by Peter Kosir
I used to flatter myself for heaving an old architect’s soul. A fantasy I regularly try to escape. I blame my early customers, my neighbor girls, who, since I was able to hold a hammer in my hands, wanted houses for their dolls. It seemed kind of too early for my destiny to be solved. So, I wanted to be a stunt man but eventually became globetrotter pedaling bike trough great unknowns. Didn’t get me far enough thou. Made me to trespass geography and philosophy study and off the grid life with design and spatial policies projects in cultural centers of Slovenia of the mid 90’s and early 2000’s just to end up eventually where I was supposed to be. Back to another school.
One of the great shocks in my new school was a lecture about an urbanistic crime which took place in communist Bucharest coming from a vehement and charismatic professor of urban design. Little did I know then that I would spend 9 years in this urban “nightmare”.
Meanwhile the burning point for us students of those times being the question why some vital parts of the Ljubljana city defy development in the middle of a real-estate boom of mid 2000’s. It resonated as a triggering question worthy of putting together Andrei Tarkovsky and Milton Friedman on the joint podcast. In 2004 a self organized, interdisciplinary, off-curriculum research team was born to tackle this question with forming the provocations in space as analytic tool of psychological geography in order to determine patterns of failure and to detect solutions for some of those neuralgic points in the city’s tissue on the premises of public use. One of them was an empty bicycle factory of 34 000m2 in the middle of the city. After few years of actions in different parts of the city the energy condensed and formed a charge which led to transformation of that particular stuck space into a concept of temporary usage for active artistic and civil society groups until “better” solution in the realm of public domain would be found by the city developers, since the place was owned by city. We successfully bypassed the term occupation. Our mission was not programmatic, but a strategic one since city finances were in a disastrous state and the incompetent mayor was leaning toward sale. Our goal was to detect, propagate and enforce vital and insufficient public programs in opposition of easy commercial ones. Just after the successful transfiguration of the factory, the elections brought our curriculum mentor, the same charismatic professor, to became vice mayor of Ljubljana and dialog with his new neoliberal boss was channeled. I led official interdisciplinary group which formed this “better” solution being first project of ROG - Contemporary Art Center in Slovenia. Beauty of the proposed project was synchronous bottom-up and top-down approach. Soon after that glorious day of confirming the project everything went south, or down the hill, however you like it.
The sad part is that in 2023 the project was eventually born under the same guidelines and slightly different name Center ROG, but the time of 17 years and authenticity was lost. Just another top-down project without its base. But who cares about the victims, long live the artists in “creative industries”!
Solidarity “drive not found”
I wish for every creative soul to be able to experience that energy of the birth of proto community where each sensible common action actuated positive change in all directions and created sets of guidelines for the next one. But as always problems appear at extreme ends and the bridge collapses when solidarity and trust get eroded. As a core group got exhausted by establishing conditions for more than just painting studios and lecture auditoriums in a curse of nine months, the bottom part with proprietorial focus gained momentum and the head of the city got lost in the situation he created with not officially permitting connection to the grid. The sole problem of the control. The result was a downward spiral which led to painful paradoxes, and they hurt even more when they happen between people who should know better. Them being artists and NGOs promoting dialog on one side and a prolific manager of the city on the other side.
The place I call home
This deep disappointment in “artist” can avoid depression only by becoming a “total” artist, my future wife, Nona Ciobanu theatre director, once said, after she experienced similar destiny with her performing arts studio Toaca in Bucharest. And we married.
Diving into the urban ‘nightmare’ of the communist part of Bucharest was very anthropological for me. After 9 years of it, my experience still didn't settle in some reasonable conclusions especially in the context of time. The simple fact of absence of diversity which is obvious in one architecture sprawling over whole city made me to see only the edges of this megastructure where it failed and will fail in the future. I should be feeling deprived and controlled by this monolith, but it is still mind-boggling that this eclectic lace of its compilation of styles talks about specific point in time of modernistic project. It doesn't. This game of paradoxes in their nonintentional manner can come to life only if you know something of Romanian soul. I should expect an open attack on the quality of solidarity of this type of ‘modernistic’ structure, but I don’t. Instead, I feel survival of the pre-modern man caught in the urbanity with its beautiful root of the any kind but individualistic. Of course it is fading, but, hey, it's still around, which is surprising for any foreigner.
But this anthropological pre-modernity best described as rich functional and spiritual ties inside communities extending beyond family which was found all over the place before the struck of capitalism is deeply dysfunctional and dangerous in today's institutional level of the functioning of society.
Institution today in the context of European societies in the west is based on principles of post-modernity, and it took them centuries to evolve, one of the most important periods being modernity. Slovenian prominent curator, architect and thinker Jurij Krpan who’s engagement linked art, cybernetics, architecture, performans and growth of institutional infrastructure best described it to me with his personal experience. An idea or proposal in a European context becomes alive only when it passes through many hands, or heads if you like, in order that the trace to its origin or creator is lost and the content gets structuralized. With a bit of imagination, we can translate this to any public function in the system managing common good. The whole ex-eastern bloc is having tremendous difficulty coping with the scope of such a process, or of putting it into practice. It seems that Romanian society struggles the most since Ceausescu's sultanistic regime almost wiped-out modernistic elite. Confusion between function and persona should be gone by now by not so recent import of new institutional system and ethics, but it seems that corruptness is leading the way. Let's take a look.
Nottara Theatre
One of the first project we set up in Romania was called Home. Link with any of my intentions merely speculative at that time. It was an experimental project based upon fragments of the life of a family which is destroying and reinventing itself together with its character-room. One fine day, when I was alone with this folding set in the form of a room, (these are moments I really enjoy), I noticed a guy scanning the pillars of the hall. Since I have a fascination for technology, we had quite a lot of fun together. But what I was about to hear is still knocking me down and bringing the shivers down the spine! It was another in a row so-called “expertise” of seismic evaluation of the building, but this time they decided to include massive 80 by 80 cm pillars in the middle of the space supporting enormous concrete plate which is forming the auditorium of the main hall. “Oh, it depends on who is ordering “expertise””, was the answer to those who are not willing to see an elephant in the room. Take a moment and breathe in what you just read! With a bit of research on the internet you can see the chronology of this farse in Nottara Theatre by yourself. You don't need to believe me.
It is not farse, it is not prosecuted, it is not speculative, it is not professional negligence, it is a crime against humanity of the first degree in a time of peace! You don’t need to be an architect or civil engineer who do have problems to sleep at night when finalizing our projects in order not to kill variable number of people, as we forensically look for possible mistakes in our calculations. This is deliberately altering the results of resistance for the sake of a profit! This is a COLECTIVE case by far more than on order of magnitude bigger and nobody seems to be bothered by it, just because it is an indefinite point in the future! People, Turkey is around a corner! People, wake up, because some of us will not in one deadly moment in the future! It is a complete and deadly institutional dysfunctionality going hand in hand with criminal real-estate lobby, who by the way, are depositing sample of concrete for the structures of newly built buildings by calculated mixture and pouring diluted one in formwork. Sometimes! As we shall see and some of us won’t, Bucharest will be far more deadly than it was Turkey in 2023! I should scream at you, but screens or paper stay silent as ruins do!
This is not possible in 21 century Europe, but it is! As Kubrick fabulously put it, Eyes wide shut! Just substitute sex with houses, everything else remains the same.
Case number two: Theatre MIC
I guess it’s not happening to everybody all the time. Otherwise, corruption would be seen. I will try to describe the mechanism of manipulation and how deep the rabbit hole is, when we add up the case of Theatre MIC, where I also set up projects.
In 2011 the renovation of the theatre begun, which included changing of the roof, complete interior refurbishment of the body of the building except stage, including facade which costed over 600.000 euros. For the purpose of the project of renovation and the extent of it, the expertise was executed and concluded the seismic risks (RS) are 2 and 3. Fine. Renovation was dragging on till 2015.
In 2016 a new manager, Gelu Colceag is elected. The first thing he does is to order another expertise, and to announce that one part of the three buildings is having seismic risk 1 even before the results of the expertise would be available.
Project of reconsolidation is evaluated at 17 milion euros. Just to put it in perspective. Reconsolidation of National Theatre and Opera of Cluj with seismic risk (RS)1 was evaluated at 20 million euros and is 3 to 4 times bigger and more complex building. To equalize with inflation reconsolidation of Mic theatre would cost more than 3 times more than the one in Cluj. Due to some cracks in the new plaster, which didn't move since they appeared. But to put it in perspective, Theatre MIC sized theatre newly built by the latest sustainable technology with modest and clever contemporary architecture principles with medium state of the art stage equipment would cost around 10 million euros. The volume with substantial intervention in the case of Mic reconsolidation is much less than half of the volume of the whole theatre, because it involves only the audience hall and its foyer. Without stage equipment! Is anybody doing math? Any bells yet. No, it could just be called really, really lousy management of the city.
But the story has a twister.
The upper half of this endangered body of a building with RS 1 is privately owned. And the owners did the math. The leadership of this cultural institution which deals with the most tangible matter in a human, we talk about mind, heart and soul decide to personally intervene in explaining the math. Due to the persistent attacks and intimidations of the manager and the vice-director to these owners, as well as a direct result of these `math lessons` two elder owners die. Probably they were just bad at math and at heart. The rest who remained decided that somebody else had to do the math for them. So, they went to court against the Mic Theatre and City General Council. The Court named another expert to do the seismic study of Mic. The third expertise in ten years (2011, 2017, 2021). This family has a pretty medium income.
And now fasten your seat belt Dorothy, Kansas is going bye, bye!
(“So, if you take the blue pill” lines from the cult movie The Matrix )
The new study determined the undeniable decision of the court, Hotararea 500/2018 of the City General Council of 17 mil. Euros was canceled due to the demonstration of the expertise that the part of the building with RS I (seismic risk 1) is having Rs II (seismic risk 2). So, the expertise commissioned by Gelu Colceag was wrong! The third expert proved that two pillars were excluded out of equation and that made possible the manipulation of the mathematical result. No professional negligence was possible in this case. Pure and sadistic intention. Still no alarm bells yet? The weirdest thing is that up till this day the synthesis of the situation is public.
Sadistic Math
So let us now start doing the math. Just follow the money, they say. Protagonists of this sentence usually end up dead in a good movie, in stupid ones, they get medals.
If there were seismic risk RS 2 for this particular volume in question with the footprint of approximately 800 m2, the consolidation would hardly exceed 1 million euros. By irony this was mentioned in the second expertise ordered by Gelu Colceag.
So, who would swallow 16 million euros, the budget of middle-sized oncologic hospital?
As Gelu Colceag gets elected as manager he immediately becomes a citizen of honor decorated by Gabriela Firea who “elected” him. OK, she needed the public names of supporters. Gelu Colceag is hypothetically a small fish which would play the game and would be happy for some measles from the rich man table. So, who is the rich man. The number one mafia in the country, real-estate lobby accompanied by some old and oily public departments which gets easy money in the public sector they are milking and the others serving. Of course this is not original for Romania, it happens all over. What is original are the premises of something so sick as manipulating resistance reports for the sake of the easy money.
The problem is that this mafia is pretty plain and its downgrading architecture to mere construction projects with even higher crime rate in urbanism than communistic one with its density, with dubious standards in execution, no added value if you are by any chance familiar with contemporary architecture. And is bringing no added value to the economy. It's a pure and simple selling mechanism with big margins which do not come back to the economy, low tech manufacturing, the profits end up being consumed in luxury goods with no origins in this country. Romania is second in EU by ownership of luxurious cars. By now it's quite well known that the real estate economy is the dumbest one in terms of growth.
But all this is just the economy for the super-rich in this country. The problem is that these people are committing future crimes. I wish the parts of the ‘Minority report’ movie could become reality one day. Every unreasonable and falsified project is blocking the one which is urgently needed and will take people’s life in a possible earthquake. There is only one big public consolidation project happening each year. For many buildings the expertise was not done yet and for quite a lot of buildings parallel and contradictory ones were and are done.
Now we have come to where we started. The Institution by the artists, their integrity and solidarity.
While Theatre MIC “lost” auditorium in Mile Street of 275 seats to addition of also losing hall of Forte MIC with 120 seats in previous years due to RS1, the management decides to rent a newly renovated and refurbished hall for the exact purpose for theatre MIC with a hall of only 60 seats in Gabroveni 57. You will find the details in the article of Ovidiu Vanghele in The Investigative Media Center, https://www.investigatiimedia.ro/details/tag/gelu%20colceag
Before I start the new math, it is important to state from architectural point of view that refurbishing the corridor od 5.5 m of width and 12m of length without side entrances or pockets is the most hurtful violation in decision making process selecting the spaces for theatre use in Gabroveni 57 for theatre institution with almost 100 employees. Another flagrant mismanagement is the renting of office spaces and the whole building, while spaces in the newly refurbished building on Mile Street remain empty. This particular part of the building in Mile Street has RS 2. The completely inadequate hall with 60 seats in Gabroveni 57 represents less than 15 percent of the floor-space index of the whole building. The cellar of the building is not in the category of performing space since it hosted 2 projects in 7 years, and it serves as merely a deposit with inadequate small entrance.
And now the math, which will be done without knowing that the second expertise commissioned by Gelu Colceag was deliberately miscalculated.
In Mile Street the auditorium of 71 seats is placed in the side pocket of the stage and together with Gabroveni stage which is rented for 10 000 euro monthly with its 65 seats, we get total capacity of 150 seats. At the time of these shifts the theatre had 35 actors employed. Now in the middle of all of these uncertainties with two halls waiting demanding reconsolidation, the theatre has decided to employ an additional 22 actors. The majority of them being highly talented and exceptional professionals at the beginning of their career. But also, majority being Gelu Colceag students.
So, let's look at the proportions. Odeon theater has 400 seats with two halls, and 35 actors employed. Bulanda Theatre has 350 seats, and 30 actors are employed. This compared with MIC theatre with all of the sudden heaving 46 actors employed with its 150 seats is perceived as brilliant move to save young generation. Gelu Colceag gets 9.5 mark in the evaluation of his managerial practice by the Town Hall, with tons of micro shows produced with also its micro audience. All good in the books. I wonder where this rabbit hole goes?
With some of the “big” shows being forced to enter into renting of the stages all over Bucharest, which are extremely hard to program, which brought some shows to its premature end and put extreme stress on technical teams, which is catastrophically underpaid while actors enjoy contracts for undetermined period and luxurious time in between productions to enter productions outside of their employer. These are just side effects of the proportions of impossibilities the numbers are suggesting.
But there are no alarm bells. We had Creanga theatre functioning for 15 years without a hall. But MIC theatre has two complete sets of technical crews and equipment for two stages for micro audience only.
In 2022 the Court of Bucharest decides that expertise commissioned by Gelu Colceag was wrong!
Since the theatre was ignoring this flagrant misuse of procedures from the part of the city and in the absence of their own actions of any kind which would push forward solution of any kind, the Syndicate of MIC theatre proposed and tried to push forward the opening of the auditorium which was renovated in 2011 with last touches in 2015 with its capacity of 275 seats.
This would be possible since a regulation of the law ... permits that a part of the building which has legally RS2 could be reopened, and which was illegally closed for 7 years, or since Gelu Colceag came to the position of the manager. In time of his management the newly refurbished auditorium, foyer and the roof of the building, while not being “used” got terribly deteriorated by the management putting it into storage category and negligence, since 17 million project is coming.
From the meetings between syndicate and the town hall it became obvious that in the great nature of the capabilities of Romanian legislation the situation created is simply open to interpretation, and only manager together with city hall can push forward an idea of a solution (temporary opening the hall). Solution is status quo.
Attack instead of conclusion
Every time an individual or institution hangs on the procedural irregularities of the case in order to block the resolution of the problem, you know that something fishy is going on. Like in this case, the claim of the theatre and the City General Council of the Town Hall that the third expertise is “juridical” and it cannot be considered. Although the expert came from the list of City General Council approved professionals. The fourth will be done in the future. Because they didn't like the result. Another 15.000 -20.000 euros. 3 years. And the fourth one will be rigorously and independently verified in European institutions not in criminal institutions of Romania. I was watching closely what will happen with the expert who falsified calculation of the second expertise. Nothing. Business as usual. Enough is enough!
Anyway, the situation became too hot for Gelu Colceag, and all this congestion was let to be digested by an artist, completely unexperienced in management who became interim manager. He considered the actions of the Syndicate and lawyers who won a case in Court as a threat to his activity as a manager. As a true follower of his previous Master his main duty was to maintain the renting of the spaces policy. Can't touch the money flow.
In December of 2023 the Cultural Department of the Town Hall warned the managers, in a letter to Mic, Nottara and Bulandra, that they have to decide to close their halls, or not to close, according with law no. .....from July 2023. A law about closing all the Rs 1 and Rs 2 buildings with a commercial activity. Imagine that this is an official notice to cultural institutions which are managing programs. This letter from the Cultural department of the Town Hall was the first initiative of the city regarding Rs 2 ever, and the Interim manager of Mic announced to the employees that the theatre will be closed from January 2024. Only one of the managers involved took a decision. After the public protests of some artists, members of Mic Syndicate, the decision was revoked. Due to one Amendment which was on the table of Deputy Chamber for short and didn't pass the vote. The wish to close without starting to dig by all means possible, is remarkable.
From here on, the paradoxes, mismanagement, and abuses became operandus mundi for newly installed management, with main target being the president of the syndicate, theatre director, Nona Ciobanu, who was pointing at these impossible situations needing to be resolved with actions which are at hand (temporary opening the hall).
The abuses toward Nona Ciobanu cannot be resolved elsewhere than in the face of the law, because management of the Theatre MIC is only intensifying the attack on her as an artist, because it failed to find legal action to cover their inaction, or to cover the paths where the money is flowing, or where it supposed to flow. As I described earlier, you can grow an institution when your actions are a carrier of common good beyond your persona, or you bury it, when you see the functions in the matrix of an institution as personas with their personal interests and the networks they are serving. Pre-modern anthropology!
The syndrome initiated is quite simple, introduction of an “toxic subject” is a common and banal practice which works only when the quality of independent thinking individual in the realm of community, in this case professional community is critically low and is commonly achieved with intimidation and misuse/overuse of corrective organs of institution. It was common practice of the previous ideological system. Which committed crimes against humanity. Why do I say this in the case of MIC theatre? The community and majority of them came to believe, that this simple fight for common good for the collective (opening the hall and to regain normality till renovation takes place) is taken to be an “interest” of the person. It is hard to believe, from the outside, that this is happening today in an institution where free spirit, strong individuum and cohesive collective is an obligatory norm. Shame.
Comments