extra-medium introduction news  projects  publications personal contact disclaimer [ Secondary Romanian Cities ] In December 2008 I was privileged to have the opportunity to conduct a second urban analysis workshop for graduate architecture students at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca. The first studio, in March 2008, that discussed the urban anatomy of Cluj, confronted us with the fact that although the city claims to be the second in Romania after the capital, Bucharest, it is comparable in size and importance to several other cities in the country's second line. End of last year we looked at what more precisely this secondary condition is, and what kind of social-political constellations are formed by Braşov, Cluj, Constanţa, Craiova, Galaţi, Iaşi and Timişoara. We also analyzed what makes these cities distinguishable and looked at possibilities for their existing traits to be enhanced. [ Urban Development Paths in Romania ] Since the fall of the communist regimes a substantial amount of informal construction activity has taken root in South Eastern Europe, resulting in unprecedented mutations to the region's urbanization. Corruption and the weak presence of institutional structures made building regulations ineffective in the 1990's. Romania is no exception, charged with erratic sprawls of the transitional years, leaving urban typologies behind that are expressions of developments taking place across wide sections of the society. The years of partly uncontrolled and informal urbanism resulted in built signs of architecture that are mainly based on the normality of the need to be distinct. This symptom, also known as turbo architecture is omnipresent in most South East European countries. Serbian architect Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss discusses its notability in societies of post-Yugoslav republics, where distinction as aim appears on a national level. In a recent interview he talks about the roles of social norms in the process of Balkanization. He claims that this normality "...can be explained by the self-propelled desire for distinction within a densely networked neighborhood, to be distinct from the others nearby, and to find ways and means of achieving this goal, sometimes by any means necessary". In Romania too, those informal and organic processes that shape everyday life, are driven by social and other norms. Architects and urban designers cannot avoid working with the way this realm of the average and ordinary takes shape. Decoding these norms attributes us with the ability to reclaim authorship over the uncontrolled urban processes. Furthermore, it reintroduces those social and cultural dimensions of architecture that seem to have been suppressed by the focus being on form and skin. Understanding local norms is also inevitable when analyzing geopolitical trends and constellations of different urban profiles. On top of this we feel the lack of a comprehensive study of urban structure and of well-elaborated strategies based on the potentials of knowledge exchange and task sharing on a regional level. Thus the major cities seem to follow individual, hectic and somewhat uncontrolled development paths that in some cases cause damages comparable to those suffered under the years of communist urban planning. Speaking of which one must also consider to what extent should post-socialist cities turn back to their historical values and how much should they develop new urban profiles now that they are freed from the regime's standardization. Romania's recent joining the European Union should also open new chapters in the country's urban strategy making. Being the EU's eastern gate, Romania could and should develop fruitful joint projects with both its member and non-member neighbors. Some cross-border regions do exist but even these don't seem to be charged enough with progressive yet realistic content. In his book Power in the Global Age: A New Global Political Economy , German sociologist Ulrich Beck notes that we live in a world where the borders and the social conditions are in a state of flux and that therefore our social and economic activities have never been so free from territorial boundaries. Keeping this in mind is doubly important in a country as heterogenic as is Romania. Some regions are remote and somewhat helpless within the country but bear the potential to develop unique profiles through international regional collaboration. I would like to point out that what we refer to here is not the process of globalization. It is rather denationalization, or with other words: the profound transformation of the nation state rather than its disappearance. Renown sociologist Saskia Sassen describes the manner saying that "[t]he notion of globalization does not adequately capture this transformation, which leads on to the question, where, precisely, is this foundational transformation happening?" In our vision potentials for such alterations are concentrated in the regional scale activities. Romania's denationalization has already started with its previously mentioned joining the EU and other international institutions, NATO for example. This process can be further enhanced and taken advantage of by reinforcing regional level co-operation and development, be those within or extending beyond the nation state. Municipalities seem to be obsessed with numbers and dimensions. Contrary to them, we claim that the national rank of a city in terms of absolute figures is irrelevant. The seven secondary cities are too close to each other in size and importance for sheer growth being worth considering in itself as a strategy. In order to be competitive, the cities should rather develop specific profiles based on their unique traits. This could also solve the problem of the uniform goals that remain unreachable for some, thus leaving embittered cities behind. Our analysis focused on this aspect with the goal of identifying and suggesting unique development strategies for each city. Policies that consider local traits, characters and possibilities. [ Systematic Analysis ] The workshop having been restricted in available time and resources we had to narrow our focus on the methodology and representational tools applied. Inevitably, some of the data used is intuitive but we always made sure to use information that makes the cities rigorously comparable. Part of the work consisted in a comparative analysis of the secondary cities, looking at basic facts and figures, such as their size, role within the country, location, connectivity and their metropolitan zones of influence. On the other hand we also looked at qualities or problems that seemed to be unique to each of the cities in order to better understand their peculiarities and future possibilities. We mapped local phenomena to highlight cities' normality that is based on their traits rather than on imported Western norms of urban development. Throughout the analysis we constantly narrowed our focus, always highlighting main themes or issues to be investigated. Internal reviews and presentations were used for us to always be clear with the overall picture and to define priorities and upcoming tasks. We also imported a few tools, like Kevin Lynch's mental map to better understand the anatomy of the cities. In his book, The Image of the City Lynch introduces an urban quality what he calls imageability. It refers to the ease with which people understand the layout of a place. With Lynch's words it is "...that quality in a physical object which gives it a high probability of evoking a strong image in any given observer." Vivid areas are of high imageability. Mental maps indicate the way people picture cities' framework, distinguishing five different elements: paths, edges, nodes, landmarks and districts that are continuous areas with alike urban texture. Lynch's analysis was based on hundreds of interviews. In the studio we could not follow his exact method, we rather gave a somewhat ironic spin to the process. As available time was limited, students could only rely on their own experience, available data and maybe on interviewing a few. As a result, the maps they drew already implied how imaginable the cities were to them. This quick critical exercise nevertheless showed us differences among the discussed cities with regards to the simplicity, legibility of their urban structures, ease of orientation within them and homogeneity of their textures. We used charts and matrixes to compare the cities' historical peaks, symbolic and imaginary positions, functional profiles and worst and best case future scenarios. This helped us in understanding where each city's specific character derives from and gifted us with the ability to suggest unique development strategies based on them. To be sure, some problems are shared or faced by most parts of Romania's urban network: the lack of appropriate infrastructure, resulting in bad connectivity, and the overwhelming centralization of the country, to name a few. Although we of course did identify these problems, we remained more interested in the distinctive conditions of the specific cities. Local color is determined both by the history and by the contemporary profile of a place. Looking at the past, one can quickly distinguish between urban traits of cities having peaked in different periods and under various rule. We identified characters ranging from the compact medieval Braşov, through 19th century cities, to Galaţi, home to 1950s socialist heavy industry. One can get a good impression on how historical differences determine present profiles of cities by comparing Timişoara and Craiova. Although both are located in the western lowlands and have seen their biggest boom in the 19th century, their development paths greatly differ. One was a strategic location of the Habsburg Empire and later the Dual Monarchy, while the other is the former capital of Oltenia. German cultural and political traits still register in Timişoara's urban structure and are also highly responsible for the comfortable living standards and cosmopolitan qualities offered by the city. As opposed to Little Vienna, as people of Timişoara like referring to their hometown, Craiova has a much less settle texture, is poorer and is known for the violent conflicts of its underworld. The history of the cities and the regions around them has substantial impact on their contemporary urban profiles elsewhere too. Cluj is influenced by Hungarian and Monarchic, Iaşi by Orthodox and Constanţa by Ottoman cultural features, to name a few. This aspect is of very high importance in Romania as the country is fragmented and its regions have had very different historical paths until they united in what the country is today. A brief summary of the secondary cities' comparison with regard to their historical, symbolic and functional profiles was presented in a chart. We also tried mapping the metropolitan zones of influence around the studied cities and found that, although municipal goals seem to be of similar shape and size, in reality, the zones register visible differences. Timişoara and Craiova, laying on the western lowlands, have the biggest and most concentric zones. Cities situated in more complex terrain show zones stretching out along infrastructural arteries while being distorted by geographical features. Galaţi seems to have the smallest metropolitan zone as its industry has a mono-profile with the city itself housing the workers, and not providing enough attraction for others. Constanţa, to name another example, is unique in having a very linear zone of influence that stretches along most of the Romanian seaside. [ Postcard as Presentation Device ] Postcards reflect the way a city is aiming to introduce or represent itself. We decided to create our own set of theme postcards for each city. Not only to use the cards as tools to present our interpretation of the cities' individual characteristics. Being able to demonstrate highlighted themes with a reference image and a few labels is actually the climax of the method used throughout our work. As said before, we constantly narrowed our focus, selecting and editing data in order to pinpoint major themes from the cities' history and heritage, to present current issues they are facing and to introduce bases for their possible development paths. We tried to be suggestive with the postcards and to register our understanding of what the successful role of each of the secondary cities in the Romanian urban system should be. We started off by seeing seven identical dots on the country's roadmap and left by having identified a constellation formed by seven different urban profiles. Each city being a regional center but also having unique qualities based on which they could enhance their importance on a national level. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the school administration and the student organization at Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Architecture for inviting me, and Dana Vais for her support and indispensable local knowledge. I would also like to express my appreciation of the students' openness towards the topics and methods introduced and of their hard work throughout the studio. Text by: Daniel Kiss