This was an extremely busy weekend for this almost 400000 souls town.

For me it began with the first project deadline, on Friday. It is funny (!) to see how the discussions with our teachers remain monologues. We have the site of a former slaughterhouse which is an historic monument. The building itself has about 3000m2, on a site of 49000m2. We should build office spaces, public alimentation, commercial center, hotel etc and propose something for the old building. This happens in a period of 14 weeks which is not entirely dedicated to this project, but in the same time we have 6 other classes, each demanding in this period their own small projects. On Friday we had the first deadline and were supposed to present the urban strategy for the area, the buildings on the site, circulations, volumes etc Luckily we ”˜inherited' the analysis of the site and the slaughterhouse from another student project.

Still, after 3 weeks of studio (which is actually 2x3 hours / week) it seemed quite a huge deal. Not because of the amount of work but because of the huge area we didn't know what to begin with. We had a discussion with the teachers ”˜you know, we feel it's quite a lot, isn't it kind of soon to present an urban project, shouldn't we study this project in two semesters, you can't design 5ha in 3 weeks ”˜.

Our ”˜fear' came from the fact that last year they threw at us a way too big project and the ones in charge didn't succeed in making us deal with it. It became rather a fight for survival, many students quit. And they demanded pretty detailed stuff. The answer, prompt, same old one ”˜why are we chicken, we just don't want to work, we should just start it and things will work out, if we, in the 5th year won't do it, who should? The freshmen? Etc.' I don't even remember when I had the last discussion with a teacher and the answer was an attempt, on his side, to understand our position before jumping to conclusions.
In the end we had our deadline and yesterday even the discussions. As we are supposed to occupy 50-60% of the site the projects they preferred where the ones with as many buildings as possible. What I find just weird is that students started throwing rectangles/ polygons on the site, in a weird 2d composition, something like ”˜this should look good here' but with no connection to reality, function, concept etc. just playing around, like kids with lego (only lego is 3d so we lose again). Oh, I forget to mention they loved these projects. Then again some projects seemed to have an idea, at least another one then ”˜here comes a circle, here a triangle and here a rectangle! Wow! architecture'. Maybe it's just me again, but I have to say it's like masturbation (in the boring way). We all know it's not going nowhere, we all know it's not even close to what it's supposed to be, we all know... they all know. I don't feel like the discussions have a point anymore, I would always be the one that just comments and tries to avoid working. At a second thought, and in a mean way, we are not even real to them, but shadows of THE student. In this perspective the student is nothing more but an entity, multiplied to form a group, who always looks after something to argue about. He is never interested in school but just wants to get away with it and work as little as possible. Never trust the student, that's a real teacher's purpose. Don't let them rule you...
I'm just mean...

I actually wanted to talk about this weekend.

The 'wine festival'. May sound interesting but don't let them fool you. Years ago it took place in the old town center with good concerts, nice wine. Now they moved it to the stadium (around it actually), the good concerts were replaced by bad ones, the quality of the people changed radically. There are so many fast-food-selling improvisations, that there is really no fresh air. In addition the music can be heard on a huge area (I live maybe 3-4 km away, but still had to listen to it). This is just the usual way a nice festival degenerated into something you don't want to know about.
But let me finally tell you about the best parts of the weekend.

The point of attraction was the 12th ”˜tmbase' festival. For the last years they have been organizing this ”˜Urban Sound Culture Festival' that just kept growing, every year more and more people came to timisoara for this. I'm not really that much into electronic music, but the parties are really nice and they don't stop until the morning. On their site you will find more technical info then I could give you, as I understood some guest djs are pretty good. The place where everything is happening are some old industrial buildings, the atmosphere is nice (though ”˜nice' isn't the best way to describe it'), lots of people. No photos from me as I never trust myself a camera in these conditions. :)

The last but not least event of the weekend was the opening of the first mall in timisoara.
Oh, the mall...
That will be a special post...