About

Project initiators: Zeppelin, Ideilagram

December 22, 1989 marked not only the fall of the Ceaușescu regime, but also the end of the megalomaniac communist project to demolish and then rebuild Romanian cities. Thirty years on, the collective memory of these destructions is fading away, while the aggression against the cities continues, even in an opposite paradigm – that of ultraliberal development.

Forgetting (sometimes voluntary) can intensify a revisionist discourse, which justifies those brutal demolitions by the need to “modernize”. The same discourse then programmatically applies to the destructions and excessive building we witness today.

Under these circumstances, we believe that nostalgic accounts or the display of archives and other records as such are no longer enough. Therefore, through the proposed project we intend to take a step forward towards a symbolic and analytical reenactment of an erased urban reality.
Prin proiectul propus aici facem pasul către o reconstituire simbolică și analitică a unui realități urbane eliminate.

We concentrate the almost completely distructed Uranus neighborhood, the very place the occupied by Ceaușescu’s Palace (now the seat of the Parliament) and several other totalitarian buildings. But we also talk about the context, the general project and other brutal urban replacements, including recent ones in Bucharest.

The main goal of our project goes beyond remembering and honoring those who suffered, resisted or documented this tragedy: it is also about promoting a more balanced and responsible urban development in the present.

The hole project, URANUS NOW, with all its ramifications over time, is a project about living history and community spirit and the sometimes invisible links between seemingly radically opposite epochs.

ORGANIZERS: Zeppelin, Ideilagram, Ordinul Arhitecţilor din România – OAR – Filiala Bucureşti

CONCEPT, CURATORS: Dorothee Hasnaș, Ștefan Ghenciulescu