ARA Summer School - Roşia Montană: documenting the architectural heritage, august 2009

 

The "Architecture. Restoration, Archaeology" Association (ARA) had initiated a summer-schools programme with the subject of protection and conservation of built heritage. After the first two editions organised in Covasna (experimental archaeology summer school at Fairy Fortress - 2007 and 2008), the third edition was realised in Roşia Montană in the period between 10th and 23rd of August 2009, with the participation of 20 students from the Architecture Faculty of UAUIM. The programme for the summer schools includes practical activities doubled by theoretical lectures on the subject of that edition.
The first two editions of the ARA Summer School organised in Covasna on an archaeological Dacian site aimed at testing in practice the building techniques and the defensive configuration discovered during the archaeological excavations by building experimental structures. This year edition had the objective of documenting the rich and valuable built heritage of Roşia Montană site.
Together with the precious archaeological vestiges that make this site a landmark of European and World Heritage Sites, Roşia Montană is important also for its vernacular architecture and for the industrial landscape of traditional gold mining. This settlement reflects a particular way of cohabitation between different communities which modelled the historic environment, in the spirit of the place: the same way in the antiquity those working in the Roman mines came from different provinces of the empire - Panonnian or Dalmatian area, the same way, later, miners from all over the Habsburg Empire would come here. This reality can still be seen in the stylistic articulations, filtered by vary mentalities, of the facades of the houses in the historical centre or at the five churches belonging to different communities, some of them dating back to 18th century, all of them remarkable examples of historic architecture, with baroque, classicist or traditional Romanian influences.
The documentation of this valuable architecture was the subject of the summer school, following a first campaign of architectural surveys organized by ARA in the summer of 2007, when a group of students from the architecture faculties from Bucharest and Cluj, under the guidance of arch. Claudia Apostol and lect. arch. Ștefan Bâlici realised the surveys of some valuable historic buildings, mainly houses - traditional rural houses, houses with shops situated in the central square of the settlement, parish houses and the Calvinist Church, one of the five churches in Roşia Montană. The aim of this year edition of this summer school was the documentation with architectural surveys, observation forms and photography of the religious, administrative-public and industrial heritage. There have been documented the Unitarian, Orthodox churches from Roşia Montană, and the Greek-Catholic church from Corna, all of them representative examples of religious architecture, dating 18 century. From the civil architecture there have been documented the administrative palace, built in 1897, the old school, dating as well in the late 19 century, being built in 1898 by Italian craftsmen and the former „birth house", built in 1879 originally as the house of a rich miners family. From the hydro technical systems of traditional mining - accumulation lakes, built starting with the middle of 18 century on the slopes surrounding Roşia Montană - there have been documented Tăul Mare, Tăul Cornei, Tăul Țarina that preserves barrages, water controlling and evacuation systems that represents notable creations of technical historic architecture.
The ARA programme of surveying aimed at documenting all the religious buildings that are not yet inscribed on the Historical Monuments List or without an appropriate documentation. Unfortunately, the Orthodox Church from Corna was not possible to be surveyed in this campaign.
The drawings and the photos realized during the summer school will be presented in an exhibition, first in Roşia Montană and afterwards in Bucharest, at the University of Architecture.
The evenings were dedicated to open lectures of specialists of cultural heritage: historical architecture research (Dr. Monica Mărgineanu Cârstoiu, The Institute of Archaeology „Vasile Pârvan" of Romanian Academy), the restoration of facades and mural paintings (Prof. Dr. Dan Mohanu, National Institute of Arts - Conservation Restauration), heritage management (Mioara Lujanschi, The Consultancy Centre for European Cultural Programmes) and the conservation of architectural-urban heritage (Virgil Apostol, National Museum of Romanian History; Ștefan Bâlici, University of Architecture and Urbanism „Ion Mincu"). The lectures were followed by debates on the subject presented or on the activity of documentation.
Parallel with the summer school, the ARA association realised urgent restoration works at the building of Unitarian Parish Centre from Roşia Montană, a traditional house built in 1933, where the participants at the summer school could assist. The works consisted of securing the general structural integrity with interventions on the damaged masonry and re-building the coverings with a previous roof-structure revision.