The truth is that..
the biggest challenge of our intrepid journey into the deep periphery of Bucharest had not even started for real. By this time, we were mainly orators of past. With the same spirit we went on the fields, rolling our sleeves to suggest what, where, why.
We got particularly hooked by the Chinese infinite plastic lands disposed in huge industrial halls, with serious issues of access, salubrity and basic ties to actually feel home where they chose to be. So we started to investigate the idea of making a China Town and having the Chinese Embassy in the closest defence fort of the Old/New Defence Structure. A 'feel welcomed' gesture to foreigners that were serious about making business in our country. Let's do business.
The other truth is that, beyond the blur of our imagination, shifting between red lucky lanterns hanging over the streets and tasty Chinese food, there was another reality waiting to be seen. Precarious, temporary settlers chased by shame of being who they are, poor access to education, health care and haunted by a never ending loop of discrimination with almost no grip to political talks: Roma people, aka gypsies.
Let's do business.
Foreign in, foreign out:
you are welcome
The Chinese plans were not abandoned, but set aside for later conversations. The ground reality we found left us somewhat groundless in our thought process and the decision to create real space for the elefant in the room with which we got used to simply avoid or ignore was not as easy to take as it is to type.
Encircled
Marked aside is close to where we found the Roma settlement questioning our thinking and diplomacy discourse. This unexpected finding has not changed the course and core of our development proposal, but it certainly added a dimension that demands more grit and responsibility. Encircled with red is the fort in the Old/New Defence Structure proposed for the Roma community, inviting them at the round table of discussions to negotiate their rights and needs.
Development Trend
of Bucharest City
A brief visual history
of Roma people in Europe
Josef Koudelka: Gypsies
Roma people
in Europe & Romania
It is estimated that there are between 10 and 12 million Roma people over the territory of Europe, most of them residing in South and Eastern Europe: mainly Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia and Spain. Originating from North India, they migrated to Europe before 650 and they faced over time severe and chronic discrimination, poverty and social exclusion.
The Roma were enslaved in what is now Romania for centuries (15th–19th century) and were victims of the Holocaust, with hundreds of thousands murdered by the Nazis. They are reluctant in identifying themselves and therefore it is hard to have an accurate estimation over their population or intentions as community, holding on to their language regardless their next destination.
Roma in Romania, various photographers in recent years
Taken over the course of a decade, from 1962 to 1971, these pictures are part of a famous photoessay, a series of candid black & white captures the daily lives of Roma society in the then-Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, France, and Spain.
Today, in Romania, most of them live in unbearable conditions, face segregation, have access to little or no education, poor health support and almost no hopes for better perspectives though they have proved to be excellent smiths, handycrafters and musicians. Few of them, though, managed to earn fortunes in obscure ways and choose to express their wealth with grandeur, as you may see aside. Poor or rich, these extremes are expressions of a reality which cannot be denied and pass over simple social programs. Some chose to settle, some cannot cope with that. Their nomadic lifestyle seem exotic to most of us, perhaps forgetting that our DNA has records of such traces.
Roma Embassy, as part of the Old/New Defence Structure, is not only a fort among forts representing a culture among cultures. It does not intend to constrain the nomadic spirit (a secret dream of many of us), it actually opens to learn from it by setting a flag for what Roma culture and spirit is, yet working to add layers of social security, access to education, healthcare and progress. Roma Embassy is, at first, a social tool, one of which, the full responsibility, is in the hands of its owner and beneficiary at the same time. The array of embassies, partnering the project shall set a climate of tolerance and diplomacy and together collaborate to be a driving force and a fair mediator between all parts involved.
Bucharest City
metropolitan perspectives
Roma Flagship
Roma Embassy continued the journey by making its way through a thick legislative jungle and working on several technical Masterplans. Bellow you may find an easy go-through sketch that resumes the most important aspects of what has been a long, large and eventful urban planning project.
