Igloo Magazine: Offices | H Tudor Arghezi 21
We are thrilled to announce that our architecture firm has been featured in a renowned architecture journal for our recent project. The project, located at 21 Tudor Arghezi Street, exemplifies how a communist-era institutional building can be transformed and updated with contemporary language while preserving its historical referentiality. Here’s a detailed look at our “Brutalism Revisited” project.
Brutalism Revisited – H Tudor Arghezi 21
How do you transform and modernize a communist-era institutional building while retaining its historical significance? This is illustrated by the project at 21 Tudor Arghezi Street, designed by Răzvan Bârsan + Partners. The project involved the consolidation, reconfiguration, re-facading, and conversion of a building constructed between 1963-1966 (originally designed by the Institute of Design for Standardized Constructions in Bucharest), which was to continue housing the same institution. Initially, the building was intended for design offices, archive spaces, a library, and auxiliary spaces, and it has maintained its primary function as office space over the years. In 2022, it was transformed and adapted to contemporary professional requirements while evoking a sense of its historical period.
The building stands out with its unique, monolithic volume, characterized by firm, simple geometry, uniformity, and balance, along with the repetitive rhythmic structure of the facade. The exterior closures made of precast concrete panels gave the building a brutalist image, which the architects intervened on for both functional and aesthetic reasons, cladding these panels with brick to temper a certain severity and integrate the building more gently into the urban landscape. For a contrasting and chromatic dialogue effect, the ground floor and basement exterior finish consists of a special plaster with an exposed concrete look, maintaining the industrial suggestion of the building. At night, the exterior lighting accentuates the facade’s play of recesses and protrusions.
Beyond the visible aspects, the architects have also shared insights into the engineering and architectural scale of their interventions to bring the building up to the highest contemporary standards: structural consolidation was carried out to comply with current norms; an efficient HVAC system was integrated for effective climate control and user comfort; the building envelope was upgraded by insulating the existing precast panels internally and cladding them externally with brick klinker, and the windows were replaced with high-energy efficiency ones.
We are proud to have our “Brutalism Revisited” project featured in this esteemed architecture journal. It highlights our commitment to preserving historical architecture while adapting to modern needs. We invite you to explore the album and see how we’ve contributed to the dynamic field of contemporary architecture in Romania.
Thank you, Igloo, for this recognition!
