Bucureștibrutal
I. There is blood in every brick. I live here now. My last day will be in a different season than my first. Nightmares from past epochs, dictatorships and ages linger in crumbling masonry and overgrown shutters. I am nourished by a coat of late- summer warmth and gratitude. I am nourished by curiosity, and […]
Region Guessing Bucharest
This guide provides an overview of common and easily recognisable metas that can be used to pinpoint an arbitrary location within Bucharest as accurately as possible. This may be particularly useful for players of Geoguessr and similar games, as well as casual detectives, stalkers, enthusiasts, or individuals who accidentally find themselves in Bucharest without any […]
fri[]mosaic
The biggest art heist in our city’s recent history has gone unnoticed for more than a year. It was not until a ten-year-old discovered that the dozen coloured mosaics filling the potholes in Bucharest’s city centre could be assembled into an imperfect puzzle revealing a QR code that the theft was acknowledged. The thieves had […]
How to (maidan) maidan, or how to make a maidan out of the maidan
Maidane are ubiquitous in Bucharest. They are everywhere, existing at every scale. The word itself, whose meaning shifted from referring to an ‘open space, unbuilt and usually unfenced, inside or outside of the city’ to ‘wasted, unworked, uncultivated, or fallow land’, folds over two centuries of urban transformations. Maidane appear in the suspension of official […]
Part XXII: The Janus
The following text is a chapter from Măiastra: A History of Romanian Sculpture in Twenty-Four Parts, a work of fiction written from the perspective of Prof. Igor Gyalakuthy, and supplemented by the professor’s daughter, Ana Maria Jderiou, also a fictional art historian. This is Ana Maria on Romanian art history post-1990. Despite the best efforts […]
Bükreș Günah Şehri
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 […]
From Home to Home
My micro-universe is bordered by Ștefan cel Mare Boulevard, Calea Moșilor, Carol I – Elisabeta Boulevards, and Buzești Street. Outside these borders are a few satellites in Giulești, where the grandparents on my father’s side lived, Bazilescu Park, where we moved ten years ago, and lately the Victoriei–Chibrit axis with its surroundings. Now I live […]
La Nuda Vita
The concept of bare life (la nuda vita) was theorised by Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben in his work Homo sacer. Sovereign Power and Bare Life. According to him, bare life is existence reduced to the biological, deprived of legislative protection and any political recognition. It is life entirely exposed to arbitrary power and even annihilation. […]
Bucharest Soundscapes
At the launch conference of SEMI SILENT in October 2016, the architect Ștefan Ghenciulescu talked about the sounds of Bucharest. Based on his observations, the sonic variety and fragmentation are due to the architectural mixity of the city, where Communist buildings hide family houses from the 19th century or Modernist jewels, neighbored by “fresher” apparitions […]
Top 10 Worst Cruising Spots in Bucharest
Bucharest, not being particularly close to the seaside (between two and five hours by train, depending on one’s luck), is far from a good place for cruising. Few stray sailors ever wander into the capital, and they’re always on some administrative business or looking to get into politics, despite only one of them ever achieving […]