Arhitext Festivals
Arhitext design prizes
It has already become a festival with tradition, well-known and highly appreciated by Romanian and foreign architects, urban planners and landscape artists, which promotes, appreciates and awards prizes for quality Romanian architectural projects. Arhitext Design Foundation came with the proposal for such an event after a careful examination of the architectural and artistic field and after realizing the need to modify, accentuate and shape certain tendencies in the contemporary Romanian space.
Starting from 1993, Arhitext design has organized the architecture competition Arhitext Design Prizes (PAD), event bringing a significant contribution to the assertion and confirmation of the value of local architecture. From 2005, this event has been integrated in an ampler event also containing, in addition to the Arhitext Design prizes, several theme exhibitions and debates on a specific concept that has in fact lent its name to the Festivals organized by Arhitext so far.
I. In Between Festival, 8-9 October 2005, Sibiu
InBetween coincided with the VIIth edition of the PAD and proposed, concurrently with the abandonment of the fixed location Bucharest and of the option for an “alternative center”, the firmer integration of architecture in the cultural discourse.
InBetween was conceived as a challenge of present realities. The concept defines both the state of hybridization felt in the cultural zones it investigates and a permanent vacillation between a cut and paste process and a redo and copy one. In Between appears, in this case, as a polemical construct reflecting the perpetually neo-modern principles governing the cultural space, as well as the select and convert auctorial intrusions.
The festival was attended by a large number of people and enjoyed the support of the media. It also attracted positive appreciations from the architects and the attending public, representing an important debut for the other Arhitext Festivals.
II. The INside/INsight Cultures /// INtre/INtru Culturi Festival (Romanian architecture in the European cultural context), 4-7 October 2007, Sibiu, Alba Iulia, Dealu Frumos
The 2007 VIIIth edition of the Arhitext Design awards was held in Sibiu, the cultural capital of Europe in 2007, as part of the special cultural ambiance which accompanied the event, developing and summarizing the premises initiated by In Between. The VIIIth edition of the Prizes was part of an ampler event organized by the Foundation, namely Între/Întru Culturi // INside/INsight Cultures; The event lasted three days and a night, between 5 and 7 October 2007; the actions presented and discussed primarily targeted the multicultural communication of architecture, the open and unrestricted approach to the architectural endeavor.
The presence of an impressive number of people, the atmosphere created throughout the three days and the guests turned this event into a real success and bestowed prestige upon the Foundation.
III. Festivalul Tropisme, 9-11 octombrie 2009, Cluj
The Arhitext Festival Tropisms enjoyed the same success as the other editions. For Tropisms, the starting point was the need to re-contextualize the term “tropism” in the space of architecture and urban planning. For this reason, we wanted the events pertaining to the Festival to take place in unconventional spaces such as open pedestrian alleys, a route connecting several city squares (Libertăţii and Eroilor squares), piazzas (Universităţii square, Matei Corvin house), open spaces (the Firemen’s Tower), yards (of the Matei Corvin house, of Continental Hotel and of the Banffy Palace), galleries (Banffy Palace) and pedestrian passageways (of the puppet theatre and the Libertăţii square passageway) in the center of the city.
Throughout the three days, we managed to lend the city of Cluj a more colorful appearance and to mark a new edition of the Arhitext design Prizes (IXth edition).
