With this new volume we continue presenting the authentic and valuable architectural heritage of Roşia Montană, a diverse and surprising building stock, comprising civil, industrial or religious constructions, dating from different time frames, representative for vernacular construction but also for the absorption, filtered by local tradition, of the manifestations of major European styles adopted in the Transylvanian cultured architecture of the past three centuries.
We focus thus on a landscape characterised by an unusual chronological, typological and stylistic variety, thanks to which every new investigation brings forth new facets of a building culture particular and rich.
The documentation of this heritage started with the first survey campaigns organised by the Association “Architecture. Restoration. Archaeology” (ARA) in the summer and autumn of 2007, continued in the following years within the ARA Summer Schools. The results of these campaigns have been presented in the first volume of the series of documents of architecture from Roşia Montană, published in 2010, which comprises 12 objectives: churches, public edifices, dwellings, technical facilities.
The second volume of the series includes the surveys of 9 objectives: 3 churches and 6 houses, built between the first decades of the 18th century and the second quarter of the 20th, documented from 2009 to 2011. Through the publication of the surveys of the Greek-Catholic and Roman-Catholic churches in Roşia Montană and the Orthodox church in Corna we succeed in presenting a complete picture of the historic religious architecture of the site, illustrated now by all seven churches belonging to five of the Transylvanian historic denominations: Orthodox, Greek-Catholic, Roman-Catholic, Unitarian, Calvinist. The domestic landscape, that of traditional dwelling, is presented by a selection which catches both the architecture of urban influence (houses nos. 321, 390, 475) and the rural one (263, 1248), either associated with familial mining (255, 263), with trade and crafts (321, 390) or with livestock raising (263, 1248).
The documents of architecture are published to introduce the valuable architecture of Roşia Montană in the research circuit of all disciplines which find their object in the evidence of edification and habitation, such as history – with its specialised branches: history of architecture, of settlements or of construction techniques -, ethnography, anthropology, cultural geography of others. The ever more diversified scientific interest in the site of Roşia Montană is proven by the increasing number of studies, papers, articles or even conferences dedicated to the various aspects of the site, such as the conference Roşia Montană in Universal History, organised in 2011 by the Romanian Academy, the Babeş-Bolyai University and ICOMOS Romania. The scientific aim of our undertaking is complemented by a practical one: once identified and published, these values will possibly be better protected in the end, both by administrative means, among which the most important is the listing, and by direct practical actions.
The documentation programme targeting the cultural heritage values in Roşia Montană, initiated and conducted by the Association ARA, will continue in summer 2012.
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The surveys were produced in the larger part with traditional means, by hand measurements with the marked measuring tape, with the triangulation method, completed with general and detail measurements taken with modern topographic instruments – the total station. In elevations all measurements are taken from a convenient horizontal reference plane (Waagriss).
The means for documenting the heritage involved in the campaign dedicated to the site of Roşia Montană have gradually diversified, including recently – thanks to the collaboration with the Austrian-German organisation EKG Baukultur – the 3d laser scanning, in the attempt to acquire as large an amount of precise information as possible under conditions of limited accessibility. A few of the difficult subjects – high precision documentation and detailing of urban fabric or of certain historic mining vestiges, but also the recording of architecture objects different in scale and complexity – were tasks meant to test the potential of this technique for future investigations and have offered already the raw material for the surveys of two among the monuments presented in this volume, the Roman-Catholic church in Roşia Montană and the Orthodox church in Corna.
Each surveyed objective is described by plans, cross-sections, façades and architecture or furnishing details. The survey captures the overall and detail architectural structure, but it also includes information on the buildings’ state of preservation.
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The surveys presented in this publication do not represent the raw material compiled by the participants to the summer schools. The editors have selected and organised the material, directing it toward a comparative presentation of the monuments. The processing of the graphic material in view of its publication was completed by Alexandra Stoica, Silvia Costiuc and Claudia Apostol.
A criterion for selecting the objectives to survey, set from the first volume of architecture documents, was that of a possible contribution to the administrative protection of the valuable buildings of the site. Thus, the documentation was oriented toward those buildings for which ARA had required the inclusion on the Historic Monuments List. Among these we mention the Administrative Palace, the Unitarian, the Calvinist and the Orthodox churches in Roşia Montană and the Greek-Catholic and Orthodox churches in Corna. Despite the law (L. no. 422/2001 on the protection of historic monuments), our request has not been answered to this day. The documentation presented in this publication may also be used for the evaluation of the monuments in view of their listing.
The practical utility of the architecture documents was also proven by the use of some of the published materials for the planning and implementation of conservation and restoration works – from small-scale interventions, set in the category of maintenance and repairs (current or exceptional) applied chiefly to finishes (e.g. the Unitarian church, house no. 321, house no. 1248), to those of greater scope, which went through all phases, from preliminary assessment, to planning and execution (the Unitarian parish house, no. 391).
Not least, the selection includes only buildings belonging to the enduring local community of Roşia Montană, which is subject to immense disintegrating pressures from the mining company Roşia Montană Gold Corporation, in its attempt to make room for its planned mining project, with the price of displacing the inhabitants an destroying the built heritage.
The result of these actions of the mining company is visible at every step in Roşia Montană and it is illustrated in the documents presented here, which record in the site plans the change – dramatic in some points – of the built context as a result of the sustained demolitions campaign led by the mining company starting with 2004. Now we are in the situation of not being able to retrace on the ground important exemplars of local architectural heritage (such as Şuluţiu House, to give but one example) or even entire portions of built fabric (such as the central area of Corna). Altogether, the buildings from more than 250 properties have been demolished so far.
The building stock which has not fallen pray to this destruction campaign is extremely precious and justifies all efforts to save it.
According to the presented aims, we selected for this volume representative exemplars of the architecture of Roşia Montană, some of them outstanding, unquestionable historic monuments, even if not recognised by listing, others just current examples of vernacular architecture, those buildings which, together, make the precious building stock of the site and which shine only in association with other similar structures and not individually, not in the least when out of context.
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We wish to thank the owners, administrators and curators who allowed us access to the buildings for measurements and recordings.
60 pages, size 24 x 34 cm; 14 pages of text; 46 plates
black-and-white, folder
language: Romanian
ISBN 978-973-88465-3-1
Vol. II ISBN 978-973-88465-6-2
30 lei
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