moment is that many people that have inherited the “old house’’- a term that stands for the grandparents’ house, built in a traditional manner- are still in the diaspora so the owner abandons the house because it is more profitable than to fly back to the country and waste their time solving the issue with the papers and documents they need to have in order to be able to sell the house. This leads to the damage of the heritage due to the slow process of destruction the abandoned houses go through. (Vaida, 2022). An alternative way the people that don’t see the value of their inheritance are solving the issue of their abandoned houses is funnily or not, through Facebook groups where they have been trying to sell the houses to people that are interested in restoring the vernacular. The majority of people do not believe in their values and yet still aspire to live the American Dream. (Iancu, 2022)  fig. 28 Tara Oasului and the ‘Concrete Nightmare’

(Ioana Calinescu, n.d.)

Paradoxically, this process goes hand in hand with the attempt of ‘Ethno revival’, an identity narrative that is trying to celebrate the village universe along with the traditional processes that have crafted the happiness and well-being of the people for centuries until the rapid evaporation of the rural environment (Cosma, 2022). The pandemic has represented a key triggering factor of the change in people’s mentality towards the traditional countryside as Eugen Vaida-president of the Ambulance for monuments association- underlines, people have started to move from the city in an effort to overcome the claustrophobic feeling of city flats. Moreover, the economical and energy crisis have led people with no chance but to look back at the traditional crafts that could help them ease the pain of the taxes. Talking to Razvan Iancu, a well-known rustic fireplace craftsman he explains what the situation at the moment is. People have slowly realised they can switch from modern to traditional ways of heating that are sustainable, durable, and aesthetically pleasing. (Iancu, 2022)

Unfortunately, the people that see the value of heritage are still a minority due to the lack of education for decades on the matter. However, it is now visible that a lot of progress was made in the sense of creating associations that raise awareness of preserving national crafts and educating people of all ages. The Romanian Order of Architects composed a three-step initiative programme: a guide that shows HOW we should build, and reform accordingly to the rural environment and location, an online map that shows WITH WHO we can work, linking the clients- architects, engineers, and other practitioners- to the craftsmen, as well as supporting 11 summer schools across the country that focus on providing specialist knowledge on crafting that doesn’t necessarily answer to a question but represents a necessity for the practical formation of students but also a platform for the intergenerational connection of people that work in the domain. (Vaida, 2022)

fig. 29 Abandoned house in my grandparent’s village (Stanuica, 2020)

fig. 30 The map of various kinds of artisanal experts (OAR.n.d.)

fig. 31 The summer schools for crafts and restorations (OAR.n.d.)

fig. 32 One of the craftsman showing his work (Onisor, 2022)

However, when they have started putting together the map they had to overcome a range of difficulties such as the GDPR and the fear of getting caught by the police because a lot of the craftsmen do not meet the right terms for practicing legally so they are not a part of the official list but rather a separate one that is not published (Vaida, 2022). The widespread lack of professionals and the high price of having vernacular projects have led the people that came back to these ways of building to become craftsmen themselves which somehow makes sense when talking about traditional crafts in the rural world making a point of how hands-on work is for everyone and clearly positively impacts the wellbeing.

When interviewing architect Ileana Mavrodin she explains how the issue lies within the mentality that is still existing in some people’s minds that do not understand the treasure our heritage could offer and it is still more appreciated by foreigners such as the famous documentary maker Charles Ottley or King Charles. People tend to run away from traditional crafts and methods of building because it seems for them to be easier to use modern techniques in order to achieve faster results. The materials are indeed cheaper to make, but not as durable or sustainable. What they need to realise is that working with naturally found materials and chemically alternating has immediately such a great impact on the carbon footprint, as well as using less machinery and more hands-on techniques. (Mavrodin, 2022)

fig. 33 Students volunteering and learning restoration methods in one of the summer schools (The Institute, 2022)

fig. 34 House made by Ileana Mavrodin (Miklaus, 2019)

fig. 35 Making a cob house workshop with Ileana Mavrodin (Miklaus, 2019)

Reading an article from the magazine “Architectura’’ from 1906, the author states that ‘’the art is one of the highest beliefs of a society, the art represents the only tangible proof of the past, to negate the art of your country is to negate your nation and its past, to despise the art means to despise your ancestors…’’ it makes me realise that it comes in opposition with most of the peoples’ desires in Romania. Most of them have such a big desire for luxurious kitch that it becomes the subject of exploitation for property developers such as one of the biggest firms One Property United that doesn’t fail in delivering monstrous buildings that pretend to connect the community but only gentrify the landscapes and have nothing to do with any Romanian heritage value. Covering it up with greenwashing, fake community engagement such as philanthropic activity that makes no sense in a bigger image, they manage to attract people that are still obsessed with western life, alongside with working hand in hand with corrupt institutions that give them planning applications for buildings that do not respect the actual regulations.

However, there are also happy examples of integrating Romanian vernacular heritage in the modern environment such as the Restaurant POT stories in Bucharest with interiors by KraftMade that managed to achieve an amazing iteration of traditional crafts in the urban setting raising awareness on the fading existence of Romanian artisanal design, as well as other initiatives such as Delta Craft. They all use he same method of practice- learning the craftsmanship from locals or elders.

ONE TOWER- a massive monster of glass that gentrifies the area

ONE Properties has promised to preserve this heritage building, however they have destroyed it.

fig.39 POT Stories (Tintu, 2021)

fig. 38 One of the interiors created in POT Stories using traditional crafts (Stanuica, 2022)

fig. 37 Delta Craft learning crafts from locals

fig. 36 One Properties’new development (Unknown, 2023)

Although the future seems to have a bright side because more and more people are inclined towards the preservation of heritage there are still a lot of steps to be made.

Legally, the state and other cultural institutions need to create or modify the laws to enable local craftsmen to have a good environment to practice their profession.

Firstly, knowing that one of the main issues we are dealing with is that a lot of craftsmen are working without declaring because they are afraid they do not have the right certifications and money to pay the taxes of a legal framework. It is already hard for them to sustain themselves in an era where the market is still undeveloped, so going legal would only amplify the stress of a variable income (Iancu, 2022). Eugen Vaida stresses that the issue of working without certifications comes from the overspread mentality that there is no point in trying to achieve them if there are no extra benefits since we still live in a capitalist society where everyone is inclined to choose the easier way of making money. As a response, both he and Razvan Iancu propose a solution. The state should help the people that have been through these professional examinations for their crafts to create their own firms as well as campaign to raise awareness on the importance of supporting traditional local crafts that are part of our national identity because, at the end of the day, even the client that is educated to look for these sort of rustic approaches would still prefer choosing a cheaper illegal practice rather than paying more for the accredited craftsman that needs to pay taxes (Vaida, 2022).

A change in how these locally manufactured things are seen would have a great impact on the local economy because the market is still untamed hence the unaffordability of handmade products. As soon as the demand changes then the offer will change, and that will come from small scales to larger ones such as making the restoration of a building cheaper than building it from scratch (Vaida, 2022).

Talking about the education of the population there is a lot that can be improved. Since professional schools are a disappearing subject, there is a lack of knowledge regarding crafts at a national level on both expertise and acknowledgment of their existence. In terms of professional performance, the National Institute of Heritage and Formation could be focused on enabling workshops that would help the practitioners acquire the skills and formation certificates. But then there is the question of who could be tutoring these workshops because there is a lack of trained professionals and the only option would be to propose some schemes that include academic staff or international teachers but that would severely alter the authenticity of the traditional crafts that play a role in the built environment of Romania’s heritage. So we are faced with an immense issue, the debate of accreditation and authenticity and we should all focus on finding solutions for it as the tendency of the future seems to rely on these old techniques and materials of the building (Vaida, 2022). Another aspect that needs to be taken into consideration is that we live in an era of social media so it becomes a key element when trying to attract young people and educate them on matters related to the heritage. It is actually really interesting to observe the research compiled by the National Institute for Cultural Research and Training specifically one of the graphs that basically shows us that young people al-

Ruins of the heritage (Stanuica, 2023)

although they understand the importance of restoring the heritage, they don’t see any economic outcome from it, not understanding the unlimited opportunities that can come out from it.

In Romanian contemporary society, there can be two opposing paths that we can take. The first one focuses more on the rehabilitation of heritage and proposing a solution using traditional artisanal methods to solve a contemporary crisis and a rather dramatical one that can be synthesised as the total destruction of any sort of vernacular by the rapid change of built environment by private property developers that uniquely follow their own capitalist interest. More than that the issue is not the modernisation of rural space but its quality. While day by day we see how villagers would choose the newly built supermarket rather than sustain the local farmers or craftsmen; schools, cultural centres, or hospitals become ruins of the once vivant community. This result only defies the purpose of continuing traditional crafts as even the only remaining people that have the knowledge to perpetuate these would migrate to the city or work in a company owned brand.

The future of the situation hangs on a tread while the social phenomena that are happening in Romania are quite contrasting. If a few years ago the diaspora coming from the occident would try and develop villages on a westernised perspective diminishing any values as a result of the migration and poverty after the ’89 Revolution, now young people start to appreciate the vernacular after seeing the east through a western lens and try to improve the situation. It is a key moment in the future existence of the vernacular heritage as the old generation that still owns the knowledge of different crafts can teach the younger generation. As we all know the art of traditional crafting cannot be learned by reading books but by being mentored by experts. I think it is essential, especially for designers but for everyone else to participate in initiatives such as the OAR summer schools for rebuilding old damaged heritage buildings to learn not only the skills but also to discover a part of us that lies within the walls of history. I believe there needs to be an interest coming from the side of the people to understand their past and how they can use it to their advantage because there are opportunities to explore it.

However, when talking about the implementation of laws that would protect the vernacular it becomes a really hard process as the people in high places that decide laws and future projects are still biased by their own interests and driven by the will to gain as much money as possible overnight without willing to do any good for the society. It definitely saddens me to know how appreciated our heritage is by foreigners and how little attention most Romanians give to the matter. Apart from the famous masterpieces like Matisse’s ‘La blouse Roumaine’, there is one last example I want to highlight in my dissertation and that is Le Corbusier’s fascination with the Romanian Cula- a traditional type of house. Not only that he has sketched it during his time visiting the Balkans but it is also believed that he has taken inspiration for his modern designs. (BING, 2017)

School that needs restoration

One expensive supermarket and an american shop

fig. 42 Rural area where I used to have workshops with children from the school on the left. It really left a mark on me seeing the discrepency between the above mentioned

fig. 43 Le Corbusier’s drawings of the Romanian Cula (BING, 2017)

fig. 44 Romanian Cula (BING, 2017)

fig. 45 Inspiration Le Corbusier took from the Romanian Cula (BING, 2017)

fig. 41 Graph 1

fig. 41 Graph 2

The chance for a better future using vernacular ideas to solve contemporary issues will only be given to us once. Events such as the Ukrainian war last year when Romanian people, the modest people from villages especially were queueing for hours to help the people in need with the little food or help they could afford to give really brought back a hope, a hope for the Romanian spirit that indeed took a good trait out of the traumatic communism and that is being a collectivist culture that looks to help each other rather than a more individualistic one as the western world. Although this trait originates from a tough past, if people choose to use it wisely it might be something that could save the future of heritage and namely making it a sustainable alternative for the future. As part of my future activity as a practitioner, the research I have conducted in order to achieve this dissertation has allowed me to academically understand the situation of the crafts in Romanian vernacular heritage that I have grown up hearing about my entire childhood. My ambition as an architect is to expand my knowledge regarding the Romanian traditional crafts in the modern context and how they can be the basis of the ways we are designing now. I am aiming to apply my knowledge to explore a way in which community-led activities such as crafting workshops can be used to our advantage as architects to build a sustainable and happier way of living. My research has taken me to find out about the previously mentioned summer schools of restoration and I have further applied for a few this summer so I can back up all the research I have done this year with practical knowledge swell, leading me to a deeper bond with my heritage.

As previously mentioned, the art of crafting brings joy and also represents a way of creating a circular economy in an ultra-capitalist-dominated world. The only way to create a suitable future is by stepping

back and understanding what has worked for many centuries in our society and how the rapid modernisation has taken us to a very dangerous point of surviving in only one century. On a finishing note, I want to put under the spotlight the quote that the architect Victor Smigelschi is writing in “Architectura’’ issues the year 1943/1944 that “a research of our rural architecture […] can not only be useful but at the same time necessary for understanding the link between causes and effect, the fact that the formal study of stylistic architecture makes us usually forget it.” This essentially makes me think about the purpose of my research in understanding how our heritage was shaped throughout good times and darker ones is vital for understanding my identity as a Romanian architect.

References

by Daria Stanuica on the phone. (see appendix)

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Mavrodin, I. (2022). interview for dissertation research. Nov. The interview was conducted as primary research

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Popa, D. (2022). interview with a sculpture craftsman. 16 Nov. Interview conducted by Daria Stanuica. (see appendix)

Rem Koolhaas, Office For Metropolitan Architecture and Guggenheim, S.R. (2020). Countryside : a report. Köln: Taschen, pp.2–3.

Ronnas, P. (1989). Turning the Romanian Peasant into a New Socialist Man: An Assessment of Rural Development Policy in Romania. Soviet Studies, [online] 41(4), pp.543–559. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/ stable/152536 [Accessed 15 Mar. 2023].

Sailer-Fliege, U. (1999). Characteristics of post-socialist urban transformation in East Central Europe. GeoJournal, [online] 49(1), pp.7–16. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/

Vijulie, E. and Citre, C. (2014). Colectivizarea a dus la distrugerea satului românesc. [online] www.digi24. ro. Available at: https://www.digi24.ro/special/ campanii-digi24/1989-anul-care-a-schimbatlumea/colectivizarea-a-dus-la-distrugerea-satuluiromanesc-233174 [Accessed 15 Mar. 2023].

‘Architectura’, issue no. 1974 [Archived Journal/ Magazine]. No other information available

‘Architectura’, issue no. 1980 [Archived Journal/ Magazine]. No other information available

‘Architectura’, issue no. 1989 [Archived Journal/ Magazine]. No other information available

‘Architectura’, issue no. 1990 [Archived Journal/ Magazine]. No other information available

‘Architectura’, issue no. 1991 [Archived Journal/ Magazine]. No other information available

‘Architectura’, issue no. 1979 [Archived Journal/ Magazine]. No other information available

‘Architectura’, issue no. 1972 [Archived Journal/ Magazine]. No other information available

‘Architectura’, issue no. 1968 [Archived Journal/ Magazine]. No other information available

‘Architectura’, Redactor Victor Smigelschi, issue no. 1943-1944, Available at: https://www.uauim.ro/ informare-documentare/biblioteca/virtuala/revistaarhitectura/Arhitectura%201943-1944.pdf

fig.1 Stanuica,D. (2019) Traditional House (Digital Photo)

fig.2 Unknown (n.d.), My classmates and I during a school trip learning the craft of traditional pottery (Digital Photo)

fig. 3 Stanuica,D. (2016) Kids playing near the road to my grandparents village (Digital Photo)

fig.4 Stanuica,D. (2020) Lake hill in the village (Digital Photo)

fig.5 Stanuica,D. (2022) My grandfather’s bees (Digital Photo)

fig.6 Stanuica,D. (2020) The village (Digital Photo)

fig.7 Stanuica,D. (2020) Port by the Danube(Digital Photo)

fig.8 Stanuica,D. (2022) Grandmother’s tomatos (Digital Photo)

fig.9 Stanuica,D. (2022) The Danube beach in the village (Digital Photo)

fig. 10 Calinescu,P. (2013) Moieseni, Tara Oasului, The elders’ house is attached to the duplex built by their nefews gone to work in France (online) AVAILABLE AT : mandriesibeton.ro/fotografii.php#23

fig. 11 Calinescu,P. (2013) Montmagny, France, The way they have to live in the suburbs of Paris because they can’t afford rent (online) AVAILABLE AT : mandriesibeton.ro/fotografii.php#23

fig.12 Iabrasu, D. (2023). Old house in Transylvaia slowly decaying (online) Available at: https://www. instagram.com/p/CnjLmlLtbKM/.

fig. 13 Stanuica,D. (2022) Old house in Oltenia slowly decaying (digital photo)

fig 14 Istorie pe scurt (2014) The Obor Market- the most important artisan market at the time. Piata Obor. Available at: http://www.istorie-pe-scurt.ro/preturile-sisalariile-la-1900/piata-obor/.

fig 15 Ţimonea, D. (2018). Collectivisation process, Ţărani lucrând pământul la ”colectiv”. Available at: https://adevarul.ro/stiri-locale/alba-iulia/rascoaleletaranilor-romani-impotriva-1863355.html.

fig. 16 Unknown (2011).Ceausescu planning the systematisation of rural areas Vizita de lucru al tovarăşului Nicolae Ceauşescu. Available at: https:// cshd.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/vizita-de-lucru-altovarasului-nicolae-ceausescu/.

fig. 17 Page from ‘Architectura’ s issue in 1979 [Archived Journal/Magazine]. No other information available

fig. 18 Page from ‘Architectura’ s issue in 1972 [Archived Journal/Magazine]. No other information available

fig. 19 Page from ‘Architectura’ s issue in 1979 [Archived Journal/Magazine]. No other information available

fig. 20 Page from ‘Architectura’ s issue in 1972 [Archived Journal/Magazine]. No other information available

fig. 21 Page from ‘Architectura’ s issue in 1942

Available at: https://www.uauim.ro/informaredocumentare/biblioteca/virtuala/revista-arhitectura/ Arhitectura%201942_1-2.pdf

fig. 22 Page from ‘Architectura’ s issue in 1919

Available at: https://www.uauim.ro/informare-documentare/biblioteca/virtuala/revista-arhitectura/Arhitectura%201916_1.pdf

Fig.23 Architectura (1972) BRASOV HYPERMARKET, CONTRASTING EFFECT WITH THE MOUNTAIN [Archived Journal/ Magazine]. No other information available

fig. 24 Page from ‘Architectura’ s issue in 1991 showing the interest for nonindustrial design and crafts [Archived Journal/Magazine]. No other information available

fig. 25 Page from ‘Architectura’ s issue in 1991 showing the interest for nonindustrial design and crafts [Archived Journal/Magazine]. No other information available

fig. 26 Page from ‘Architectura’ s issue in 1990 showing the interest for nonindustrial design and crafts

fig. 27 ‘Architectura’ - covers of magazines different years. Available at : https://arhitectura-1906.ro/revista-arhitectura-110-ani/

fig. 28 Calinescu,P. (2013) Tara Oasului and the ‘Concrete Nightmare’ AVAILABLE AT : mandriesibeton.ro/fotografii.php#23

fig. 29 Stanuica,D. (2020) Abandoned house in my grandparent’s village (Digital Photo)

fig. 30 OAR (n.d.) The map of various kinds of artisanal experts (screenshot) Available at: https://hartamesterilorconstructii.ro

fig. 31 OAR (n.d.)The summer schools for crafts and restorations Available at: https://hartamesterilorconstructii.ro

fig. 32 Onisor, S. (2022) One of the craftsman showing his work Available at: https://www.instagram. com/p/CfS5-YSDvDV/

fig. 33 The Institute (2022). Summer camp. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/CgwMCFSDVej/.

fig. 34 Miklaus, I. (2019). COB House. Available at: https://fabrikadecase.com/invata-sa-construiesti-natural-cu-arhitecta-ileana-mavrodin-deja-au-inceput-inscrierile-pentru-taberele-din-vara/.

fig. 35 Miklaus, I. (2019). COB House. Available at: https://fabrikadecase.com/invata-sa-construiesti-natural-cu-arhitecta-ileana-mavrodin-deja-au-inceput-inscrierile-pentru-taberele-din-vara/.

fig. 36 Unknown (2023) One Properties’new development

fig. 37 Delta Craft (2022) learning crafts from locals, Available at: https://www.instagram. com/deltacraftro/

fig. 37 Stanuica, D. (2022) One of the interiors created in POT Stories using traditional crafts

fig. 38 Tintu, A. (2021) POT Stories Available at: https://www.anuala.ro/en/projects/2021/246/

fig. 40 Stanuica, D. (2023) Ruins of the heritage

fig. 41 NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR Cultural Research and Training (2018) Graph 1 Available at https://culturadatainteractiv.ro/ the-youngsters-and-the-cultural-heritage/

fig. 42 NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR Cultural Research and Training (2018) Graph 2Available at https://culturadatainteractiv.ro/the-youngsters-and-the-cultural-heritage/

fig. 43 BING (2017) Le Corbusier’s drawings of the Romanian Cula [online] 76(2), pp.146–153. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26418988?seq=6 [Accessed 15 Mar. 2023].

fig. 44 BING (2017) Romanian Cula [online] 76(2), pp.146–153. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/ stable/26418988?seq=6 [Accessed 15 Mar. 2023].

fig. 45 BING (2017) Inspiration Le Corbusier took from the Romanian Cula [online] 76(2), pp.146–153. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/ stable/26418988?seq=6 [Accessed 15 Mar. 2023].

Transcript

Eugen Vaida

Let’s talk a little bit, let’s see if we can answer the questions. Maybe you have some questions.

Daria

Just one moment.

Eugen Vaida

But how did you find us?

Daria

So initially I looked at that map of craftsmen.

Eugen Vaida

Ah, the map of craftsmen, yes.

Daria

And I think, I think I found the summer schools side with or I don’t know exactly.

Eugen Vaida

The map with the summer schools, right?

Daria

Yes, that is it.

Eugen Vaida

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Daria

Yeah, so. I’m interested in knowing more about how you activate. I mean I have already seen something on the websites.

Eugen Vaida

In fact, the map is made by Order of Architects in Romania and there was the initiative of the Rural Working Group of the Order of Architects. The OAR has several working groups, among which we set up this one 8 years ago. The Rural Group has actually made 3 programs, we supported 3 programs. One was to make the architecture guides for contextual design in all the villages of Romania, because we asked ourselves the question of HOW we build there, how the new constructions should look like, how the old buildings need to be arranged and restored and rebuilt. The guide answers questions HOW, and later

it has appeared the map of craftsmen in Romania, which answers the question WITH WHOM we buildand later the 3rd program. And that was the part of the summer schools, which we only support,they are not our architecture schools. Which in fact, they do not necessarily answer a question but , are a necessity for the practical training of students.However, it is also a platform for training let’s say intergenerational and interprofessional between craftsmen and specialists, and those who work in the field of architecture, archaeology, engineering, history, art and so on.

This was the 3 programs that are somehow cohesive, our map being just one of the projects. We had a team of 20 architects with whom we took the villages of Romania by foot. We also had some of the information online, but where we didn’t have it, we had to simply go physically. We also needed to be giving a GDPR meaning that we can upload people’s data on the website.

The idea was to connect the owner or the architect with the craftsman who produces. There are 2 types of craftsmen: those who are contractors and the 2nd category are the manufacturers who only produce building materials. For the contractors we talk about carpenters, about fitters in general of various from metal,ceramic, glass etc. For manufacturers, it varies more. Let’s say there is an offer, because the materials are much, much more used. We’re talking about lime, about ceramic shingles, all kinds of materials and objects that are needed. We also went to the interior design area, for the interior architecture part and there we find several finished products, so not building materials products such as brick, but we find products such as a lamppost or as it is a canvas that you can place over terraces or woven. Even stoves, here we have many stoves that are part of the mobile heritage of the house.

Okay, so that was with the map. I know, obviously, these craftsmen are not part of a certification system. We wrote when we knew that the people had this vocational training, and we mentioned those who do the training, who are willing to teach others, but there are very few in general, the craftsmen, they do not have a manufacturer’s certificate, they do not have certifications. They’re just people who are good at something or think they’re good at something, they’ve taken out some products and we’ve put them on the

map.

Although, we somehow made a corner selection. That’s what a selection of quality involves on one hand, because we don’t have some quality standards for a lot of the traditional products. In Romania we have it only for the industrial ones, but for the traditional ones,for example, the shingles can be said to make the producer that makes a better or worse one? But we don’t yet have some very clear criteria and someone who resembles these standards. The markey starts to be discovered, because now it is starting to become a demand. There was a period of about 15 years in which, quite simply, this market of traditional producers and craftsmen was abandoned.

Knowing that they don’t have these certifications, How do you think the job will go on.

That’s a good question, because we’re also asking ourselves this question. On the one hand, this natural transmission chain, which used to be in self-sustainable communities — from craftsman to apprentice, from father to son, from mother to daughter, simply broke this chain. There is no longer a transmission. We used to learn from our ancestors, we do not learn even from craftsmen now, they learn everything online or being employed in a company working somewhere or even abroad. That’s kind of the way, people go abroad for a few months. They have an experience coming in and then they say, look, they know how to do that it’s obviously called in it’s a craftsman.

You can’t learn in a few months, but it’s a start and we have said l et’s not overlook those who are at the beginning, because it’s good to support them, that maybe later they will also become craftsmen. How do you form? Of course you don’t have at the moment, you don’t have some training courses advanced,we should if we ask ourselves who should do that. Of course, in the field of heritage, the National Heritage Institute should probably do and what the National Institute for Training, something like that and that institute, should probably do, but it could do those forms. They’re not even starting yet, it’s a little bit, we have to think about who’s forming the ones who are forming towards the trainers. We don’t have some witness forms yet, and we wonder who forms that

one. We don’t know when there’s no answer to that question. There will probably still be academics who will do some courses, but not have developed the practical part, so there will be some gaps there as well. So we kind of know who, but don’t know when it’s going to start and you also have to see some funding for that.Somebody’s going to start here in these institutions, start training and then think about who would be interested in. For whom? Because if this certificate that you get, it doesn’t set you apart from others. Yes, then you are interested in doing, i.e. if it does not help you to. Whether we’re better promoted or better paid than then, I don’t think many will see a point. Just so, for his own knowledge for development and his own knowledge, because they focus on producing and earning. Maybe for those who have certain certifications to succeed, the state should help them set up a firm or support them on some tax incentives. There should be some advantages for those who pass. Of these courses. Because the market still can’t. Adjust, i.e. if. If it’s going to work. Buyers, let’s say I’m going to go to someone I’m going to look at. Rather to. Shami likes not what he does and less about the certifications he has in the works for me anyway it matters, so the public must also be educated in believing in these certifications and in having the guarantee and confidence that, in fact, such a certificate that man. He knows what it’s all about. Speci go hand in hand these things. At some point, neither the beneficiary is educated, nor is he the craftsman, he does not have a certification or a certificate for the products or for what he knows how to do. Obviously, when the law will increasingly exclude those who do not have these certificates and tighten the door then and it is good, try to take tests, but for now we are at the beginning of the beginnings where we do not even know who forms. These people, so we don’t have a training system for them yet.

Daria

I understand, but do you think there is a difference? The public mindset in recent years of how do you see these crafts and more traditional houses and ways of building materials?

Daria

Eugen Vaida

Eugen Vaida

Colda from my perspective and I see a big difference, especially in recent years in small gangs, where people have just waited to get out of these knives from. City blocks. Let’s head to the country. They bought a holiday home or even moved from there, because now we can work from the lot very well. These people started to appreciate the heritage in the area, because they are educated people and they started to turn to craftsmen is where you can’t find it for sure, they turned themselves into craftsmen they started to learn, I’m willing to learn because they realize that I’m praying in their house and it’s a good way to get to know each other in the first place. to learn about crafts and. When the wolf realized that this is the most direct way to understand, in fact, your living space, and a lot of people have done this thing and where you can see it, it’s not. Call a lot of people too. Look for a craftsman. We sent them to Antena news, sometimes we also have an unofficial list of craftsmen, because many did not want to appear on this map for fear that. They will be pursued by the authorities. Maybe many are still working in black and then they were afraid to appear on the map to have my controls, but there are still people who I pray are doing cool things without being on. Anton, craftsman. Yes, why I see a see that, I pray, this phenomenon of relocation to the countryside and the discovery of rural heritage and crafts is growing. To a greater extent than we actually have the ability to catch up with birth and products. That’s clear.

Daria

And given that these trends are being shifted from town to village, how has rural society changed, which is how has it modernized?

Eugen Vaida

Okay, we’re still not there. Of course, Facebook and in all the discussions on the pages that promote moving to the countryside and the crafts are also there and I notice these let’s say the increase of this phenomenon in an obvious passive way, at the moment they only care that the prices of the old house they want to sell and they notice 3 is an increase like I think the market then? Well yes, well. Let’s stop giving up, maybe they bought someone the way you are and that doesn’t mean that. Some houses have been saved, but I don’t really believe in the value of the heritage in the forest, rather as a potential financial advantage. Because

you need to say, it seems to me that you have to move for certain healthier society to be able to go back to the traditional one. In the sense that these people in the countryside had this dream, let’s say the American dream to leave, to become successful people who would come back later and then invest in their communities. I was. Let’s read a problem for the week, and still have such a past, and on the one hand, these old buildings I have. Had a lady with. This notation of poverty, which is an old and washed-out house. We want to get rid of it, so the professional skills actually. The pinnacle or traditional paradox was the gentleman to pray, especially since they forgot what we saw. As a result of this it has been since the world, that is, we can not reproach them anything only we. Lately we have discovered to a much more consistent extent in heritage, so to speak, we are beginning to value this black heritage. That’s what we’re trying to convince women on the streets, and sometimes even oppose that a traditional building is being demolished or buying them. And to tell them. They remained, but not in traditional communities, not these thresholds, because the notion of 4 years itself is not born in the countryside, nor does it have any.No anchor in their daily life are just some old things, at most let’s say in the area of Transylvania where there are still these customs of keeping you, what you inherited from your parents and grandparents. It is usually said you do not sell your house or the place has made a little more of the dining to be kept. Buildings more than in other areas. Of the country, and. Because the Transylvanians now somehow have a slowness in or have a conservatism so more developed in them, they don’t necessarily have entrepreneurial changes or initiatives, but they’ve kept it that way out of inertia, what they’ve inherited from past generations. And yes, in Transylvania, quite a lot of heritage substrate has been preserved. A good and good, because we have the problem with a big problem. The first one appears at the moment is actually that the guy in. The legal affairs of many buildings have not been done the inheritance debates and where there are four to five brothers and each is gone one through Denmark, a us in England, one in Italy. Obviously, it’s very hard to get them all together. Let’s say you’re in order in the EPA and sell that house, because he from CASA P. Vint 3, 4,000 EUR for this money is not willing to make a trip from the states to Romania and lose in the time for stuff, that is, it’s not a big advantage and then the situations remain somehow unresolved and abandoned by these houses a big one. The Romanian state because it could be very good,

where the house degrades and it is done that there is a legal uncertainty there should simply disinherit people and. Taken from the gate, pray, picked up. I see a resolution at the ECHR. I think an aside like this, to understand how I see or how think this phenomenon is happening and what are the problems with traditional buildings in rural areas, but to come back to your question, so the people in the countryside? In traditional traditional dances, some of them have even made such a small museum of objects, not graphics as a kind of cabinet. Before, the Cabinet of curiosities, but to which communities do not adhere or do not come to necessarily see more tourists come from outside well defended. The village is fine. That’s about it. That’s the situation, it’s not where we have it. 456 newcomers to a village that are starting to restore there, somehow feel a slight change of mentality and there are already a few villages. So in the richest, for example, or the gun certainly I don’t talk anymore, but in the Saxon villages there are a few. Where the mentality changed because a lot of people came from abroad and even abroad. And people when they saw that. They also keep their houses, but also look for objects in the villages to put them in the house, not to reuse them. They had 2 times the problem when they wanted to demolish a building and they didn’t take that step. At least that’s what’s been achieved in this area and. Maybe some have succeeded. To even make their own hostel, even with traditionally designed rooms. That’s kind of how things started, but I think that’s also the only chance for these traditional communities to get this influence from outsiders who wouldn’t come there just during the holidays, because we wouldn’t have social life and social relations, facts they do, and this integration of newcomers into the local community actually made it bring all this know-how from. That’s in an environment. He educated me to the countryside. And try to get started. From there a change of mentality, that’s how things happened in the happiest of cases.

Daria

Good I understand from my questions I call in answer to all, even more, so if you still have and maybe added.

Eugen Vaida

But that is only related to births, singles or community or voltation.

Daria

I was starting to think about it, how can we integrate their traditional crafts as a way of? Construction and

as a designer mode actually in architecture, to make it more sustainable. But I haven’t fixed exactly what I’m going to write. I mean, I want to see. What more I discover and depending on that and I see what the practical end will be.

Eugen Vaida

Mainly, I see it so that in general now the craftsmen are now. Traditional products are expensive because there are few manufacturers, but as soon as this market grows and become appear more and more will be much cheaper. But let’s reuse what we have and improve comfort in these buildings, rather than demolishing them and building new ones. And for that, of course, we also need some public policies to support this heritage sector. And of crafts. At the expense of coming from the record of industrial production, because at the moment the production of the safe mass of ceramics from these early tern ceramics and industrial stations are cheaper, because the very large products and everyone used as soon as the production goes to these small local workshops and the price for manual days will drop very much. very loud and crazy we allow will be even cheaper. Arrangements and. If so to. We build 1 9 that you don’t have to. Let’s arrange it. And in fact, the whole discussion of heritage is good to be taken to the area let’s say the ecology of sustainability against industrial polluters of building materials, because at the moment the subway is the biggest polluter. To think that along with the textile industry, the largest pollutant on the globe and for building a building 9 obviously I support an unsustainable industry. All in all, to the detriment of a sustainable one, which. It’s related to these crafts, workshops, training, local communities, cetera. So that’s how I think problems should be seen.

Daria

Meaning, thank you.

Eugen Vaida

Good all right. If there’s anything else and it’s still costing. Okay, I pray and you decide. On the shirt in this direction with great fondness.

Daria

Thank you so much a nice day.

Transcript

Daria

Hello. What do you do?

Ileana Mavrodin

I’ve sent you some emails before, I don’t know if you have.

Daria

I’ve never seen it?

Ileana Mavrodin

Did you get to see them?

Daria

I’ve never seen, no, I haven’t seen.

Ileana Mavrodin

Ok. Yes, I sent some links with a map of craftsmen in Romania.

Daria

Yes, well that’s where I found you, thank you.

Ileana Mavrodin

Yes so you know it, OK Eugen vaida you know him, does it say something the name, ok, good good and I sent you another mail with 2 articles, a Romanian one that I wrote for a magazine and one in English, which I wrote with for a magazine of the faculty of architecture in Vienna. They were an internal magazine, I think it is.

Daria

Uh, yes, yes, I also talked to the gentleman on Monday. Thank you.

Ileana Mavrodin

Here’s the Technological University. I also answer your questions with some of the answers, I think they’re there. But we can talk now. I accept the questions can you? Let’s take them one at a time. Or how do you want it?

Daria

Well, how do you want to? But do you think that some are already answered in the article we can feel?

Ileana Mavrodin

On our 9 leaves no in the article possibly to re them. I don’t know how to water them, let’s say, but I answer now you read them to me?

Daria

And yes. Yes. Oh, so the first one would have been the way you learned the trade, I pray the craft.

Ileana

Mavrodin

Yes good. Ah, well. So it started as a personal project, something that I felt, a personal need to call it what that happened. It resonates with a lot of people who feel the need to return to nature and healthy homes . Yes without, without chemicals let’s say. And so. Is this current that has revived? Although the traditional things to re-start or how to call it started from the United States, because surely there the consumer society is at the highest level and that is exactly where the need comes from.

Ileana Mavrodin

Yeah I responded, somehow to this very technological life on. That leads it. That’s how it kind of started with P 2 2 branches let’s call them one is from the actual need of people to live in a healthy environment, without chemicals, that’s because the world is getting bigger and bigger. Sensitive and more and more allergies are occurring and all these allergies somehow appear because of the chemical environment in which we live from the building materials to I know on the fbs, these crowded payments that contain formaldehyde. Yes and until what do we eat? So is there this need to live in a healthy environment? It’s not for nothing that it started in the United States and there, from what I’ve read, there are people who actually can’t live in a conventional house anymore because of the chemical environment. And then I that all the alternatives.

Ileana Mavrodin

Well, it’s up to those who want to get out of the system to stop going to the banks and make their own House as they once did in the old days. Yes I kind of give about that.

Daria

And what is the process you work in? I mean, how is the whole process of building the House?

Ileana Mavrodin

I don’t really understand for sure C WHAT are you asking me, but did your idea start? I did that. Box so we have. As a personal need to reconnect with nature I was living in Canada dan pro in a pray, let’s say in a conventional house and literally for my soul I felt this need to re- We’ve rethought the values. And in fact, what’s important and so he started off as a man I said as a personal project, which resonates with a lot of people.

Daria

Yes, yes, I had one more thing, but to think about how to reformulate a little bit, I was thinking about something like how often you have traditional works, which is these boxes and how often, if you have modern, if you do and.

Ileana Mavrodin

I don’t know if I answered. They don’t make modern, they don’t just make houses out of natural materials.

Daria

Not with the materials, but in the modern style how do we come about?

Ileana Mavrodin

Ah that depends on the beneficiary whether he feels the need for something rustic or something more modern. The materials are not necessarily related to a style, namely you can make state-of-the-art houses out of the ground. Or more rustic, so the material does not matter.

Daria

I understand.

Daria

How do you think this kind of architecture, traditional ways, has a positive impact? I pray, I know you answered somewhat before, but what if you still have? Something to tie.

Ileana Mavrodin

Well it has and somehow it’s a gap o. Do you understand what I mean? That’s between what architects do, what they know how to do and the need that exists in society. There are many people who want houses made of healthy, possibly traditional materials. Buying an old house they would like to restore it, but it’s

very hard to find the architect and it’s very hard to find the craftsmen to work with these materials anymore. This is the big problem and somehow I don’t know if you faculty learn about such a thing, but in Romania. An that it is an is like this, a kind of past to hobby or to others is not really taught in college, there are only a few teachers Bucharest, Cluj, Timisoara, who have such a kind of mention about it, but not enough. It seems to me that not enough to the need that exists in society.

Daria

Yes, indeed, neither do we, that is, we have some. We’re divided into 11 studios and each studio has a theme and there are some that focus on this more traditional side and don’t necessarily build in London, but that they don’t have projects in London, but for the most part they don’t really have that we head to London and. But it’s encouraged, really.

Ileana Mavrodin

Ok. yes, which is very good. I wanted to say something else to a previous question, that I also have quite a few houses, but I have a lot of requests for hostels, for places, for accommodation. Like the clay castle that made an advertisement.

Ileana Mavrodin

Technology is her, and so they’re the beneficiaries who really want something else, because that’s how drywall accommodations and these conventional materials are everywhere, but with these traditional materials less and people are open to trying at least if they don’t have the courage to do it. Outline in a project like that, because it’s an adventure to make a house out of the ground or out of the ground. Straw bales. And then at least for a holiday they are very open to. That kind of construction.

Daria

Yes, what else did want to ask you? How do you think rural society has changed with modernisation?

Ileana Mavrodin

Well, unfortunately, that need, and I know how to tell him this need for. Healthy traditional, somehow like I said we set off in the United States. It starts slowly, it comes to Romania, we get inspired. From all that is there. It’s gotten into the cities, it hasn’t reached yet. Villages unfortunately. In the village people still

appreciate the so-called modern houses. Why do they have this invaluable treasure of traditional houses, which are still not concrete and do not have windows and, unfortunately, unfortunately, are not appreciated.

Daria

People who appreciate first and foremost what we have and slowly seeing that they are appreciated by strangers, maybe we will start to appreciate them more.

Ileana Mavrodin

Yes, well my colleagues came, I brought them from England Here to Romania? And that’s really nice. They tell you, you don’t have that anymore? I pray, took them to the sea and also went to Sina. was on the mountain. Yes they liked it so much and they were also talking about the fact that, I mean, yes. In England, for example, you see the buildings, they look cute clean. And so it’s just that they don’t necessarily have a story when they were looking in Bucharest at those older houses from the period of hospitalization. Interventions yes.

Daria

They don’t have a soul like that yes, yes the crina labriz. It was.

Ileana Mavrodin

didn’t get to take them help just a week of skiing.

Daria

But you know about the Mihai Eminescu Foundation.

Ileana Mavrodin

Yes yes.

Ileana Mavrodin

couldn’t walk either. I was just around the area, I wasn’t at. Viscri yes. Yes what I wanted to ask you. We can promote these importances of using traditional crafts and modes of construction.

Daria

Well, first of all, we have to learn to do them, so like I said, the architects don’t really learn in school. How to promote, if not, you don’t know how I said it either. There’s a lot of people. Beneficiaries who want to, but are not the specialists who, first of all, I believe that it is the school school that should exist such courses simply.

Ileana Mavrodin

From a financial point of view, do you think it is sustainable to use these traditional means?

Daria

Ah, so, for example, a house like that, if it’s very small, and you do it, you can cost very little, but if we’re talking about something at the clay castle level, it certainly ends up at least as a conventional construction, if not more, because there’s a lot of workmanship. So it’s about and so, so that not even anyone can do it, and the ideal is for the owner to get involved, if not, if someone else does, he doesn’t have the same soul. I don’t like to say that a house I’m caressed, so that’s how much it modeled it being this soft material put in the construction p. You can shape it when you do it, well how can someone else do it to you?

Ileana Mavrodin

So, in that sense they’re books, to be them, they’re different, in the sense that you can’t get them to someone else, so you have to get involved. Of course you have helpers and so on, but if you are not involved in order to lose their soul and the connection that must exist between the one who lives there and the one who builds, it is not for nothing that the peasants used to make their peasants. The house was done with love and it was hundreds of years old. That they were doing it for them, they weren’t doing it quickly, to finish it and sell it.

Daria

Yes, I know that my grandparents also made their own home. I pray, great-grandparents and we’re still going there and outside of summer, not that maglavit, if you know near Calafat.

Ileana Mavrodin

Yes yes yes yes here.

Daria

From there are both pairs of grandparents and we go there. Well, we grew up there because that’s why I got somewhat close to this subject, that they sent us until about 5 years old me and my sister. Let’s stay there, that is, we stayed all year, we do not go to Bucharest and after that we stayed until we started school, we stayed about half a year there half in Bucharest.

Ileana Mavrodin

Yes, the area is very beautiful, especially in the northern part of Oltenia. They’re gorgeous houses.

Daria

And our house, yes, in that is, they weren’t made, it’s made just like that. I think I don’t know exactly what, but all of natural materials and besides lime have not changed anything to it and still very well. Super how do you see the future of Crafts Romania? Do you think there’s going to be any improvement?

Ileana Mavrodin

Yes yes yes yes definitely there are a lot of young people who get involved. There are many families from the city who move to the village, especially with this possibility of working from home. It’s the people, they’re more and more aware that they want to raise their children. However, in nature and healthy and. Things are going to change. That’s definitely the trend. Yes yes.

Daria

And one last question, would be where do you find the materials you take nearby or?

Ileana Mavrodin

So yes all the philosophy of these houses and these constructions is to build with the materials on that place, not to try to take it from the outside, to try to believe you produce as little garbage as possible from that specific construction sites. So you don’t make a children’s home in cobh in a place where. You have clay and did not put you to bring, because here already the costs are starting to become extremely high. If you start, even if you bring the material from a few kilometers away, it still has to be loaded, it has to be unloaded, you have some workmanship people and already the prices are going up a lot.

Daria

And wanted to ask you, and these houses in the cob can be, that is, they are resistant, resistant to any kind of temperature.

Ileana Mavrodin

Good, sure yes, sure yes. Now just know that they are cool. In the summer that they are warm in the winter, surely you have lived in something like this and you know you do not need air conditioning, you do not need dehumidifier humidifiers of everything.

Ileana Mavrodin

Yes they are solved by themselves. Of course, such a house of land should be placed on a southern slope, so that it should not be in the shade and in the dampness, but no house. You do not want it to be in the dampness and then it is very important to be designed according to the place and according to the situation of the place, in the sense that you need to know the dominated wind and know how the rain blows. And to design it in such a way that it is protected. Not to make the door to the dominant wind, to be a very important porch, caught at the porch that protects the house. The earth lasts for hundreds of years. The only problem is if it gets wet from rain, not EO problem, but if it gets wet and freezes thaws, then it begins to crumble. And to have for sure a pedestal is the area that is most exposed and that is eaten first the base of the House, if there is no pedestal. And the prism, like said?

Daria

I’m kind of understood now.

Ileana Mavrodin

The roof should protrude 80 cm at least outside the walls.

Daria

I understand that’s about it. I had some of them responded to while we were talking, if you have anything else to add.

Ileana Mavrodin

Well no, if you read the article that the articles that I wrote is still a lot of material on the internet, I see that you have researched anyway, you also know if you have questions at any time again not in writing, because you will still have to have a conversation, because

you will still have to have a conversation, because otherwise, much better a conversation.

Daria

The way you learned the trade

Razvan Iancu

Daria

Yes thank you very much and I say nice.

Ileana Mavrodin

So with great fondness anytime, of course it is.

Daria

Thank you goodbye.

Ileana Mavrodin

Okay a good day will.

Daria

Same goodbye.

Transcript

Razvan Iancu

Ciao daria, sorry for my lack of feedback, I was a little caught up with mine. Everyone wants to light the fire until Christmas, and of course they’re all pulling at me in all directions. I had read the questions and so I went through them diagonally and fast forward and they are interesting. Let me answer a few of them, now that I have a little time and I’m on the road, I can answer you as a voice message, as we got along.

When I was seven or eight years old, I was living in Ceaușescu’s time, when you didn’t have many possibilities for fun. As a child, the internet couldn’t even be talked about television, and then I think he’s been working some stoves since his 60s, dealing with that and learning that from each other. Family members would also go, especially since he was working nearby, past the neighbors. I was going and helping or messing up, I don’t know exactly what I was doing, but the fact is that I was sitting around him. And all day I insisted that he give me something to do. In the beginning, simple things, after that more complicated until I learned, it had at one point some prototypes, some things like that let’s call them prefabricated, we were making some stoves on some metal frames, which were also suitable for finding the apartments on the block, it worked on gas and then some of the plates. They had to be stopped and he left it to me looking for that edge that stopped was hiding behind the metal profile and with many preparatory works. I learned to do them that way by sitting next to him, but it’s true that I didn’t have a continuity or it was never when to follow from one end to the other the unfolding of the work, to explain to us the principles of operation, he understands the principles of operation at. That age at 7810, sure, didn’t give me that.I was doing if I was asking something, so that’s how it’s done. Some years have passed, I did school, he went to college, I did, I worked in construction as an engineer, as a designer and several jobs of construction supervisor, site supervisor and the like, and at the turning point in 2008, when, in 2007-2008, when construction failed, a word came to mind that you do not know what to do anymore, what do you know and thought about what they know how to do? Anyway it was in the construction sector, everything was, if not dead, at least numb or anesthetized, I do not know something only it was a frozen period and who did not have the peace to sit idle or put other circumstances. Uh, I said, now it’s a moment, me. On the project my way and I thought, oh wait that I know how to do this job. That’s when I once took my dad to give me a refresh. To the information I knew since I was little, to gather my puzzle pieces once. The answers were far different principles of operation. He couldn’t explain them to me in great detail. That’s why I say that continuous learning is that you have finished learning and I really had. At times when I worked I had experience with several sobars

and from each one I had to learn something and it was a beneficial experience. Plus I was and still am in a professional association and that’s where we really got together. We have access to information from Europe , it is a European Federation of Sobars. With That we are also affiliated and now access to information much easier, instead, there are and are more. found out understandable that I was only working on a principle. After a certain engine of operation requested, there are several principles of operation. Thus, you can choose convective system, the boiling system, there are many more models, we approached only one system that we call it classic. There are several models that I do not declare closed and rigid. I really want them to open up to the other models that are somehow seem simpler to me to attack than the ones I do. I mean, I’m working a little bit according to an empirical model or more. Where you realize you have an experience behind you and you can guide yourself the experience you have is a movie on a whistle on one I know how to tell it you have a feel just like with chefs who don’t have a precise recipe, but they do it a lot of their eyes. That’s the way it is and so and a lot of the models that I’m making now, but for sure. Seeing and doing already you are no longer wrong from finishing a kind of routine and you know from the eyes, you can do some dimensions and some approximations that, most of the time, work. If something doesn’t work, I know where to adjust them, you leave a little bit of room, of adjustment on the fly, that is, I get lost to the first question with a message that I think is already too long.

Daria

How often do you have traditional works and how often modern?

Razvan Iancu

The percentage between traditional works and modern works yes, they do not know in themselves, as a principle of operation. They are all traditional, as well as designs Sure they are traditional. It can be divided between traditional and modern and relational. We say, I have a more rustic approach to this, with painted tiles or with. Boards that look so more plastic more gingerbread more erratic compared to the others that more parameterized those molded the world to say at least 2/3. From what I’m working on I’m on the somewhat modern style. More recently I also see a tendency to. To make even minimal models, so flat edges and shapes and cubes and that’s about it. I even have a second in a second. Right now, right now I’m working on a model like that.

Daria

What does this job mean to you?

Razvan Iancu

What does this job mean to me and what do I say?

It’s a way of expressing it, it’s an e-thing, so. I can somehow say that we have found our vocation by doing this job, not necessarily that it is. I know that you don’t always go to work with love, it has to be a bit disordered, to take refuge in work. You have to have some that. I don’t know the geniuses took refuge in work and then they loved his work and did. They gave an extreme and then they gave some fabulous results. It’s not my case, I’m not we went to the extreme of this thing. Instead, like that it gives some independence and creative possibility I like that I can make some dictatorship, in the sense that I do not have an experience behind me, so that I do not have to leave a lot to the client’s choice, because. Any client makes a stove with 2 maximum 3 in a lifetime, while I have done a few hundred and already the client does not even talk to me anymore, that he talks to me, the house of the client and then it is somewhat easier for me to get to the root of the client’s wishes and the final result, which is a pleasant one for him. Yes, I can say that this job fulfills me, especially through. Positive that have from customers, especially on holidays, to receive pictures of reactions, thanks and look what cool we stand what we are warming up what EO pleasant feeling, EO fulfillment, that you are doing the right thing, that you are on the right track? Sure, there are very big challenges. Unfortunately, it’s hard to impossible to evolve. You’re limited by the power of your hands and your physical possibilities that it’s not very hard to find people who are willing to train over time and have so much patience that everything is a challenge and you have to pass this test of patience to be able to get into that job. Plus it also has 1000 other components. It’s not an EO public job, you also need a little bit of physics, you also have to have some visions in space. EO combines somewhat with engineering components to say and precisely because of it. If you want to do you simply develop it. To do as a branch or to form a man to do what you do, you to make a franchise right is very hard, EEO extremely hard job, because there are very few specialists. People are used to downloading the app, giving 2 click Uri and working a bit to get the money on the card exactly. That’s not what this is about, in this job. The results yes, maybe they are. On a financial level, maybe you’re privileged over other

trades. Instead, when you get to that level, there’s a lot of transfer, a lot of sacrifice, a lot of time, a lot of patience.

Daria

How do you think traditional architecture or architecture that uses traditional ways has a positive impact on society?

Razvan Iancu

Related to the question with traditional architecture, now, what impact does it have? On what positive impact it has in society what can I say I am? Between modern and traditional shows all areas. It’s one thing, you can make a very interesting association in the traditional and modern. I’ve come across something like this, they’ve been made of teams that have. They have. Some projects like that have materialized. Which has combined very beautifully, the traditional with the modern there are 1001 facades where you look at the buildings that the facades are preserved and yet they are doubled by glass elements or modern elements. It’s the same with this part of. Interiors with stove or rustic models integrated into the design of these may I say more ma. In short, I find it a very, very business. Not so much colorful, but novel, to tell it you can give a splash of color with the traditional fashion. Anyway, it’s always cyclical what’s classic and traditional doesn’t go out of style, and you can very well integrate it with modern solutions, and that’s why it seems to me that it is, a mixed solution in which you can even technically speaking, not only aesthetically, even technically A smart solution. It’s To bring heat into the house through classic solutions through classic solutions, if you want traditional sustainable eco-friendly, which up to a certain point have a very good efficiency, sure they do not enter that comfort zone and already heat pampering at the feet or now it’s underfloor heating or starting by SMS or finesses of that. That they can’t make instead the great energy contribution they have in the ambience of the house. It can make a stove with great success and then the rest of the comfort can still finish it. It’s been tuned some gadgets of these that have a pretty high purchase and operating cost anyway. But not as long as you don’t rely solely on them start to be not so expensive and a combination like that. It even seems to me that it also gives you a certainty, given that you don’t know what it’s like with energy, as long as we’re going to have energy at our discretion, it seems like there are major changes in that sense and then you have to. You diversify your energy and heating sources and, given these circumstances, I

think a mixed EE solution is the best choice.

Daria

Why should we choose traditional ways in the future?

Razvan Iancu

So we should choose the traditional future ways. Well, very simply technically speaking, in any house you have to do so much heat, how much heat does the house lose as we have some more and more efficient houses in terms of thermal insulation and then? Implicitly so as not to lose heat, if we use some traditional heating sources that were invented for houses that for houses in the past, which had massive heat loss everywhere and were very poorly insulated when we bring a strong source of heating into a well-insulated house. we have an energy plus, we have a surplus or an energy plus, very healthy, very consistent and then it would be a shame not to use this job. In favor of our comfort . 2. It is very simple or very advisable to use stoves as a heating system that they use with a renewable energy source. Wood grows biomass and renewable energy is replenished. If we manage not to burn so much as to exceed the speed at which it is not done with which the biomass recovers.This translates into energy-efficient solutions or energy-efficient heating installations that do not have a high consumption and into energy-efficient systems in homes that do not have high heat loss. If we manage to fit into such a hardship ourselves to fit into a scale of this where we consume less than nature, it recovers. The forest grows, then I Energy is a sustainable way of heating and even in Europe it is widely used this thing and that’s A trend in us still does not regulate. Unfortunately, everything goes in one direction, at least scriptically and legislatively, in a direction at least wrong, if not totally opposite to the direction in which it is going. The rstul of Europe. Because in our legislation, the amounts appear with a yield of 40%. In calculations compared to 90% how much. Activate. At least wrong, if not totally opposite to the direction in which the rest of Europe is going. Because in our legislation, stoves appear with a yield of 40%. In calculations compared to 90%, what would in reality be on a well-made stove, and that’s where all the weapons are from and they start from the wrong premise. And more than that. They are, of course, that there is a. A I don’t know high-level understanding, perhaps or. I don’t even know I don’t want to get in very hard. The conspiracy theory, but the idea is that there’s pretty well-done games in the energy market

at the macro level and at the level of fossil resources and exhaustible gas, coal, all the fossil resources that it somehow hits the stoves and these heating. The ones that, in fact, are the healthiest and the European trend, that’s exactly what they encourage in contrast to what we do. For now, hope we wake up once and redo and change our attitude in this way, because it’s clear that we can’t rely on gas and oil and lignite and other resources like that exhaustible. Because we keep taking out and we don’t put anything anymore, at least with biomass or there are volunteers, I’ve also been to volunteering, afforestation. And yet, you still have a chance to redo and leave something behind, it’s not all planned to consume all your colleagues’ pantry over the winter. Which is exactly what you have the tendency of Romania, because they are some of them. Probably some bargaining interests, but not about that. It’s about when it comes to that we have very good solutions and we still don’t use them to their true value.

How has society and the rural world changed with modernization?

Razvan Iancu

The world with modernization. Rural world village world. Well yes major changes, unfortunately, I say. Unfortunately, because it doesn’t seem to me that I’m necessarily for the better. I’ve seen it. When is there not so much? don’t know. don’t know how to call it that made effort to myself it’s a. When the convenience reached the level of the way of operation at the jump, not only in terms with the hoe that herbicides were invented, there is no one left to make the fire, because it can let go of the gas to let go of the current. He prefers to stay on the internet than to socialize on the bench at the gate and kind of yes, it’s in a continuous transformation the world of the village, unfortunately, not everywhere, but where the technology has arrived, the world of the village has changed quite a lot, at least as I have seen for sure in the brains of the Mountains, where it is harder for these influences of modernism to reach. It’s preserved pretty well, the traditions are very good to see, and that’s what you’re doing. A healthy village that you do not meet at every step in Europe, because any progress and any community that comes into human life comes with certain at a certain price that you have to pay and either in health or in. A. Simply in what you eat in what I consume from what I’ve said, a lot of components that are radically altered from what

we knew even the taste of food is no longer the same. 61 alternative solutions to agriculture to the way of life that intervene in the life of the village and, in my opinion, alter it. It’s a shame to keep our village authentic with that taste of ok requires a lot more effort. It’s very true, but. How is it better to stop making effort and fatten that we have not made any more effort, then to go to the gym to consume what they have done, that we do not like the effort or simply to work in balance that we had and inherited from our forefathers who lived 90 years without a doctor, family and without dispensary in the village and without. Repairs of any kind that even the teeth had better than we have at 40 years old. Why is it? They’re all part of a balance in a kind of ecosystem that it would be preferable to be able to preserve, although it’s very hard, no one says. Let’s still go by cart since the car was invented, but where can we go by cart? Maybe it’s better to come by cart than by car. There are 1001 places where. It really doesn’t make sense to get complicated when things have been invented long before us, and it would be a shame to alter them, because this world is on the rise. We still want to grow, to go more, to produce more, to accumulate more to gather more. We’re in a rush of this, without a target and without a stopping point. And then we forget everything, we go towards progress and towards efficiency, and we forget to live.

Daria

What do you think is the way we can emphasize the importance of using crafts?

Razvan Iancu

don’t know what that is, but I don’t know who can keep it, but that’s the thing that can be useful, it would be useful to draw kids into the game. All the art meets with that because it’s found its vocation like that, because they’re pretty assaulted by technology and the immediate result anyway. But the moment you put that reason, giving in a very relaxed and healthy way at the same time. Exchange as a man from. From the Black Sea and not necessarily healthy and assume that I do not go to the industry that the homeland and 10 seconds has produced finished and you simply have to wait there never through our children speak of children themselves when the child instills this thing in him from the very beginning, at the moment when he is. Is it easier to conquer it and full salaries to a job like that and then? It’s a eunuch won if you manage to get them into this horizon with young people on you, I don’t know what motivates them to know how you could motivate them. Our ambition to perform

Daria

as they no longer have the desire for uniqueness to be to stand out with something. To be, somehow is it still to be to speak a spoken language?He said that I thought you’d start making opinci, to make a unique and unprecedented job out of this unique. You have to have in the first, because as I see I take some pretty standard and pretty sets of values. It’s restricted. Here it’s very hard to say how it could be and especially since no one in this world has to criticize 2 years of life to learn a job that of course I understood with good and bad with good by them to think that it’s harder to maintain your own. being so dear and so little spread in. The consequence of the rate of people who has accepted to appear embrace such projects is quite small compared to anyone who on a large scale chooses their conventional solutions where the default and the competition was higher. Maybe on an explanation like that, there should be this strategy of hanging young people in quotes. Yes I can not promise young people, in general they aim to reach the result quickly, to quickly reach a financial prosperity or any craft like that, in countries that have a tradition and stability requires a period of internship of about 4 years. I said 2 years was more lenient. He said that after 2 years you can go in combat plus, you can produce by yourself, but other countries where you have to deal with people from other countries, with whom we have had discussions on these topics have told us to teach us. For example, there are 4 years of Internship on almost any specific job and carpentry and on the job, 4 years of internship from which it was necessary in the last year. Are you somehow on the plus side as an apprentice? Until then, this one has to somehow contribute to pay, to be taught. Or Romania doesn’t know how this happens. Well, what do you do? You put me in and put me to work and you ask me to bring money from home. So something is hard to conceive for some young people that they are taught with education to call it retired or assisted by the state, to say that at the level of young people it’s hard. We still have a chance at the level of people who have taken some years of communism and who somehow have. Maybe they haven’t found their purpose, their place or they just want to do something to the last active part of life and refocus on being such people and in their own right or the young retirees and in their right I think we can find some followers, but. I don’t know how much of a perspective. How many future does such a segment of the population have?

Daria

Can you please explain to me how your job has a sustainable aspect of the environment?

Razvan Iancu

Related to how the job has a manageable aspect of the environment. I think I answered the questions earlier that they said it uses renewable energy and everything we can. We like this system a lot and well that it’s a healthy system, not only in terms of the energy that they get to the energy sources that they consume and it’s. It is not usable, it ends in a good day and can be redone. That’s why it’s clear that it’s stable and other warm-up aspects that have proven to be healthy. Our grandparents happen like this, and it hasn’t been scientifically proven to have ever existed other than that. Of course, things that do not work properly and where some accidents have happened due to an error of operation or mistake of construction. We’re talking about things done, wrong, we’re talking about things done right. Apparently there’s a reason to think about. The fact that it would not be sustainable like that. Of heating installations. What can I say more than these 2nd aspects, even in terms of recycling materials, it seems to me that they are not a negative impact on the environment. They are materials that are very easy to recycle. Even if it consumes it, there are materials in the process as of the final process of which the manufacturing process consumes a lot of true energy. In contrast, the finished product is never difficult to recycle. It’s very simply recyclable like a stone, so that’s why I think it can be a product that can last. Over generations without being found. If so far no negative impact has been found from there, I do not think that anything can be reproached for such a heating system.

Daria

How should we teach children to respect traditional values and understand national identity?

Razvan Iancu

How to teach children to respect traditional values, to understand national identity. That really is a tough question. I don’t know, I have kids and going with him the car, I had the attempt or the experience to put some places of historical significance across. have. forgot about the context and I have. Plus some I fined some patriotic songs to respond to some authentic Romanian songs. And saw that at the age of 10, there was little knowledge about these things that didn’t present a great attraction for juniors such a thing.

We’re going to see the work, yes, I don’t know how all through play we had to have somehow through the legends, but that’s how it’s best for the child through a play and you have to present all this stuff in an attractive way. plus in a way that fascinates him and somehow catches him clinging to him. Somehow. But who clearly don’t know if we’re talking about the heavyweight. Yes, the child needs to be close to close needs validation and confirmation and that’s it. Where to say wow how beautiful and if you do, if you draw him into this game, somehow and his work and his creation is appreciated, then surely the chances increase enormously, to be able to get them on this road. I think that’s how in these directions it should be tried, but I don’t know if it’s a universally valid recipe and it says so we thought about this process. On the other hand, anything if something I’ve seen that works in. In this way of educational and mindset-shifting. I’ve seen that everything that’s based on volunteering, that there’s a lot of soul there, I’ve seen miracles happen, if, if it doesn’t fulfill them, it happens in the organizational framework of volunteering and some specialists on this subject, who have some experience. A volunteering certainly could identify some key points to make. Speculate in AI draws the little ones into a play like this. I think there would be a good one. Departure

Daria

From a financial point of view, do you consider it profitable to use these modalities?

Razvan Iancu

Yes at the income level let’s say as a freelancer the way you do your job yourself and you’re your own boss, but you don’t. You’re a boss and you’re an employee at this level. Sure it’s you can think you’re well-paid, but the problem comes up when you want to grow, go a little bit higher than that and do it, make you raise the craft to the rank of business there it is. It’s very hard to impossible because the thing that we discussed earlier with education comes in. with vocational training, with recruiting where you find people, you find where else you can find, people who are willing to work. In general, the world has caught it. Attitude to call it regressive towards work, does not prefer to waste his physical energy in a consultation at the gym, than to use it with a purpose. Well outlined a little, as if a disgrace towards work and many of the current generation, I do not generalize, but EO trend even then. You have a limit in financial development and in getting financial results, plus it’s not very hard to make your craft business out of business simply because I don’t know what they

usually say with prototypes, because they’re not new series productions. You clearly didn’t make an egg and after that you do you’re going to have one thing, and then you do 100 more, it doesn’t reproduce. That’s in this industrial way. And then it’s harder to get to it. Financial developments. You have an income to tell linearly how much a very good income can be, but still a linear income. It’s not an income that develops exponentially or I know in any progression that I would at least arithmetic. It’s very hard to get to grow in this way, it starts and I sure do, we came neglected. Sure, I’ve come in where you can make your own limits. It’s a flexible income that has various advantages from that point of view. Comparing them with other trades let’s call them classics, where there are several offers. It’s a bigger and harder battle. You force them to impose your price. Here somehow, if you see your job, if you deliver quality impossible, not to be well paid and implicitly to have a lot of work to do is these particularities. The specifics of this. We did it and from a financial point of view EO interesting choice is instead you don’t get bored financially big enough, to support all the fixed costs, let’s call them and all the expenses of life that come to you, whether or not you produce to support them from a fairly variable income, given that you still think of time. And maybe in a time trial you have not been able to make a very good pre-viewing of the actual working time that such a project entails. I’m waiting to finish in a week and maybe finish between them. I can’t ask for more money determined between them. Next time you know that in all this time the invoice has come to you and has to be paid, whether it has been a week or about 3 that the production has passed in a week or that you have made 3 weeks the unforgiving invoice with you.

Daria

How do you think the state could help you?

Razvan Iancu

Now could the state help us here? Here’s a pretty simple and complicated answer. The biggest help is not to confuse you. But how could it help us in the first place to create a legal framework based as are the principles long enunciated, on equality of opportunity? In the sense that they create the same chances for those who. It works within the legal framework and for those who choose to work within the legal framework to be more specific, maybe hard to understand that there are a lot of people who choose not to work within the legal framework, because it may as well work in the underground framework yes, so I can’t

work and hopefully you’ll work on the surface. that I have pretty much the same. They can’t work that way, they can work that way. And then, why should I pay when I can’t pay?That no one asks me anyway, nothing happens anyway, the law exists anyway, but it is not respected and it is not controlled. There are no measures that force you to obey the law. And that’s where even the reluctance of water customers comes in. I don’t work with you because you have a company and you give me a lot of money, because you have to pay to the state and suddenly you find yourself having a competition that comes below your price and has a higher profit than yours. And the state is sleeping during this time, so this is where this should be the first direction in which it has to intervene very well and if it wants to, to be done to the world, but in this field, in any field. That at least at one level we are not saying that you have to be extraordinarily hard, taxed or do, but rather than take a lot from two or three and who work correctly as I am and how there are a few more and underground, behind them to be behind these 2 3 to be 2/3 who work underground and have no kind of. Contribution if you manage to somehow level up to put them all, to pay 1 RON each, automatically more income than if you have in the house quite a lot from two to three people who. That for the sake of prestige for the sake of sleeping peacefully or simply because that’s right and morally they choose to work. With all right papers that’s the first way to support crafts. Of course there are other facilities, there are 1001 European programmes, European vocational training funds. There are many directions, but up there we can get the first regulation and the most burning that I’ve said. The moment you somehow take such measures would come out with a big advantage by working with someone who assumes the quality of the work you pay. Some taxes are on display online. In any environment, he knows that he has a history, he does his job very well and then. It can work on the surface. Of course it’s an advantage at the customer level, if you as a state encourage a regulated thing. If the client instead prefers to pay less and take the risk of working with someone who is not certified, he has no assumption of. The quality that the services that you offer there as a state have to intervene a little bit, to determine the service provider, to put themselves in order, with all the certifications, to make them take out all the approvals, authorizations and to somehow determine them to ensure the quality of the service at the level that the customer expects. Like when you pay less, it doesn’t mean that your expectations as the customer. Today, the same expectations are going to fall when you work

with a man who has a track record has a certification, has a portfolio on display throughout the internet. That’s how the normal direction should be and be able to help the customer there as well. It’s a work environment, then you create a healthy work environment. And in addition to the answer to the previous question with the state, of course, an aid already of great benefit would also be the guarantee of some loans. Getting funding for the little craftsmen would be a very helpful thing, because you need some capital for. Any craft. And then, if the state argues with such measures, it would surely be a great help.

Daria

Do you know many people who use these techniques?

Razvan Iancu

Yes I don’t know what to say about how many people There are a few that are made at the art level, so it depends. It’s that it depends on which league you play in at this level of small, state craftsmen there are a lot of them, but there EO lottery, the quality of the lottery, if you choose to. At the professional level, very few real professionals. That’s why everything is relative if we refer to a relatively low to medium quality. There are many who each or maybe need two or three people who do something like this or a year in 3 villages I don’t know. Anyway it’s a lot, so there’s a lot of EOE quite widespread. This job at that little level of quality. Let’s say satisfactory, maybe even less as a qualifier, at a very good level excellent and professional. There are not very many, there are, we say 10 people all over the country. I don’t know if 10 people would be good to be 10. And that means quite a bit and hard to form as well as it’s very hard to keep the standard and stick to what you started doing, given that you have 1000 challenges, as I said earlier.

Daria

Where do you find the materials you use?

Razvan iancu

Several categories of finished materials or materials. Let’s say on a large scale industrially they’re not that. Attractive in appearance they are in the classic colors. They’re at the level where not many people choose them. Of beauty, but simply of practical aspects, there are, of course, manufactures, when I do not know if I can call them factories in the truest sense of the word of such materials. Because that’s where

a craft comes in, too, everything comes in, as long as it’s handmade, it starts to. It begins to concern for quality and as a personal opinion. I’ve seen quality, I’ve seen it in the form of organization, family business, so when the company doesn’t bill it’s organized like a family business. Like a small-level enterprise and relatively easier to control in that one. The manager and technician. I’m about one and the same person to present a living presence in the manufacturing process. I’m always there versus an organizing system like this, where there’s a director. He is an entrepreneur who wants results from that director, especially financial. The director was going on kind of like challenges like that. How do I pay people less and have as much production as possible? And then an equation that can’t really get that doesn’t really have the quality of. And, in fact, it’s the quality that ultimately gives you all the measure of your production, because if you make a good quality product, you also have insured sales and product. Although the profits and everything that derives from this, that is, a sustainable development, can only be built on the foundation of quality, otherwise marketing stories and kind of like. Approaches of these and ephemeral but in a few years, until people say wait a minute that it’s not one promises 1 1 see on presentations and another you get in the house and then there’s a disappointment. A deception of expectations occurs and automatically cannot work for a long time. Lead to. To a healthy development of your business work. What I’ve seen to work at this level, to be neither very developed nor underdeveloped if one man is developed, I’ve also encountered something like that, where one man does it all, it’s cool it’s SUPER V beautiful as an approach, my respects for effort, but it’s very hard to do so. Working at this level, because you have limited production you have some limited models, you can’t by yourself, you can’t do much, you have to have a minimum of level of development and binding, to be able to enjoy teamwork as a bridge and as an orchestra man, but the thing is under enormous pressure for sure. My respect for man that he is very capable of such a thing. He can take all his things upon himself and do them on his own. It’s got one hundred percent control, but it’s got control, but it’s this life I’m saying there’s a balance to be found between all these organizational models.

I don’t know how useful I could be with my answers, you’re going to need a little patience, to follow me. What to say interesting questions, I hope they will be useful to you and I am glad that there is still such interest and such approaches at the educational level. And it means that there are still hopes, there

is also good news, but what to say? Even EO great challenge to address such themes that. I don’t know how much impact the audience has or depends on what you’re watching now. Sure if your target is to get to conservation and to. This satisfaction of the thing saved from oblivion and from going in the machinery of modernism. Of course you have complete satisfaction. What to say is very nice initiative I liked to attend this virtual meeting.

Damian Popa

Good morning!

I’ve been a little caught up, these days, but now I’m trying to answer the questions sent out.

Daria

How you learned the trade

Damian Popa

- I started working in wood and stone since childhood, following the example of my father who was a folk craftsman and naïve sculptor, later pursuing high school and university studies in sculpture.

Daria

What is the process (?) in which you work

Damian Popa

- And at the moment I prefer to work mainly in wood and stone.

Daria

How often do you have traditional works and how often modern?

Damian Popa

- Due to the fact that I am a professor of Plastic Publishing House, in the villages of the commune, the time allocated to sculpture is less and for this reason I prefer to make more works of modern sculpture, another reason being the fact that I want to participate in the exhibition activity of the Branch of the Union of Fine Artists, in Neamt, where I am also a member. It gives me great pleasure to make naïve stone sculpture, as I learned from my father, especially during the summer. Decorative works, in wood, such as perforated ornaments or pillars carved in wood were made occasionally and generally for the constructions in our yard where the Popa Collection also works.

Daria

What does this job mean to you?

Damian Popa

- For me this activity represents a great opportunity, perhaps the closest to me, to manifest my creative

spirit.

Daria

How do you think traditional architecture or architecture that uses traditional ways has a positive impact on society?

Damian Popa

- Traditional architecture has the merit, all over the world, but especially for us Romanians, of being one of the important components of our spiritual and cultural, transmillennial dowry, which defines us as a nation, with the specificities specificities of the environment in which we lived and live, of our way of relating to nature and spirituality. It is the testimony of refined, harmonious and practical accumulations and refinements, of which it would be a great pity to “get rid”, indiscriminately, under the globalist rollercoaster of uniformity. Immediately after 1990, in an interview, Mrs. Henrieta Delavrancea - Gibory, as if in a premonitory thought, expressed her hope that people will be able to find that way to allow continuity and cohabitation between the architectural traditional and modernity. The need for harmony and beauty was, is and will continue to be an “inner necessity”, without the satisfaction of which we will always feel complete and unfulfilled.

mixing, starting with the post-decembrist period.

Daria

What do you think is the way we can emphasize the importance of using crafts?

Damian Popa

- It is important that this is included in a national, coherent and lasting strategy. There is such an interesting project, “The Ancestral Land”, proposed by a politician (Călin Georgescu), which refers precisely to the importance of the small entrepreneur, to the preservation, promotion and support of traditions, depends to what extent the Romanian society will be willing to join such a project.

Daria

How do you think we can pass on traditional values in a society in constant search of modernization?

Damian Popa

- By giving concrete examples of ‘good practice’, in this respect. e taste of citizens can only be shaped by increasing the number of examples of this kind, because there is currently such a natural reorientation towards national specificity.

Daria

Daria

Why should we choose traditional ways in the future?

Damian Popa

- The traditional and the modern can and would be desirable to coexist, because in this way several things specific to the times in which we live could be solved. This would solve the problem of losing cultural specificity, lack of taste and proportionality, negative influence on health, new materials, unverified in time, but also optimizing comfort conditions according to the current standard of living.

Daria

How has society and the rural world changed with modernization?

Damian Popa

- There was a certain external and especially inner impoverishment, as a result of the standardization process, begun in the socialist period and multicultural

Can you please explain to me how your job has a sustainable aspect to the environment?

Damian Popa

- They use traditional materials (wood, stone), which have no negative influences on the environment and which are valued at a higher level, not just as raw materials.

Daria

How should we teach children to respect traditional values and understand national identity?

Damian Popa

- There are parents, pedagogues, who are concerned about this, but I think it is necessary to coordinate all these efforts by implementing a programme at national level.

Daria

From a financial point of view, do you consider it profitable to use these modalities?

Damian Popa

- For me the material part is not so acute, as it is in the case of a popular craftsman, who makes a living only from the gain brought by a traditional profession, but taking into account the current orientation towards traditions and a possible national strategy, in this regard, it could become a reasonable option.

How do you see the future of crafts in Romania?

Damian Popa

- With potential, but also with the need for a broader awareness and support. How do you think the state could help you?

- Thinking reasonable and lasting strategies in this regard. Do you know many people who use these techniques?

Daria

Where do you find the materials you use?

Damian Popa

- Living in a Subcarpathian area the purchase of these traditional materials is relatively accessible.