Just Now – Runner-up for Ro Pavilion at 2014 Venice Biennale

The team coordinated by Razvan George Gorcea has recently won the runner-up prize in the competition for the Romanian Pavilion at the 2014 edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale for the Just Now project. The curator for the 2014 Biennale is Rem Koolhaas who has chosen a special theme for the National Pavilions: Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014. The members of the team are: Razvan George Gorcea, Constantin Gorcea, Sorin Bompa, Alexandra Arama, Cosmin Tolbes, Alexandru Senciuc.

I would also like to specially thank Vlad Mitoceanu for his critical technical support within the design process of the online platform.

Concept of the exhibition

The word Modernity gets its origins from the late latin , modernus from modo, that translates through Just Now. Generally it is used to show the difference between the present time and the time right before that, coming into common language from the 17-th century. The usage of the present continuous for the verb to absorb indicates a referral to a present changing and developing action, with ephemeral character . Indicating the years 1914-2014 denotes a retrospective character over a century with a powerful struggle between modernity and it’s relation with different situations in parts of the world.

We can deduct from the theme the necessity of a simultaneous presentation over the historical past and the present moment – just now. In these terms we proposed a pavilion approach that connects the visitor to the actual reality of Romania, as diverse and unfiltered as he/she can find it , offering in the same time the possibility for deciphering through references to the past regarding the main political-historical events that influenced Romanian Architecture in the last hundred years’ time. (fragment from the exhibition presentation)

Interaction process

Within the team effort for the exhibition my main concern was to provide a platform for interaction that could link in a direct way the visitors with the Romanian public. We came up with the idea of building a collective virtual wall that would gather the individual contributions of the biennale visitors, Romanian public and other online users. This wall could be the platform for debating ideas around the theme of Romanian history and contemporary public space.

diagram showing the platform structure and the link between Romanian public space, the Venice Biennale and Beyond!

Render of the interior space outside of the Just Now box and within the Historical Background space