Scenarios for the collective housing from the socialist period in Bucharest
MAGIC BLOCKS book is now available online. Download it chapter by chapter.

download here intro

download here chapter1.overview
download here chapter2.activation
download here chapter3.negociation
download here chapter4.rehabilitation
download here chapter5.conclusions

Magic Blocks. Introduction.
Disasters, opportunities, ideas



There is the big city filled with concrete blocks. People call them boxes, very often matchboxes. There are boxes for 2 million dwellers. Most of these blocks of flats present
now more than ever an identity problem: you have to ask yourself if they are or not
really a part of the city, if people perceive them as urban or not. Looking very much like a background for a white and black, mute movie, Bucharest’s communist streets and blocks are humorous and nostalgic, which results from contrasts, raw ugliness and the decayed
buildings jumbled with vernacular operations specific rather to a village than a city,
mixing serial and industrialized architectures with personal décor and accessories,
posh cars along with derelict ones, and finally showing the same social mixture
that has not changed for forty years. At a sharp glance, you could extract that
thing that is almost invisible, something that you might overlook as well – that frenzy
and vigor dwelling inside and outside this boxes – magic blocks, something quite
close to both normalcy and disaster. On the one hand, there is the social dynamics,
that diversity, mixture, density ensuring its march forward, while on the other hands,
there is this Babel of communication of problems, of lack of rules. There seems to
be no coordination among authorities, tenants, or professionals. Here is a big problem,
it is so big that is almost impossible to discuss it in unison, or reach consensus.
download here intro


From Totalitarian Project to Real Estate.
Socialist Housing Estates and their Social, Economic, and Spatial Evolution



Let’s frame the issue: until recently discussions about socialist apartment blocks tackled
political, social, and identity aspects; these blocks were the paramount counter-model of “normal” dwelling. However the current economic crisis and the launch of a national
rehabilitation programme shifted the focus of the discourse, which now addresses almost
exclusively economic and technical aspects. This is an attempt to see what hides behind
the generic term 'communist block'. We will look into urban and architectural categories
as well as into social and economic aspects pertaining both to the initial situation and its
evolution during the past twenty years. We will try to establish a set of essential characteristics which can prompt an action plan.

A totalitarian project framed a new a way of living.
Everyone in Romania is clear about this: when it comes to cities, you either live in an old house or apartment block (that is to say one built before World War Two), or, on the contrary, in a new villa or an apartment block, that is to say in a post-1989 building,
be it an individual investment project or a real estate development. In between them stand
the communist blocks built from 1947 until 1989 to house the vast majority of the urban
population. So telling is their perceived image that they have become one of the totalitarian
regime’s most powerful symbols.
download here chapter1.overview

Activating The Downtown.
Turning waste grounds behind concrete curtains into public spaces for the old and new city





Hidden Behind Blocks Lies the Historic City
A forest of blocks straggle just like tumors into the ‘old city’ – no other former Eastern
European capital city experienced the huge totalitarian operations Bucharest underwent in the 1970s and 1980s. During earlier decades only few smallish Staliniststyle ensembles, functionalist neighborhoods, and city centre in-fills were built. The radicalisation of Ceaușescu’s regime went hand in hand with the 'modernisation' of the historic centre, indeed a project aimed at completely replacing it with a new, collectivist, and homogeneous city, itself a vehicle as much as the expression of the new society that was being forged.
To complete this new stage setting at the fast pace required by the dictator, demolitions
followed a linear trajectory along major axes (either in place or new) making space for the building of unbroken slabs with standardised fronts. Fortunately, the next step of in-depth demolitions and new constructions behind these lines was not carried out. As a result today concrete curtains along boulevards screen out irregular spaces (demolished and turned
into terrain vague) and the jagged fringes of the historical centre, often intact and
architecturally valuable. The density is high, while vacant land is scarce.
download here chapter2.activation


Negociation.
Non-Public Space To Common Courts



Space: Everybody’s,Nobody’s, Some People’s
A house does not imply just a building, but also the ground on which that house is erected. Regardless of whether dwelling is of the collective or individual type, it comprises both the buildings and “their space”: one which is distinct from the space that belongs to everyone else. That nobody seems to have ever thought about this – either in the past or now, when the rehabilitation process is the talk of the day - is one of the major issues we are faced with when it comes to socialist housing estates. Today almost every apartment block has
been privatized. Yet the grounds around them are, according to the initial concept, public domain. Though legally “public”, such stretches of land are vaguely defined spaces, appropriated either individually or by groups of inhabitants. At the other end authorities who attempt to manage spaces which they obviously can not, limit themselves to routine operations such as the demolition of - or the issuing of building permits for - garages and kiosks; the creation of playgrounds and parking lots; or simply the fencing of vast expanses of space. Thousands of kilometers of fences enclose green areas that become untouchable and thereby unusable and uninhabitable. This chapter deals with an alternative
approach to open space, one that enables the conversion of public non-space into
some sort of communal space; in other words, a semi-public area, a buffer between
the overall public space and the private worlds within the buildings.
download here chapter3.negociation


Apartment Blocks and their Rehabilitation.
From unrelated actions to a coherent project



‘Let’s blow them up!’
Until recently this was people’s most common reaction when the rehabilitation of apartment blocks was discussed. From plumbing to finishing, everything seemed unbearable; yet reaching consensus proved extremely difficult when it came to repairing the roof, installing an interphone, or repainting the façade. However, reason will prevail as no one will actually
blow up 70% of the city’s living quarters. People will discuss common problems and establish rules, no matter how difficult that still is. More importantly, in March 2009 Romania launched a national rehabilitation programme that makes it possible for many to insulate their blocks and change their façades. According to this programme 80% of costs will be
covered by the state and 20% by the owners associations through various means
(including bank loans).

Problems big and small
For authorities - with whom most people agree, since results are visible and clear - rehabilitation means thermo-insulation of outside walls with polystyrene, window
refurbishment (although many owners have already changed their windows, the resulting wide range of colors and shapes thus distorting the initial architecture), and façade repainting. There are however major drawbacks to the programme.
download here chapter4.rehabilitation


Conclusions.
Principles for a Rehabilitation Strategy

First, let’s talk about urban regeneration and leave the technical problems for later.
Rehabilitation techniques can be imported and adapted from countries that have long
been busy rehabilitating their 1960s and 70s stock; we mostly need a fit-for-purpose
urban, economic, and financial frame. This frame needs to address specific conditions
here, such as property structure, various individual circumstances and locations, as well
as a non-existent community culture. Urgent coherent action is required. We are faced with a dilapidated building stock whose facilities are in very bad shape; small individual refurbishments cannot improve their state in any way; bedsides price drop caused by changing perceptions about locations and the availability of new housing developments will lead to major problems, economic (loss of certain values, poverty increase, lack of rehabilitation means) as well as social (the emergence of ghettos and “problem-causing neighbourhoods” with everything they entail). Different contexts call for different strategies given the superposition of spatial as much as social differences. Indeed we know very little about these neigbourhoods. The setting of a database is essential. This should comprise information about the neigbourhoods’ social structure, an economic and legal analysis,architectural and urban contexts, all of which would enable well-tailored action plans.
download here chapter5.conclusions

Magic Blocks BOOK is edited by: Zeppelin
Editors: Ştefan Ghenciulescu, Constantin Goagea, Kai Vöckler
Graphic design: Cătălina Zlotea
The copyright of the texts and the images belongs to the authors and the photographers