Traces of the Past as Starting Points for Innovation

We identify in Romania an urgent need to recover the materials, the techniques of working and processing of finishes, objects, buildings and to collect the few remaining authentic elements of the world of the city, the village or the way of life of the mature generations, referring here to the way of socializing, to their belonging to a community/group, to the way of working more manual/physical. We try to unravel the process of craftsmanship and appreciate the work of rare crafts in our world. All these searches make us associate this period with the 60s, after the thaw, after socialist realism is no longer imposed, but the openness to what was happening in the West is still too weak. The need for modernization makes artists and architects realize that the old will gradually disappear, so they start to collect old objects and exhibit them in their workshops, at which time they reflect on what they have collected and better understand the continuity of tradition and the need to innovate through a thorough knowedge of the details of an object. Today, to further enhance what was said at the beginning, there is The Ambulance for Monuments project in different regions and other non-profit organizations that fight for the preservation of old traditions, without freezing them in time, helping them to survive through innovativeness, through understanding the principles and applying them in a contemporary manner and through demand, creating the need, which is essential for the survival of any craft. We will talk about the socioeconomic impact that emergency interventions on monuments have, but also about how an ongoing site such as the restoration of the Petre P. Carp’s Manor House, the main part of the Crafting the Iron at the Manor! project (Batem fierul la conac!), can evolve.