Emil Barbu "Mac" Popescu

 

Emil "Mac" Barbu Popescu, head of the University of Architecture in Bucharest once said in a memorable line in an old vintage Arhitectura Magazine (60s, square edition) : "I dont wish to jump in front of others, I wish we all jump in front" , a quote that depicted a deep, strong belief he stood for all his life.

Since the beginnings of Club A, learning about its history and carefully listening to my mothers words about the teacher, manager and leader "Mac" stands for : "care not dear child for all you will see in the University of Architecture , it is only life. But while Mac is still in charge, you have nothing in the world to worry about, he will always stand by the students no matter what others do around him" ..... A lighthouse for students, leadership skills and inspiring figure all the way. Sportsman also, reminding students that coca-cola and coffee is not enough for an architect mind to spark fresh, and fresh again ...

And she was right all the way, starting from our fortified churches student project, towards the corruption some secretaries poured venom in our souls (later kicked out for it), protests for lack of chairs we did and almost got sacked out of the university for it ... down to the very end project, the Diploma Project in 2010....

What memorable times to live, as my then girl told me "forget the team, this is your chance to shine" 🙁 ... a project only to be undertaken by the whole generation of 300+ students was carried out on a long solo ride with my dear friend Cearny running in the park with me daily and keeping my morale up all the way until finish line... After Cultural Centers, Sports Halls, Complexes, Biblioteque, Mediateque whatever future generations of starchitects wished for... i was a bit in shock no one (or almost no one ?) thought to take on the University Building, a mixed feelings, corrupted both in bureaucracy and technical issues (materials used wrong, spaces, no structural diagnoses, weird not well though extensions ...) , both students and teachers unhappiness levels raising etc.... no actualy survey existed, just parts. In the end I decided to donate the cardboard final model to the teachers, to play around with, during meetings and administrative talks ....

And Hanna warned me it will get risky with the subject, but risky is sometimes good (except she broke her leg and got verbally assaulted for some documents obtained by me from CCPEC).... Between ultra-conservative sensitive historical Hanna and hard-radical urban surgeon consultancy of arch. Viorel Hurduc, I thought a middleway will get along pretty ok in the end. Hard bet, with these two totally opposite character, infamous lone wolfs, things can get dangerous :D ... But i was about correct, with a little under 8 ... but with a end speech between me and Prof. Cocheci "Did you *win square meters for our University ?" .... "No, no i did not. I wish we go for quality professor, not quantity". Exciting thing was the interest it sparked in arch. Josep Acebillo of the foreign comission, head-architect of Barcelona by then (haha) and after that an Urban-Renewal Special Squad, excentrical type of urban thinker ... proposed to completely remove the university from the bucharest center and place it in the outskirts of the city. Eranged Hanna almost fired up during the presentation, I told her to take care that things can heat up with this project ... but she always wanted to keep tight with her students on diploma projects. And being my main conductor, she was truly, body-and-heart with the student, until the end ... on her heels (and with the finger on the trigger :)) during the whole raffle...

The project had to be deeply rooted in some theoretical approach (strange, for refurbishment of a university, education ... but not impossible ) ....text only ... and here is the bit I found .... mr. Vianu and Francoise Pamfil were in the jury, but this text was drafted after the disertation (written) part ..... so was only read by the end jury .... bit strange was first drafted in english, maybe I was thinking of the foreign jury first, coming from outside they may understand our internal struggle better ... or so I thought, zoomout to zoomin again ... #coverartwork inspired by math teacher from highschool Mihai Viteazu, mr. Ion Savu ...

More about the Mission Statement and my Diploma project here :

club A's motto was : 


or, in english 

"CLUB A .... AND YOU BECOME SOMEONE ELSE"

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