Enchanting Views | Launch and screening of documentary films

Enchanting Views. Romanian Black Sea Tourism Planning and Architecture of the 1960s and ’70s
Launch of the new edition and screening of documentary films

31.01–02.02.2024 @ P.A.G.E.S. Print and Art Book Fair, Geneva

06.02.2024, 18:00, Cinema ARTA, Cluj-Napoca

14.02.2024, 18:00, Modul Cărturești, Bucharest

The Institute of the Present announces the launch of the new edition of “Enchanting Views. Romanian Black Sea Tourism Planning and Architecture of the 1960s and ’70s” in the frame of several events taking place in Geneva, Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest.

The book provides a critical survey of the extraordinary situation held by the Romanian Black Sea coast project in the architectural practice of the 1960s and ’70s. The assemblage of essays and photographs guides the reader through a trans-disciplinary analysis of the modernity of the Romanian seaside, examining in a methodical and nuanced way the distinctive character of the development plan. Bringing into play new theoretical perspectives and documents in order to renegotiate the numerous and complex dimensions of leisure architecture, the term representation becomes this anthology’s “vanishing point.”

“Enchanting Views. Romanian Black Sea Tourism Planning and Architecture of the 1960s and ’70s” is published in the Architecture Book Series of P+4 Publications and is conceived and edited by Alina Șerban, in association with Kalliopi Dimou and Sorin Istudor, with a design by Radu Manelici. The articles are signed by T. Elvan Altan, Irina Băncescu, Elke Beyer, Adina Brădeanu, Anke Hagemann, Claude Karnoouth, Olga Kazakova, Juliana Maxim, Carmen Popescu, Magda Predescu, Adelina Ștefan, Irina Tulbure, and the introduction by Ana Maria Zahariade. A photographic dossier by artist Nicu Ilfoveanu follows the contemporary development of the Romanian seaside. The authors’ essays plead for the rewriting of the meanings contained in the complex terrain of the seaside project during socialism and for the engagement of new theoretical and cultural pillars, renegotiating the multiple dimensions of leisure architecture. The publication offers a comparative reading of the Romanian coastline including texts dedicated to the tourism development projects of the same period of the countries opening to the Black Sea.

The first edition was published in conjunction with the homonymous exhibition hosted in 2014 at Sala Dalles, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, while the second edition, revised by Alina Șerban, Ștefania Ferchedău and Radu Manelici, is published in the frame of a project supported by the Romanian Order of Architects from the Architectural Stamp Duty.

The launching events include the screening of a series of archive documentary films regarding the Romanian Black Sea coast and are supported by DACIN SARA, Cinema ARTA and Modul Cărturești. The book may be order from the pplus4.ro website.

The event at Cinema ARTA is introduced by Irina Tulbure and Alina Șerban. Tickets are available through Eventbook.

Without claiming to exhaustively address the project of the Romanian coastline, the selection of films captures the role that extensive systematisation and architectural development played in articulating a new vision of socialist-type modernity, reflecting directly on the implicit representations that leisure architecture projected in the visual and social space of the era. The seductive expressions of the seaside architecture and the impact of individual and mass tourism, local and international, on the society of those years are explored through the particular way of filming and promoting this sequence of the socialist microcosm. Various representations of architecture (space for collective recreation and setting of the socialist utopia) are shown, as well as economic pragmatism (tourism policies, attention paid to technology and industrialisation).

From “Enchanting Views. Romanian Black Sea Tourism Planning and Architecture of the 1960s and ’70s” I understand how and why the spaces where I have the most beautiful memories with my family were built that way. It’s an object book, with texts about architecture, leisure in socialism, about modernity, “raising the living standard of the population”, and freedom, with photos from the archives of the magazine Arhitectura and Agerpres and a photo essay about the coast now by Nicu Ilfoveanu. (Ioana Cîrlig, Scena9.ro)

Photographs: Serioja Bocsok