Graduation projects
Center for Arts and Artistic Creations - “Connecting Arts” - Moara lui Assan
Project description
The mills were the main elements of the food industry, and in cold or dry periods people prefered steam mills to those powered by water. Moara lui Assan is the first in Bucharest to use steam power to grind grains; it was built by George Assan and Ioan Martinovici in 1853; the main silo, the iconic building of the ensemble, dates back from 1904. The interventions in historical sites are sensitive concerning the balance necessary to be created between the pressure generated by the continuously expanding real estate market and the preservation, through conservation / restoration of heritage monuments and the old urban fabric. Based on the historical and urban analysis, the identity of Moara lui Assan ensemble was revealed. I have proposed an extension and reconversion of the historical buildings; the whole site is included in the List of Historical Monuments of Bucharest since 2004 (LMI Code: B-II -I-19 692). The proposal illustrated in the diploma project involves the preservation of four of the old buildings and their reintegration into a functional reconversion project, a Center for Arts and Artistic Creations - "Connecting Arts", thus materializing the need for cultural functions to diversify the predominant ones (trade and high-rise housing). The project aims to reduce the average age, to increase the degree of culturalization and civic sense of the population through arts. The direct interaction with the public, through specific functions, is the main element for a good integration and reactivation of any historical ensemble, be it industrial or not. Thus, the project proposes the conversion of the old ensemble into an artistic complex by interconnecting it with the proposed buildings. Therefore, Moara lui Assan becomes a primary element of urban regeneration strategies, a true cultural and educational node. The character and the value of the ensemble are the key defining elements in shaping the project, the proposal being subordinated both at volumetric and formal levels, to the historical buildings.
Author's presentation text
Pîțu Andreia-Nicoleta has graduated from ”G.M. Cantacuzino ”, Faculty of Architecture, from Iasi, promotion 2014-2020. Throughout her academic education, she showed an affinity for rehabilitation of historic buildings, crowned by the diploma project. In her future career as an architect, she intends to work on historical monuments.
