The Answering Machine by The Answering Machine

POLITEHNICA UNIVERSITY OF TIMISOARA

FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING TIMISOARA

VIENNA DESIGN WEEK

The Answering Machine

17% of Romania’s population is currently living outside of its borders1, mainly in Italy, Spain, UK and Germany2, but also right here, in Austria, where we are one of the main sources of immigrants3 (6,8% out of the total number of immigrants). Migration is a complex phenomenon, as old as our existence, triggered by our natural desire for a better life, widely speaking. The myth of the neighbor’s greener pasture has sent so many of us outside our own country’s borders, looking for some general notion of better - be it knowledge, money, family or the most basic of human needs: personal security, access to food or water. The long period of peace and prosperity the Europe has experienced in the recent decades, as opposed to its external threats - posed by war, political oppression or climate change, have triggered migration bursts that have challenged our politics, economies, cities, families and values. Here, in Vienna, in the world’s top city for quality of living for 8 years in a row4, a city that grows5 at the quarter of the speed that the whole of Romania shrinks6 (20.000 people/year), we represent a place that is being slowly depleted of its most important resource: its quali ed workforce. We represent a profession (architecture) that is both empowered and weakened by these migration ows. One is left to ponder on the situation and see how this new status quo can be turned around and used as an opportunity to reconsider our responsibility towards our common spaces, cultures and environments. Poorly, fairly or brilliantly designed, architecture is the background and setting of our lives, it is that place where each of us feel that they belong to. In the complex process of designing such places, as years passed, the world population and thus the need for space grew, machines were built - machines that teach, machines that legislate, machines that build, machines that speculate. We situate ourselves at the very beginning of this spectrum - we are vectors within a small machine that teaches what is architecture. The possible answers to the question ”what is architecture?” are plenty. The role of the machine is not to program them in a certain direction, but to generate the possibility of answering. This is usually empowered through a continuous exchange of ideas, work patterns, through cultural and organizational contamination. Until recently this was an almost impossible condition. Forty- ve years of national communism followed by a chaotic

transitional decade isolated Romania from the international ows of capital, knowledge, and innovation. In spite of the slow progress, EU accession came with a promise. Romanians were at least free to experience rst hand the bene ts of Western culture and of the free market. They would rebuild the machine one piece at a time. At the moment, our main challenge in steering, fueling or even redesigning the machine, is that we are only now beginning to re-assemble some of these individual experiences. In Romania, migration is mostly a one way street. This situation is quite new for Timisoara. This is a city that used to be the region’s melting pot, and an example when it comes to cultural and social exchange. It has lost some of its former turn of the century appeal, however it still stands as a cultural and economic magnet, recently having won the 2021 European Capital of Culture title. And in spite of its constant economic growth (the second one in the EU for any second rate city), being so close to the western border, it is still bleeding highly educated creatives. Architects are in the avant-garde of this trend. With a construction market that is two thirds the size of the Austrian one7, and a fairly close ratio of architects per 1000 inhabitants8 (0,4 vs 0,6 in favor of Austria), the hourly wages that Romanian architects charge are 10 times smaller9. Even now, although there is so much to be done, small scale corruption and the general apathy of both central and local administrative bodies continue to encourage people to just quit and leave. The demographic predictions are also less than favorable. In 30 years Romania’s population will have shrunk by 5 millions citizens. The problem is not so much about being fewer, than it is about being fewer actively working people - less experts, less workers, less teachers, less doctors, and more elderly people. With almost 85000 people leaving each year10 in search for better job opportunities, the nancial losses for the country’s economy amount to almost 500 million euros11. So take this as an invitation! We hereby invite you to contribute to the design of a better machine! Here, at Vienna Design Week, we call on you to be a designer! We invite you all - starting with our own staff, students, alumni, diaspora or just visitors, all of you with a designer’s mind,

to engage in the responsibility to build better opportunities, better common trajectories and not only individual ones. We ask you to decide, or remember where you belong to; to be generous and give back. Be a designer and imagine a better machine for all! Be an architect and design it accordingly to context and like a place that you could belong to!

1 - http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publications/migrationreport/docs/MigrationReport2015_Highlights.pdf 2 - http://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-esential-15124677-harta-interactiva-emigratiei-care-sint-judetele-fruntase-exportul-romani-plus-destinatiile-preferate-pentru-emigranti.htm 3 - https://www.donau-uni.ac.at/imperia/md/content/department/migrationglobalisierung/forschung/sopemi/bif -sopemi-2016.pdf 4 - https://www.mercer.com/newsroom/2017-quality-of-living-survey.html 5 - http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/vienna-population/ 6 - http://m.adevarul.ro/news/eveniment/cum-ajuns-romanii-locul-doiin-lume-emigratie-motive-consecinte-1_599473bc5ab6550cb80c2cdc/ index.html 7, 8, 9 - http://www.ace-cae.eu/837/ 10, 11 - idem 6

Timisoara Faculty of Architecture and its students in the international context

The Timisoara Faculty of Architecture, during its relatively short lifespan (from 1970 onwards) has gone through three distinct development periods in connexion with the relationship with the international context. Along the early period from 1970 to the mid 1980΄s – during the communist era, the Faculty de ned itself as a neo-avantgarde, anti-system school, oriented towards formal, conceptual and technological innovation. The leading personalities were three outstanding individuals: Stefan Bertalan, artist, Hans Fakelmann, architect, and Victor Gioncu, engineer. They managed to keep open channels with the outside (Western), world and achieved lasting international recognition. Bertalan was celebrated at the 2015 Venice Biennale as a major creative gure, Gioncu as a leading international researcher in static and anti-seismic calculus. The Faculty was rather small – no more than 50 students in each year; teachers and students formed a close knit community; the felt they were endowed with a mission: to promote a critical and creative view, distinct from the bleak immediate context. Against all odds important international awards were obtained and surprisingly candid workshops and exhibitions were organized in a public area dominated by censorship. A considerable proportion of former students were able to develop remarkable careers, both as architects and as academics, in Romania as well as abroad, especially after 1990. The seconds period of the Faculty΄s evolution was de ned by two historic events: the fall of communism in 1989 and Romania’s entrance in the E.U. in 2007. It was a transitional period both for the country and for the school, which offered unexpected bene ts. Relationship with the international world became frequent and spontaneous without any institutional regulation. The Faculty conserved and developed its critical and creative ethos. Paradoxically, the incertitudes of the period encouraged an independent approach in adopting teaching methodologies and curricula, and blending them with previous experiences. It was a dynamic period, with many international participations: the Faculty was successfully presented at the 1996 Venice Biennial, international workshops and summer schools were organized, students and teachers have obtained awards at international competitions. Former students of the previous period became teachers, and new generations were raised in a free environment. It was a period when the same outstanding students chose to apply to avantgarde schools as ˝AA˝ and ˝Berlage Academy˝

and to join or create alternative rms and/or research groups abroad (in the U.K., U.S.A.). A new generation of teachers - among them some of the organizers of the event at the ˝Design week˝, appeared, leading the school towards the present. The past 2007 era. Full integration into the E.U. offered both advantages and drawbacks. The institutionalization of the international academic relationships via implementation of the Bologna System, Erasmus and Erasmus+ programs and other instruments allowed teachers and especially students to travel and activate extensively in the European network of universities. Alternative orientation and relationship with the creative niche ambients were almost abandoned; standardization and uni cation of approaches and procedures took command. Many students chose to apply for internship to mid-size commercial rms in countries like Austria, Norway, Germany or Belgium; they started to construct C.V. pro les adapted to that end, showing less and less interest towards more high pro le, creative rms and/or research units. Technological and managerial skills took precedence. Of course, the creative ethos and quest for originality of the Timisoara Faculty of Architecture did not disappear completely – there are students and teachers willing to perform in a challenging way and considerable results such as winning awards at major competitions (Europan) have been achieved, but the trend is slowly declining. A combination of factors: the relatively low income of architects in Romania, the incomplete reorganization of the architectural schools due to bureaucratic inertia, the dominant liberal economic trend, favoring nancial success over creative realization, all contributed to reduce somehow the atractivity of Romanian schools and to the transformation of those schools (including Timisoara΄s) into extraction tools for specialists destined to larger markets. We are starting to form people with less original pro les, ready for the economically advanced areas of the E.U., and no counter-currents are generated which could bring us in exchange, the much needed human and material resources. The functional equilibrium is going to break, and new approaches and substantial opening like this event (the ˝Vienna Design Week˝) may hopefully highlight the situation and open new and more equitable opportunities.

Ioan Andreescu is the dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism in Timisoara. He is an important gure in both the school and the professional community. As a partisan of Heisenberg’s theory stating that the way you investigate changes the research eld, he is a bold analyst of the current situation.

Architects back and forth Architecture, albeit static by de nition, has always been made by people on the move. Architects have been called to the furthest corners of the world to do that which they know best, or have went there where they were precisely needed, meaning where they could nd work. Just think of the modernist titans’ stories, of Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Saarinen, and even Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto. Some have travelled with their projects, others throughout their entire lives. I cannot help but remembering Heinrich Boll and his Billard um halb zehn, for the overlapping destinies of the two architects, father and son. I try to further inspect the phenomenon, more in-depth than the recent years in Romania. There is migration for continuous formation, for studies, as well as for the rst apprenticeship years, de nitely the most important ones, even decisive for the rest of one’s career. Then there’s also the work and life migration, for the career itself, which takes one where he’s needed or where one can be useful as an architect. During the communist regime, Romanian architects working abroad represented almost one third of the total active architects of the time. Now, in the last decades, especially since we became part of the European Union, a lot of students and young architects study and work elsewhere, mainly to understand, compare and decide what to do later in life. Of course that when the number of those leaving grows a lot, drama ensues. Architecture schools become depopulated of their best students, who chose to spend their last study years in other, more reputed, institutions. Since the apprenticeship can be done anywhere in Europe and the signature right, wherever obtained, is recognized throughout the European Union, a series of motives and personal options lead to migration. Nothing unusual here, but this says a lot about the economic situation and the quality of life in Romania in general, as well as about the culture of architecture and the architectural market’s status in our country. In 2007, when we joined the Union, a lot of fellow architects started panicking because of the idea that we would end up being invaded by thousands of occidental, better-prepared architects, that would have taken over our market. This did not happen for a very simple reason: the Romanian market is so inadequate and architects’ are so badly paid that it is simply not worth coming to work here from any other conditions, even from a context of extreme competition. However, neither did the contrary happen: our architects, being used to salaries 4-5 times smaller, did not manage to take over the occidental markets, especially not the northern European ones, even if working at half rates, meaning

double what they would have earned at home. This is due to the professional competition, as well as the clients’ options, meaning the architectural culture levels they possess. The architects’ map in Romania informs us that this profession is sought after by young people around the entire country. These remain mostly in the university areas where they have studied, coinciding with the denser areas of professionals, very few returning to their hometowns. Therefore we have aging counties from the architects’ point of view, dominated by small clans, families that manage to secure for various generations a little design rm’s business. Those who leave do it mainly to get employed. There have been many in the previous years and they have chosen mostly Great Britain, especially London, the place where you can barely photograph anything without capturing a few cranes in your frame. Alvar Aalto returned from the United States when his country’s economy recovered. So did Vladimir Arsene and Călin Negoescu, returning from New York to Bucharest, where they managed to implement different projects. Others never left, yet traveled through the competitions they’ve taken part in, sometimes even winning. At the beginning of my career, I have searched for experience in various of ces, as well as on my own. I’ve been through numerous cities until returning back home to Cluj. Yet in those years I had the discontent to see a lot of the projects I’ve worked on being built after I had left, without being able to oversee the entire process. I’ve learned that in order to be an architect one must settle in an of ce and travel through one’s projects. In the last few years we started traveling with our work throughout Europe, even other continents. Not a lot, but more and more so, after having worked in all of Romania’s regions. I keep meeting young professionals working from home, from Romania, with employers or partners from a completely different time zone. And I believe one more thing: that if things will start working better in our country, if we gain more con dence and try to profoundly develop ourselves, young architects will stop leaving in such great numbers and some that have already left may as well return. Serban , ,Tigănas is the president of the Romanian Order of Architects. He is from Cluj Napoca, where he has been teaching for the past 20 years, but also practicing - as partner in one of the top architectural of ces in the country. Involved in matters of the profession, not only in Romania, but also through the International Union of Architects and the Architects Council of Europe, he is a man of true grit, currently engaged in reshaping our professional organization.

GLOBAL REACH F.A.U.T. Alumni dispersion If F.A.U.T. were an airline company and not an Architecture School this is where our planes would have landed in the past 10 years.

DESTINATIONS In the last 10 years the countries targeted by our alumni grew from 5 to 21. Germany and Austria have been constant destinations, while Italy and the UK uctuate in this ow. Important recent targets include France and Spain.

FROM

STATION

Somewhere there, in the middle of the ows, is F.A.U.T. (our Faculty). To the left is our pool of student selection to the right are all the cities our students get dispersed to, both nationally as well as internationally. In the latter categories top target cities are Vienna, Berlin, London and Budapest.

MOBILITY BETWEEN TARGETS Migration is not only a one way process, as some destinations are just stopovers to bigger ones. And then of course some of the subjects return to their origin. This chart explains this type of mobility considering the in ation and de ation of each migration ow from one generation of alumni to another.

STUDY & WORK Almost 40 % of F.A.U.T.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s students attend a ERASMUS+ program sometime during their training years. Erasmus program grants a total 24 months of mobility that can be split between academic destinations (yellow) and training internships (black). Most students use all of their available months to the extent the Faculty is literally depopulated in the senior years.

WORK & STUDY The rst pie chart shows the ERASMUS + academic options our students are granted through international mobility partnerships. The second chart shows the countries and cities where architecture companies have hired our students for training mobilities of 2 or 5 months. Italy, Spain and Belgium are our main academic destinations. Training wise Spain takes the number one spot followed by Germany, Italy and Austria.

There are no academic partnerships with Austria yet people come here for work. Small to medium architecture companies in these countries use extensively Erasmus+, EU funded, students as short term employees. Many companies are now taking interns exclusively through ERASMUS+ grants. In this way they can practically avoid paying any further salaries over the scholarship granted by the Erasmus program, with few exceptions. (in Germany federal labor policy guarantees a minimum wage that is above the ERASMUS+ scholarship). Surprisingly the UK is not a target in this type mobility.

17% vs 18.8% 17% of Romanians live and work outside of Romaniaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s borders. 18.8% of F.A.U.T. alumni live and work outside of Romania. This is how they left over the past 10 years.

MY ARCHITECTURAL MIGRATION It has been generally believed, in many circles, that Romania is an exporter of poorly educated, under skilled laborers. Recent statistics however paint a different picture. Romania is not a lot different from any other eastern European country currently bleeding its human resources. If the rst waves of migration mostly saw the displacement of under skilled laborers, taking up high intensity low paying jobs, the current ones are made up of the younger, more educated Gen.X-ers and millennials. There is however a clear generational paradigm shift concerning attitudes towards work placement, entrepreneurship, job mobility and cultural attitudes, between the two. Quick to bene t from the economic boom at the beginning of the new millennium, Gen.X-ers were still able to establish companies, and set the base for a local free and competitive market. The millennials however were less fortunate as their generation peaked in the middle of the worst economic crisis of the last 100 years. They simply did not have enough options. Or did they? Partly encouraged by the many academic mobility programs that EU membership had made available in their case, partly pushed by these new economic constraints the millennials willingly and courageously choose to seek their fortune elsewhere…and architects were at the forefront of this new trend. What follows is a collection of testimonies from our alumni and former colleagues describing the particular and personal nature of each of this migrations. The motivations are numerous, from literally following on the footsteps of your personal architectural hero to following your spouse’s work placement, from simply looking for a better job, to trying out entrepreneurial and start-up opportunities. Beyond the stories, the collection reconnects people that once belonged to the same space-time frame, in an attempt to generate a spark that could be the beginning of a fresh design for our machine - an instrument that, to some point, helped us all in nding the answer to the question ”what is architecture?”.

Oana Stanescu

Resita - Timisoara - Spain - New York Asia - Africa - Timisoara - New York Year of graduation: 2008

Oana Stănescu graduated from FAUT in 2008, where she is notorious for her bravery. She fearlessly followed her dreams and heroes around the world (from Koolhaas, to Sanaa and Herzog& De Meuron), while becoming herself a hero for many. She is now based in New York, where she leads a world known practice while teaching at Harvard. I never cared about leaving. Or certainly not about leaving for the sake of leaving. The rst time it was to happen, it was because of an amazing opportunity, a challenge. It wasn’t necessarily because that opportunity was outside of Romania, but because it was as high as I could aim. It actually fell through, last minute, because of kafkaesque bureaucracy, when I was with my bags already packed. So then I eventually left for something far less exciting, mostly because my mind had already left, in search for something new. This time it was Spain. And then I saw something that looked like a lottery and I gambled. It’s easy to gamble when you have nothing to lose. To my very own surprise it actually worked, against all odds and so there I was, all of a sudden, in New York, working for my biggest hero. And who would say no to their hero?! And what I learned there, in that magic place - drunk on youth and ambition - is that one has to at least try to aim for their dreams before labeling them impossible. Because you never know. Because the rst thing that makes something impossible is that very label. Because the payoff is more often than not incomparable to the ego’s bruise of a simple no. And so I tried again, and then I was in Asia, and then again, and this time it was Africa , and then again and it was Europe. There were some more no-s along the way, but meanwhile I think of them as favors. It doesn’t matter what could have been, there is only today. And then, eventually, for the rst time, I went back to a place, back to New York. Now I start to feel ready to set a foot back home. I am not sure what that means, but I know I have something to contribute, something to make a difference, something that completes my other English speaking half. A school should never try to hold you back, not if it ever expects you to return. It shouldn’t ask “Are you sure?” but “How can I help you?”. It shouldn’t plant doubt and limitations; it should give you wings, to explore, to grow, to learn. You don’t know if they will come back. Some might, some won’t. It’s too early to tell, but a constricting school is certainly not a temptation. It takes time to discover yourself, to understand your origins. When you are over the seduction of the shiny, sparkly new, only then you get to appreciate and love your own roots. No one really wants to leave their home country. And everyone misses his or her mother language. But times are changing and these new opportunities are something we can’t be afraid of. We have to embrace them because the world only moves forward and the borders will be nothing like we knew them for so long. And that is amazing. Change is good and change is necessary, even when it doesn’t feel that way. Try imagining someone would describe this scenario to you in ‘83. How fascinating, how full of wonder would that sound? To study all over the world, to be able to work anywhere, to simply have choices and opportunities. That is to be free. That is what we fought for. A school is to put one on the way to become his best self. The moment the institutional interests trump the students’ it is missing its very purpose. If you want them to come back, give them something they would want to come back for, if you want them to stay, don’t tell them not to go. Nobody wants to leave their country. Don’t make them, but let them and they might, they just might want to come back.

Ileana Ion

Timisoara - Stuttgart - Timisoara - Viena Year of graduation: 2003

Ileana Ion was 13 in ‘89! She graduated from FAUT in 2003, and after some years of practice in Timisoara, she decided she needed to make a change in her life. She moved to Vienna in 2010, starting things up with a master course and a job in a small architecture of ce. She remained attached to Romania and is currently working with an NGO to build homes for nancially deprived people in Transylvania. I thought that this journey will take me to my “dream” job, in a “dream” of ce, the kind I read about in magazines.....The steps I took brought me on a different path and actually changed “the dream”. When did my migration start? Was it seven years ago, in 2010, when I left for Vienna - the city where I live today? Or was it back in 2001? When, after the fth year of architectural studies, I went on a six-month internship to Stuttgart, Germany? Growing up in the western part of Romania, in Banat, in a middle class, ethnically mixed (German, Hungarian, Romanian) family, the “West” was presented as the world to look up to: democratic, meritocratic, regulated and clean, all in all “civilized”. I studied architecture in Timisoara, in a small group of 25 students, from 1996 to 2003. The rst three years were interesting but extremely challenging - not just intellectually, also emotionally and physically. Around the second year, I thought about quitting, almost would have if I knew what other direction to take. Beginning with the fourth year, things got easier, partly because I gained some knowledge, partly because the whole context became familiar. Starting with the fth year, I couldn’t wait to nish my studies. So when offered the opportunity of moving to Stuttgart for a six-month internship, I immediately took it. I should also mention that I was 25 and for the rst time, away from my home town and my family-home, for more than a vacation. I participated in different projects, big and small, with different uses, in different phases of planning. There were a few bumps in the road, but all in all I really enjoyed it. If I would have been offered a position in that of ce, after the internship I probably would have stayed in Stuttgart. So after nishing university, I took a job back home. The ofce manager was part of the teaching staff at the university. All my fellow workers were colleagues from the university. In those years, from 2003 to 2008, investing in land and construction in Romania was pro table. Those were the times when some made their fortune. It was also a period when even people with small businesses made enough money to build a house. Getting a building permit was easy. There was more than enough work for architects. To keep it short: I was working on projects which I found interesting, experiencing building, learning new, practical things, making decisions, working in a friendly environment and for the rst time in my life became nancially independent from my parents. A few good years followed. In 2008, together with two friends and working colleagues, we decided to open our own of ce. Those were a couple of short, promising two years. We made our own decisions, worked only for the clients who appreciated our way of designing. Then, in 2009 the nancial crisis started and quickly had a very powerful effect on our small, young of ce. We had to give up our working space, had very few, mostly small contracts, for little money. I moved back with my parents, and they partially supported me nancially. It was clear that the phenomenon was here to stay at least for a few years. Therefore, I was starting to think more and more about making a change. I took the leap in 2010, planning to stay abroad for two to three years. So here I am, after seven years, still in Vienna, working part-time, in a small architecture of ce, planning mainly exhibitions and housing. When I nd time and inspiration, I am writing my master thesis, a research on the topic of life in a “grey neighborhood” in Timisoara, and doing some volunteer work in an architectural NGO. After I nish the thesis, I intend to invest energy into designing and building, sustainable and cheap housing, for nancially disadvantaged communities in Romania. Recently, I heard an interview over the radio about migration and change. The conclusion was the same as my experience: that migration forces a person to challenge their limits, their values, their identity: a challenge that only happens when one has moved out of the familiar environment. I discovered that the world is not an organized, constant, tidy place, but rather a diverse, changing, often chaotic and uncontrollable one, de ned by political, nancial and social power and constrains. I learned to question everything and look for the context. Some friends always ask me: so have you decided to stay or to move back home? My answer is: no, I haven’t decided. I am glad, that as a EU citizen, I don’t have to decide about this,...today.... Every now and then I do think about moving back to Timisoara......or maybe to some other place....

Lavinia Floricel

Drobeta Turnu Severin - Timisoara Graz - Porto - Graz Year of graduation: 2006

Lavinia Floricel started studying architecture in 2000 at FAUT, but nished her studies in Graz - a city that she fell in love with at rst sight. After graduation she remained in Graz and started working at Riegler Riewe Architekten, a renowned architecture of ce, where one can still nd her. My immigration story began with a spontaneous decision rather than a planned one. It was the spring of 2005 when we, the students from Timisoara, collaborated on a project with the Technical University of Graz and therefore were invited to Graz for the nal presentation. I fell in love with the city or perhaps with the new and different way of approaching things. So I came back home somehow nostalgic and regretting not having tried to live and study somewhere abroad. I shared these thoughts with my family and it was my mom who encouraged me saying that is not too late and if I feel that I should go on this adventure, then I should follow my heart and do so. In that moment I felt that was exactly what I wanted to do, so I packed my suitcase as if I would go on holidays, without thinking at all that it might be for good. My rst year of adventure abroad has been fabulous! I learnt new languages, met new people, I travelled....

I couldn’t have asked for more! The perfect way of starting my new life. The second year things started to become more serious. I got a job in an architectural of ce and I also worked very hard trying to nish my studies. Managing both work and study at the same time has been very demanding however I did everything with a lot of passion and excitement that I didn’t feel tired at all. It was pure motivation! Suddenly I started to receive so much appreciation from everywhere like I never did before. And success has a very “sweet taste”. Perhaps this is the reason why I decided to stay and being abroad started to feel more comfortable than being back home. Looking back I would say I had a lot of knowledge gained from the schools back in Romania, however I’ve really got the freedom to use it only when living abroad. This is my personal story. The immigration was in my case a successful evolution for my personal life, as well as professional as an architect.

MÁRTON TÖVISSI

Miercurea Ciuc - Timisoara - Budapest Karlsruhe - Basel - Miercurea Ciuc Year of graduation: 2013

Marton Tövissi graduated in 2013. After some interesting professional experiences in Budapest, Karlsruhe and Basel, he decided to move back to his hometown, Miercurea Ciuc, where he currently works both with his father - an acknowledged architect, and his partner Mihai, with whom he co-owns a (for now) digitally managed architecture practice. My architectural education started relatively early. My father being an architect, I always followed his work, helped him with small models and joined him sometimes to construction sites. It was natural in such a way that I chose his profession. From early on we discussed about working together. My family always encouraged me in this direction, and although it wasn`t a mandatory thing, we saw it as an opportunity we shouldn`t avoid. But in the same time, visiting and experiencing different places, other cultural contexts is part of the profession, so moving is inevitable and an obviously good thing at some point. My „migration” started when I rst moved to Timisoara to study at the architecture faculty. The place was completely new for me, and as everyone else, I had to learn to live on my own, away from my relatives. Being from the Hungarian ethnic minority, and so having some dif culties with the language at the beginning, just added to the intensity of this experience. The faculty being quite long, there was this perpetual idea about leaving, escaping for a while. An exchange and an internship abroad were obvious options. Now I consider both of them highly important for my formation. I chose to apply for a stipend to the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest, where I knew an architect and teacher, Gábor Turányi, who inspired me very much. This turned out to be really about learning by working on school projects, instead of just traveling, which I enjoyed a lot.This experience was later followed by an internship. Although leaving for one year meant exmatriculation from the faculty, I didn`t even think about this decision, because it felt important to have a deeper view about the practice itself before graduating - and why not do this abroad? I applied to several of ces in the German-speaking part of Europe and managed to get an intern position in an architecture of ce in Basel. This time I had all the circumstances to stay there longer if I wanted, as I was living there with my girlfriend (who is my wife now) who had her own internship by an other of ce, and for the rst time we could sustain ourselves nancially without the help of our parents. But we needed to nish the faculty so we moved back to Romania, with the idea to return for an other period later. This return never happened, although we were constantly playing with the idea to go for a few years abroad. Not anymore for the moment, not for working in an of ce anyway. But it was a series of events and circumstances that directed us towards where we are in the moment, and we didn`t force us against them. In 2015, working with my father and meanwhile vainly searching for other inspiring opportunities I received the news that we won the Europan 13 competition in Graz, which we did together with Mihai Buse, a good friend back from the architecture faculty who was already living in Paris that time. As the project went on, I considered it a good moment to resign from my plans to leave, as I could keep staying in my hometown, close to my family and some of my friends and still work for abroad, but on my own project. It is still an ongoing process, but we started a small collective (A-PLATZ) with two “pillars”- one in Romania and the other in France, and slowly started to build up a team with which we can work together quite well. We see it as some kind of a laboratory where we approach themes which interest us, work with references and try to build up a coherent view about the practice. Although the distance means some extra effort in the communication, it is this constellation that gives its special potential. I also keep on working with my father on projects in Romania, which have their own good and bad aspects. I would like to go on to do projects here, as it feels for the moment that one has quite a lot of opportunities and challenges, despite of the nancial dif culties. There is still a lot to do, there is clearly a need for the profession, although one might doubt it sometimes. But I consider the link to foreign countries very important for myself, not to get too isolated and keep myself fresh, open and exible. This ability might be the main advantage we get from our sometimes uncomfortable migration.

Mihai Buse

Beius - Timisoara - Bruxelles - Paris Year of graduation: 2013

Mihai Buse graduated from FAUT in 2013. Since 2016 he is a licensed architect in Paris, from where he runs a practice together with Marton - A-platz. Since they won the Europan competition for the site in Graz in 2016, Mihai is mainly engaged in overseing that project, and nurturing their of ce. History teaches us that human beings were always in a continuous movement, yet of course the reasons and the causes change from time to time. In my case, it rst happened around the age of ve when my parents decided that I will live with my grandmother and integrate the preschool education there for one year. It seemed at rst a deeply profound fracture with my hometown, friends, and parents of course. At the end it turned out to be a thrilling experience with new dimensions and a new understanding of things: you are new for them - a stranger at rst, but with the potential to be a source of originality. We receive and we give. I will concentrate next on exposing the professional reasons more than the personal ones of leaving my hometown, my university city, my country and who knows what else. Of course, both are important when making a decision and an equilibrium is to be found. Six years to spend in an university, wherever this might be, is perhaps too much. At least this was my feeling at the time. The motivation to see new things is obvious when studying architecture and I couldn’t miss the opportunity to apply for an Erasmus scholarship. I choose rst of all the french language because I wasn’t comfortable in having to resume my references to a climate where the debate was ruled by english. The city was Bruxelles. Being there, studying hard, traveling and having new debates created a terrible thirst of curiosity. It’s like drinking Coke because you are thirsty but the consequence is that you are even more thirsty afterwards. A terrible liberal-capitalistic experience with the good and the bad in it. Is in this period where I rst understood and learn architecture by ‘looking at buildings’ and by experiencing a complex urban landscape, lessons that Sergison Bates explained so well and passionately in his written ‘Papers’. I choose french and it had to be Paris. It’s a really great city where so much history and contemporaneity stand along. Just a walk from your home to the cafe nearby is an architectural lesson. But it has its dark sides with ‘le banlieue et ses cités’, the racism and the latest history that one shouldn’t be so proud of. Anyhow, whatever there is to be said about parisiens, I now feel that every time I travel for a few days or a few months, I return here to a place where I belong. This never closed the door to my home country Romania. I return as often as I have the opportunity and I hope that the professional future will give me the chance to practice here. Today with A-PLATZ we are working on a Ski Pavilion near Miercurea Ciuc. It’s a small project but it’s important for me to maintain a link with the place where I learned my rst lessons in life and in architecture. Working on a public building here would be a great challenge, as is the expression of the society we live in and it’s here that we should have a longer-term approach. I don’t believe in the actual debate in architecture where one says that it’s not ethical to have your of ce in a place and work in another place, because you don’t know the context and so on... I see architecture as a cultural practice, and off course as architects we have responsibilities to the society and this is very important, but always when working in a new place we take interest in advance in its history and its present culture, as we read it. It’s like in Antonioni’s movie, Blowup. When you get too close you don’t see it, it’s blurred. Sometimes you have to make a step backwards to get a clearer image. Deciding either to move from a place to remain there is about an equilibrium to be found, very fragile and always in movement, it’s never won in advance and it can always return against you. I believe than in a society or community or whatever one might call it, the people that decide to leave are as important as the people which decide to stay. What counts is the exchange and what we can learn from it. To function well, both sides have to make efforts in keeping this link active. This is what keeps a healthy relationship with my friend and partner in A-PLATZ, Marton Tovissi and is the living proof that leaving is as important as staying.

Ioan Emilian Veliciu

Sibiu - Timisoara - Paris - Sibiu Year of graduation: 2012

Ioan Veliciu graduated in 2012. His architectural migration took him to Paris, where he worked in of ces like ECDM or Jean Nouvel. After 6 years spent abroad he decided to come back to his home city - Sibiu, where he recently founded his architecture practice. “Too much questioning brings even more questions” I consider that constantly being in a questioning state of mind is a positive thing and if it doesn’t get you to some answers then it may help you ask the right questions. The fact that our questions extend beyond the psychological limits and push people to physically migrate in other countries means that Romania got used with globalization (at least the European one) which is being felt by those that question the most. Of course, this questioning is inseminated by the university, it is stimulated by the Erasmus program and encouraged by the economic situation and the political deception of Romania. We might as well nd another sort of explanation to this general phenomenon if we look elsewhere, in those cities of Europe that have the power to attract inside their societies, with population coming from underdeveloped regions. If in Eastern Europe we got used with urbanization caused by industrialization, in the same way, in Western Europe, urbanization is caused by economic growth, cultural development and education. The fact that this occurs especially to young architects, shows that our profession is closely tied to some sort of curiosity and criticism and should be understood as a positive thing, not as a collective frustration. MY ARCHITECTURAL MIGRATION I graduated from Timisoara University of Architecture in 2012 in the summer and when autumn started I was already working to Emmanuel Combarel et Dominique Marrec Architectes in Paris, and everything was ne, I didn’t felt as if it were any big deal. No regrets, nor too much questioning. There wasn’t and time for that. Everyone had more or less the same story. Of course I was the only one from Timisoara, but there were people coming from Belgrade, Prague or Seoul. From Pescara, Zaragoza or Aix-en-Provence. This new normality - I accepted it and enjoyed it from the rst day, without too much questioning. Now that I am thinking about it and trying to explain it, I understand somehow that a special and unique architectural vocabulary was being generated by this social-cultural mix. At rst on the of ce scale, then on the eastern Parisian scale and nally on the entire metropolitan scale. In other of ces it was even more obvious : at Ateliers Jean Nouvel, for example, there was a dedicated space for Americans and one for the Chinese, who were usually dealing with 3D modeling, parametric design, or other sort of graphic simulations. This overall diversity, reminds me of one of ECDM’s publication title called Once upon a time in Paris, somehow related to the famous movie Paris -Texas, but also which makes me think about Paris as a meeting point for different cultures, nationalities generated by migration. Going even further with my interpretation of this title, one can nd in this publication a vast architectural vocabulary which emerges from those who participated in the projects and who often had their origins all over the world. After I passed this phase of enthusiasm related to nice images, naked diagrams or surrealistic master-plans, I began to observe and understand mechanisms behind projects, people taking risks, image-based determination proper of private investors, the detachment showed by local administrations. The most eloquent example in this direction is the famous opened to groups competition called ReinventerParis, organized by the municipality in 2015 in a time lap of one year. All-size category of ces participated, starting from small 3-employees of ces to Architecture Studio or even Christian de Portzamparc, and they were all disputing 30- something dif cult sites. All groups participating had their own economic model, scenarios, all sort of cost-bene t analysis behind, in order to reinvent the city by acting on its neuralgic points. MY ARCHITECTURAL reMIGRATION After a while and lots of questionings I started to become familiar with the notion of turnover, which is an integrated part of this economic model of today’s society, which is fueled by the so-called gentri cation speci c to cities like Paris, London, Tokyo or New-York. Some of us started to change as many of ces as possible, others had the chance to get out of the of ce and manage construction sites until nalisation, but we were all integrated parts of this model. So then I understood that the architect is someone which is founded on questioning, for whom the unknown represents a challenge, but who has to play the act dictated by the economic model of its time. Today, following the same questionings, I decide to go opposite, coming close to origin, and reassuring myself of its existence, as an absolute reference-point that you need in a project, which allows you to take a different position, having in mind different objectives and maybe trying to migrate differently next time.

Alin Iulian Balaj

Stei - Timisoara - Copenhagen Timisoara - New Caledonia - Stei - Leuven Year of graduation: 2013

Alin Balaj always says that he is rst of all, a human being. Everything else comes after. Trying to get a better grip of that statement, he traveled the world up and down, embracing or pushing architecture aside, as his road got thinner or wider. He is now back in Europe, practicing architecture from Belgium, probably dreaming of his next human experience. The exam’s over, I’m an architect! I got the news in December after going to the traditional pig slaughter. We slaughtered two pigs, washed the dishes at the end and spent the winter holidays with my family, in the Christian spirit. No plan after the holidays. 12 years of education, 6 years of higher education, one year interning in Europe, two years interning in Timisoara, summed up 21 years out of 28 years spent on Planet Earth and ended up without any plan or money. I can’t access European funds, I won a project which I had to give up because I was registered as a intern architect and now I’ve been prohibited to access such funds for the following 5 years. I’m thinking that if each individual is the product of the system he’s a part of, then the system has to be truly awed since it invests so much time, energy and resources to prepare a person that ends up not having a plan or subsistence resources at the end of such a collective effort. And the European system truly is awed, 25% of the people younger than 25 years are unemployed. When not even the basic conditions are provided, there’s no point in talking about the remote possibility of starting a family. It’s as if God helped me by granting my wish from when I was a kid when I wanted to be either a tractor driver, either retired. I managed to end up retired without any retirement income. It’s time to migrate, to move, to do something. I will go work as a table waiter in Paris for a while. I’m not paying rent because I live with a friend’s grandparents. I met him while working as a waiter in New Caledonia during my sabbatical. Strange and frustrating thing, to go working in New Caledonia, in Australia, to be sending money back to Europe, to not spend the money in Europe and, at the end, to come back and nd yourself unemployed. Migrating isn’t easy. I’ve been doing this since childhood. Back then I migrated from my mother’s parents village to my father’s parents village and to the little town where I’ve spent my childhood holidays. Later on I added new migration locations. Like Timisoara, the city where I went to university, then after nishing, I had my architectural internship in Leuven, the city in Belgium where I currently live. Now I migrate daily, the Internet helps me with that. I live in Belgium, but once I go online, I migrate in Romania, mainly because it’s my country, I have most of my friends and acquaintances there and I feel connected to it. I’m digitally migrating to other countries as well. Thanks to the Internet and to the current political climate, immigrating and emigrating today in Europe no longer have the sharp effect between the individual and his social background, it’s not like the way it was presented by Milan Kundera in his book - “Ignorance”. I believe I’m migrating, I do not wish to emigrate, I love travelling and living in different parts of the world, but Romania is my country and, in my opinion, Romanians are really nice, kind and humane people, just as other eastern europeans, and all my journeys and migrations outside my home country only underline this conviction. I can’t wait for 2018 to go to Alba Iulia for the 100 year celebration of the Grand Union of Transylvania with Romania. I even bought an old traditional suit from my grandparents’ village. And still I migrate and the reasons are both objective and subjective. I believe that migration helps develop a certain empathic ability. The advantage is that you constantly have to adapt, which in a way keeps you fresh. You continue to learn and discover things and if you think about it, this mobility was never possible in any other period in human history. So in a way I feel like I have to do this. Of course I get frustrated, because it isn’t easy. I remember living on mango from trees on the street for a couple of months in New Caledonia and drinking tap water because I sent my then girlfriend from Romania money or living in a tent and being homeless in Australia. When this happens I think about how I would change things. Sometimes I drift into thinking about Tobias Revell’s installations from Artefact festival in 2017, organised by House for Dance Image and Sound STUK from Leuven and explained in the same festival by Thomas Herzog, a researcher in cosmology from the Physics department in KU Leuven, a former collaborator of Stephen Hawking. He stated that the primary message was to consider the universe as a simulation and that you are a person that observes it from within. The simulation brings to mind the great exodus of the rural population towards the city in Romania’s forced modernity period. This exodus now extends outside the country and it uproots, destroys and creates social and family problems, even economic ones. It is a shame that we destroy existing social structures. Now I want to live and work in 100 countries and afterwards retreat with a girlfriend in the forest or in a village. We can have a small garden to live off of, raise free children, like my Dacian ancestors. If this is liberalism, we should go all the way!

Oana Rosca

Timisoara - Napoli - Viena Year of graduation: 2012

Oana Rosca lives in Vienna since 4 years now, and although the separation from home was quite dif cult, and she still has her heart in Romania, she is happy about her new home. While working on building a better life for herself, she often wonders how she could give something back. There are lots of people who leave Romania for new opportunities and they have this thought rooted in their mind from the beginning of school. You can hear them saying (whilst they also heard it from others) that the `grass is greener` in the West, the salaries are bigger. For most of them, the nancial part is the most important aspect, but usually it´s taken out of context: they don´t think about the equally higher life costs. I am one of those who wanted to stay home, to ght for a better country. The irony is that I used to think that the people leaving our country are cowards. The thing is that sometimes our plans are not on the same page with what life had prepared for us and you end up in the shoes of the people you used to judge. I arrived in Vienna by chance, contrary to my intentions. I disliked the city (without giving it a chance, when we all know how much everybody loves Vienna), I disliked everything about it, just because I had left my heart at home, where I was ghting a dif cult battle in my personal life. I didn’t want to leave, but I had to make a choice: bring my boyfriend home (he had been in Vienna for 2 years already) and ght together some more or follow him abroad and have peace and quiet, a good paying job, no ghts and a place where I could rebuild myself. So we can say that I didn’t leave for money, because I wanted more for my career, or for any other opportunities. If we are to be honest, life in Romania is much harder than here, in Austria. There aren’t that many jobs in architecture and the ones that exist are not paying enough to help sustain yourself alone. Here, as a beginner, you can afford a place to stay and the basic needs, you have a health insurance (a lot of people are hired in Romania on the black market). But, at the same time, in Romania all the shortages and the hard work can make you a valuable person, because you are forced to improve yourself in order to succeed. Working in another country isn’t for everybody though, because it’s a hard step to make; you are alone and away from the people you love, you have the language barrier - no matter how well you speak a foreign language, it´s still not yours. You are a stranger in a home that is not yours, you have to begin from scratch and rebuild your life between strangers. My rst experience with another country as a resident, was an Erasmus scholarship in Italy. This is a very important step in one’s evolution, because for 6 months/one year you have to show yourself and some strangers who you really are. It´s the time to change what you don´t like and be the person you wish to be. For me, it was the time to see for myself what was true and what not, regarding the `outside world`. I got to see the good and the bad and when you are not just a tourist anymore, the perspective is a little different. Today I see also what I haven’t seen back then, as a student: taxes , the health system, reliable public transportation, and how much all these matter. Furthermore, Erasmus awakened a lust for more travel in me, a wish to see more and in the end I came up with 2 conclusions: 1: it’s nice abroad, but I like it more in our country (I realized how my country made me a better person); 2: I would like to do an Erasmus Mundus, so I can learn more about other countries (never happened); Today, my/our life in not about big plans for the future, professionally speaking. For now it’s about enjoying every day and thinking about what pieces from myself I want to put back together. So I go with the ow and live the moments, but we are prepared to come back `home` any day, although we do not wish it for now. What is always present is the desire to bring ´home` what I´ve learned here and, with each trip to Romania, we see what we could improve and the possible business opportunities. The school in Romania teached me valuable lessons, not necessarily theoretical ones, but through the teachers and their way of processing architecture. They made me see that architecture is not a contest about who is greater, it is about who can serve better the purpose of being an architect. My advice for the school is to keep the great people with a vision further in school, as teachers, as the ones who can share this message onwards. As a conclusion we could say that my architectural migration it´s actually an introspection, it tests me more as a human than as an architect. But for a while now I have a question in my head : what do I give back and how? Still looking for the answer.

PORTFOLIO AS PASSPORT In our almost border-less world, the architect is free to roam, using his previous work, built or unbuilt, speculative or pragmatic to open doors, to gain opportunities. For younger architects, the portfolio is passport. As a carefully curated body of work, the portfolio works in many ways as a second self, much like a carefully built social media avatar. Built on the past it is always looking towards the future. In this it is both inspirational as well as aspirational. Most importantly it gives us an image of what a future machine might be, its gears and shifts, its workings and mechanics. The passport-portfolio generated a speci c kind of culture, which became so strong, that it started to reshape the machine by following, as the passport used to, global trends that seem to guarantee free passage. The desire to nd better opportunities prevails the patience needed to build them, leaving home as prey to our ephemeral anxious desires, until some of us will nally decide to come back to be part of the fragile team in charge with updating the machine.

Roxana Palade 2nd year

Bogdan Tudor 6th year

Anastasia Legan 3rd year

Alexandra Vitan 4th year

Les, Damaris 1st year

Silviu Kovacs 5th year

Andreea Neamtu , 3nd year

Stan Ioana Maria 4th year

Alexandra Tro n 6th year

David Unipan 2nd year

Nistor Dragos, 6th year

Diana Lucaciu 2nd year

Patricia Blidariu 5th year

David Dumitrescu 2nd year

Danu Alexandru 4th year

Rebeca Faur 2nd year

Daiana Maciulschi 3rd year

GhinitÄ&#x192; , Elena 6th year

Paul Blaj 5th year

Iulia Stancu 3rd year

Dorian Tudor 6th year

Arina Moga 2nd year

Bettina Varga 3rd year

Daria-Maria Kocsis 2nd year

Stefania Dumulesc , 3rd year

Mihaela Boldor 6th year

Karla Anna Kovacs 6th year

Florin Buzgău 1st year

Alex Mădută , 4th year

Ioana Bărbătei 5th year

Alexandra Oprea 6th year

Andrei Vaida 2nd year

Lorena BreazÄ&#x192; 6th year

Mihai Ardelean 4th year

Francesca Prada 5th year

Andrei Chindris, 1st year

Alexandra Marin 4th year

Andrei Tiron 6th year

Ponta CÄ&#x192;tÄ&#x192;lin 5th year

Andrada Feier 2nd year

Alexandra Stan 4th year

Vlad Dogar 6th year

BELONGING Architects have been traveling for thousands of years, ever since the discipline of architecture has been recognized as a most necessary, even sought after, tool for shaping our world. They travel: to study, to acquire knowledge, to nd work, to establish connections, to set up businesses wherever business conditions are ripe. Their mobility is paramount, and it is even considered that without it, an architect is unable to fully understand his world: the world as canvas and resource, the world as space and place, the world as is and as it could be. In this, the architect belongs to many places and to none. His personal subjective geographies are built around a spatial search for objective truth. Ultimately, brought together, all these visions, personal geographies, physical as well as utopian realms, create our culture, our machine for learning. This is what weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll look at in our workshop. We will try to literally picture our sense of belonging, towards place, space, city and territory, towards societal norms and culture through a collection of snapshots taken by our students in our home town of Timisoara and in Vienna. We will look at spatial clues, trying to connect here and there, home and away, the familiar with the foreign, where and to whom do we belong.

The Answering Machine Curatorial team: Sandra Andrei - 2017 graduate, heading soon for Portugal Cristian Blidariu - 2004 graduate, heading the 1st year studio Ana Branea - 2009 graduate, teaching in the 2nd year studio Bogdan Demetrescu - 2000 graduate, co-heading the 4th year studio together with Oana S. Marius Găman - 2009 graduate, teaching in the 1st year studio Alexandra Oprea - 2017 graduate, temporarily settled in Vienna Gabriela Pascu - 2010 graduate, teaching in the 5th year studio Miodrag Popov - 2011 graduate, teaching in the 3rd year studio Oana Simionescu - 2010 graduate, co-heading the 4th year studio together with Bogdan D. Claudiu Toma - 2003 graduate, heading the 2nd year studio Collaborators: Workshop VDW: Florin Buzgău - 1st year graduate Alexandru Dumitrescu - 2nd year graduate Rebeca Faur - 2nd year graduate Iulia Stancu - 3rd year graduate Stefania Dumulesc - 3rd year graduate Bianca Budurean - 4th year graduate Amanda Lucan - 4th year graduate Students team: Andrei Chidiris, Andrea Cseke, Oana Breban, Radu Dreghiciu, Alexandru Dumitrescu, Rebeca Faur, Andrada Feier, Arina Moga, Daria Kocis, Bettina Varga, Stefania Dumulesc, Iulia Stancu, Anastasia Legan, Alice Ariton, Horatiu Manu, Andrei Ghertan, Sergiu Timut, Alexandra Vitan, Rafael Vasilcin, Amanda Lucan, Bianca Budurean, Alexandra Marin, Cătălin Ponta, Vasile Boca, Silviu Kovacs, Lorena Brează. This project was realized with the support of Timisoara Polytechnic University and its Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, The Timis branch of The Romanian Order of Architects, The Romanian Cultural Institute in Vienna and OCE Softwaer.