The Bartlett
Summer Show 2026
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The People's Palace

Project details

Programme
Year 5

Bucharest's past is fractured. The records were kept only to be controlled; the archive we inherit is a product of restriction and loss. The proposal sits on the void of Cântarea României, an unfinished cultural complex whose foundations were poured in October 1989, two months before revolution. Today it stands void.

The building runs daily. By day the public authors the archive, translating testimony into architectural maquettes. By night the archive performs back, staged across the foundation as theatre. Its logic is Romic's liquid archive: memory enters as gas and condenses. Stories retold settle into rebar as permanent architecture; untold stories fade.

The site reconstructs Silver Firs Church on its perimeter and the Union of Architects from oral testimony, testing whether composite reconstruction reveals continuities and ruptures in institutional life.

This circulation of spoken stories fills the void in Romania's timeline. Spoken by the people. Written by the people. The People's Palace.

Fragments from modern Romanian typology are used to reconstruct the memory of the home.

Reconstructing fragments

Fragments from modern Romanian typology are used to reconstruct the memory of the home.

The Architect’s Office

The Architect’s Office

As spoken testimony becomes the most reliable source of evidence. Anecdotes from the interviews are assembled to perform the story through the eyes of the architect.

Architectural Sets

Architectural Sets

The grid on the foundations becomes a temporary stage for the architectural sets, which mark the passage from liquid speech to solid form.

The process of curating the liquid archive happens through its spine.

The People’s Palace

The process of curating the liquid archive happens through its spine.

A Scenography of Architectural Masks

A Scenography of Architectural Masks

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The Bartlett
Summer Show 2026
25 June – 12 July
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