Workshop: Bucharest. Reclaiming the Intermediary Space of the Porticoes

Porticoes are intermediary spaces with an important urban role. Although they are first of all spaces of passage, meant to protect the passers-by from bad weather conditions, through their configuration they also become social spaces, negotiating the relationship between street and the (usually) public functions along them.

This article presents the short research and the interventions proposed by the participants at the “Bucharest. Reclaiming the intermediary space of the porticoes” workshop. The theme opened to discussion was that of reclaiming the porticoes on Ion Câmpineanu Street, in Bucharest, porticoes that now hardly meet their main function of protecting the people that cross them (much less auxiliary functions), being disagreeable and abusively occupied by extensions of the commercial spaces they separate from the street.

After a short introduction of the event and the context of its unfolding, the article points to the role of the porticoes in the urban configuration and at a social level as well. Then we shortly present the actual status of the Bucharest porticoes (including those studied at the workshop), and at the end we publish the four projects proposed by the multidisciplinary teams of participants.