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Architecture Students Have Their Own Special Style
Flamboyant Clothes and Booze Along With Studies
Ioana Pavel
Entering the Architecture University inspires respect. With its white marble pillars the works of famous designers on display in glass cases, it feels more like a museum than a college.
Students, many dressed flamboyantly, gather in small groups, discussing projects, waving cigarettes in the air, concentrating for hours on huge drawings. Second year student Tudor Cosmatu said that architecture had become quite fashionable lately. "What is your job? I'am an architect. It does sound good, doesn't it?" he joked. But architecture is a serious business.
"A student who really wants to know architecture must also know philosophy, history, physics and mathematics. All this knowledge help him to have a strong overview of what architecture is all about," he said.
"One has to accumulate knowledge in building, renovating and design. You have to be a good psychologist too in order to understand from a client's explanations exactly what he wants his house or room to look like."
The university offers degrees in product design, interior design, urbanism and landscaping as well as architecture. They each require six years of study. Most students have been committed to the field since high school. Some take private lessons for one or two years before attempting the demanding entrance exams.
Teachers treat their students as partners, students say. Instead of lecturing from on high, they allow a free flow of discussion, questions and debate. Many of the students seem to regard it as part of their identity to dress in a distinctive, bohemian way. "The beard and the pipe became trademarks for a lot of boys in architecture university. It is part of the style," Cosmatu said. "It is known that architects drink a lot. You see them at the university bar, debating each other, with a beer in front of them.
"Architecure was not my first choice. I studied economics for a year but I totally disliked it, so I decided to follow in my family footsteps. My father was an architect, so was my grandfather and my grand grandfather."
In recent years, Bucharest has been reshaped. New buildings are rising it seems almost every day, alongside the older structures, sometimes overwhelming them. The city's skyline is changing dramatically. In 10 years, will we recognize the city?
And young men and women like Cosmatu and his colleagues will soon play their part in building the city. Will their work measure up to their dreams? Time will tell.
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