Most of the 140 million inhabitants of Russia live in communist block of flats, in apartments they call hruschiovi (“hruschiovs”), named after the former communist leader from the ’60s, the period when they were built. But the initiator of the project was actually Stalin. He imagined them and he also turn the project into reality. As a country dominated by Russia for 45 years, Romania may pride itself on the same type of habitat. Hruschiovi have some small kitchenettes, but at least they have them, and this was a big step forward, as compared to the so-called communalki. Kommunalki had common kitchens, common bathrooms and, sometimes, common bedrooms. The idea of the New Man (or “New Soviet Man”), who has nothing to hide, went into the background. The comfort becomes now the major instrument of the propaganda.
PAVILION UNICREDIT, the center of contemporary art and culture, is located in Victoria Square, being placed at the ground floor of such a building. The aforementioned space became a banking center in 1993 and it has stayed like this for the last 15 years. The actual building of the block started in the years of the communist regime and it was concluded five years after the fall of the communism. The hruschiovi from the center of Bucharest have witnessed the changes of a Stalinist society into a capitalist society, with strong social and political marks. The center uses this space for the implicit messages it conveys, for its location (right across the center of the executive power – the Romanian Government building) and, moreover, for its history, so easily forgotten. It is a space for the knowledge and interest in society, city and community.
PU is a work-in-progress independent space, a space for the production and research in the fields of audiovisual, discursive and performative. It is a space of the critical thinking, and it promotes an artistic perspective implying the social and political involvement of the art and of the cultural institutions. Nevertheless, the basic function of the space will remain the concretization.
[PAVILION UNICREDIT is generated by the PAVILION and BUCHAREST BIENNALE.]
[The design of the space was done by the architect Adriana Mereuta.]
[Here you can download the floorplan of the center.]
[For images of the center download this PDF file (Photo: Ioana Nitu)]