Bükreș (a blog about the city we all love to hate) was active from 2005 to 2014. During that timespan, it agglutinated a wide range of materials concerning the city of Bucharest. From historical texts, amateur photography, newsreels, and early memes to audio-video contributions on various aspects of this urban sprawl. It was a collective project, artistic in scope, and chaotic in its methods. Today, it stands not only as a monument to what the blogosphere had to offer but also as an invaluable resource in understanding how the city came to be.
I sat down with Vlad Nancă, an internationally renowned artist who (along with Muromuro Studio) represented Romania at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2025, and also the main creator of the Bükreș blog. (Also joining us from the fringes is fellow artist and self-titled information trafficker Ștefan Tiron aka Megatron.)
CD: Hello, Vlad! And thank you for agreeing to this interview. Firstly, I would like you to describe Bükreș and this entire endeavour. Why the Turkish name?
VN: Bükreș started as an attempt to discover and understand the city as it really was and still is, a mix of cultures, identities, and overlapping histories that go far beyond any official or previously documented narrative. The Turkish name of the city was, from the start, a declaration of protest against the “Little Paris” cliché and that constant westward-looking, wishful-thinking positioning in the so-called “civilised world”. We wanted to see Bucharest as it truly was, and as many cities south of it still are, a small town from the Ottoman Empire.
| […] calling Bucharest by its Turkish name was also essential to counter the unidirectional Orientalizing gaze from the capitalist centre (Berlin, Paris, Vienna, or London) towards the rapidly self-colonising South Eastern European city. At the time, it felt like an unapologetic look from a relatable but much more historically and culturally relevant city across the Bosphorus. We urban youngsters from a 2.5 million people capital felt closer to the 15 million megalopolis from the East, rather than New York or London from the West.This meant ditching the usual self-loathing and de-centring the civilisatory mission narrative had, and embracing a deeply playful, patchy, and modular approach, the only one that could generously trace the multiple transformations of a polymorph urban cityscape. We made sure no one would forget the often-ignored Bükres intonation, which carried all the Silk Road / Istanbul / Constantinople connotations, a missing chapter from the official / tame version of market economy transitions. (Megatron) |
CD: What I particularly enjoyed was the randomness of the individual posts, a randomness which to me mirrored that of the city. How did you and the other contributors decide on the content?
VN: The posts reflected my interests at the time and those of the other contributors. There were several people involved, but the most active ones were Mircea Nicolae (aka Ionuț Cioană), Ștefan Tiron, and myself. With Ionuț, our common ground was urban exploration and a genuine fascination with 20th-century architecture, especially from the second half of the century. With Ștefan, we shared an affinity for underground and fringe histories, the overlooked, the speculative, the forgotten.
Besides them, there was Victor Plastic, a restless collector of music and related stories, and photographers Tudor Prisăcariu and Ștefan Tuchilă, who were also contributing. Altogether, it was a mix that mirrored the city itself, eclectic, spontaneous, and a bit chaotic in a good way.
CD: What was your relationship with Bucharest?
VN: As the subtitle of the blog said, it was always a love-hate relationship, and that hasn’t changed. I still feel deeply connected to the city, and I still find reasons to love it, although our relationship keeps getting more complicated.
Today, the difference between the rich and the poor is insane. There’s an ever-growing rift between these two worlds. I’d say there are two Bucharests and one of them is expanding rapidly at the expense of the other. The middle class is forever hungry for more; some people aspire to a kind of imaginary aristocracy, and that pushes the less privileged further and further away from enjoying the city in any healthy or inclusive way.
| […] Bükreș is brutal, especially for the economic marginals. I am reminded of this each time I return. I appreciate a lot of the constant efforts of those who live in that concrete city (like the two of you), who made it a home and try to keep it a green, quasi-liveable place, who trace its orphaned histories through time (with or without automotive power), and map its struggles to maintain its so called green lungs, despite constant land-grabbing and real estate speculation. (Megatron) |
CD: Who were the main contributors to the blog, and how did the entire mechanism function?
VN: There was no core team or formal structure; we were completely freestyle. Sometimes people would send in contributions, and when someone became a frequent collaborator, they’d simply get credentials to post directly. It was very organic and very open.
CD: What was the general ethos concerning the city of Bucharest at the time?
VN: When we started, we were living the first years of fast-forward capitalism. You could still see traces of the 1990s, the kiosks, the chaotic signage, the feeling of transition. There were still plenty of abandoned industrial sites to explore. The clubbing culture was just getting established, and so were the early networks of what would later become a creative community.
| […] the anti-city Bükreș Sin City was the unwanted, dirty, embarrassing, and fascinating version of how the authorities presented this city, and we had to get out of the default denial mode and document what was rapidly disappearing. This was achieved at a personal/individual level and not an institutional one. In contrast with the interwar preference, much of the socialist era was documented by so-called urban explorers, on their own time and with their limited resources. At the time, the authorities were busy cosplaying the interwar period, which to us felt like an uncritical tourist casino bet. Maybe they succeeded, or maybe what succeeded was a sort of humdrum universal Ibiza and almost unaffordable Lipscani / Old City area where even a working-class drink such as beer became a luxury. […] Of course, it was important not to forget how proteic the city was and still is, and how easily one could rise from rags to riches + fall back again. A crazy pop-up dynamic of sorts that became evident around the time of the economic crisis. And the realisation of how dire and catastrophic the fall from market grace is. I’ve known adventures. I’ve been to Swatch pop-up concept stores that would sprout in Rahova, and Vivienne Westwood openings and then closing down on Victoriei or CIAC centre pull-outs. […] It was a time of burnouts and house parties, all permeated by a jubilant feeling that the semi-legal party scene was becoming the laboratory of the most exciting happenings in the city, which the media and MTV didn’t quite catch up with. Notably, it was also the end-time of the MMORPG gaming netcafes and of the dense web of student Internet neighbourhood networks (the backbone of what was then new and exciting), e-communities, and LAN parties. Vlad and I felt the need to somehow document that. (Megatron) |
CD: You are also responsible for the artist zine Începem. What do these types of publications mean to you? What did the blogosphere mean to you?
VN: As with the Bükreș blog, the expansion and democratisation of the internet meant that new networks of information and interaction were emerging. New communities were forming, together with new forms of mobility. Blogging back then was the model of expression, free, easy to use, and accessible to anyone. I had several blogs on Blogspot, some on Fotolog, and later on Tumblr. What was great was that these online connections always had real-life correspondents, people met, collaborated, and made things together.
Începem functioned as both a mailing list and a zine, the two projects running in parallel and sharing the same name. We would make open calls for contributions on a chosen theme for each issue. People were supposed to produce their own work on A4 paper, in an edition of 10 copies. We’d then gather all contributions and bind them into 10 complete issues. Each issue had a special cover depending on the theme; the covers were designed by Alexe Popescu, with Ana Alexe and myself involved in one or two cases.
The zines circulated through exhibitions, DIY publishing fairs, and the bars or cafés frequented by creatives around the country. The whole idea was to overcome barriers, especially financial ones. A photocopier was accessible to anyone, and the impact of the publication was surprisingly big. Just like the home gallery initiatives, it encouraged people to express themselves regardless of limited resources.
CD: How present was, or still is, Bucharest in your artistic practice?
VN: I’m based in Bucharest, so of course, the city seeps into everything I do. But my mental and creative map extends further, into Eastern Europe, the former socialist countries, and even beyond. You can see this in my work; it’s about finding a sense of familiarity in this whole region. I feel comfortable here, in my hometown and in my creative world.
CD: Do you still love to hate Bucharest?
VN: Oh yes, I absolutely do.