Dorin
Ștefan
architect
ABOUT THE RESIDENT
Dorin Ștefan (b. July 27, 1950, Zărnești, Brașov county) is one of Romania’s most important contemporary architects and the founder of D.S. Birou de Arhitectură (DSBA). Known for his innovative and unconventional approach, rooted in the concept of “architecture as a response to context,” he has been awarded the Romanian Academy Award for lifetime achievement and the Union of Romanian Architects’ “Opera Omnia” award.
Known for his innovative and unconventional approach, rooted in the concept of “architecture as a response to context,” he has been awarded the Romanian Academy Award for lifetime achievement and the Union of Romanian Architects’ “Opera Omnia” award.
ABOUT THE RESIDENCY
Topophilia and memory: a visual dialogue
If Terra Siculorum speaks about topophilia through the carved object, Terra Saxonum approaches this philosophical concept at the scale of an entire village, starting from the built form of social organization. The Saxon community did not build houses alone, but an entire system of relationships materialized in stone and wood (the household, the courtyard, the fortified church, the village street, and so on), all arranged according to a logic that literally reflects the structure of the community that created them. In this sense, reading Saxon architecture means understanding how an entire community organized its collective life and coexistence over the course of centuries.
The fortified churches are perhaps the most concentrated expression of this logic: structures that combine a spiritual function with a defensive one, bearing witness to times when the survival of the community depended on its ability to protect itself.
The Saxon household, in turn, conveys a similar idea on a smaller scale: a space of cultural resilience, where old forms of community organization are shaped, century after century, the way the house relates to the courtyard, the courtyard to the street, and the street to the rest of the village.
The purpose of the architectural residency is to translate this built language into an accessible tour for hikers on the Via Transilvanica. The tour should develop the project’s conceptual thread: how exactly the old Saxon forms of community organization shaped the household as a space of cultural resilience. The study of the Saxon villages should look both at their overall structure and at the details that make a difference (the proportions of the buildings, the materials used, the decorative elements), all understood as expressions of a cultural identity, rather than merely as an “architectural style.”
ABOUT THE REGION
Terra Saxonum is the land of the Transylvanian Saxons and the heritage they left behind in the region. It begins in Archita, reaches Brașov county, then passes through several Saxon villages in Mureș county, arrives in Sighișoara, and continues through Sibiu county as far as Micăsasa.
The architecture immediately stands out, with houses built side by side and positioned directly along the street, fortified churches, and bacon towers, elements that hikers encounter throughout these villages. If they are lucky enough to reach communities such as Cloașterf or Saschiz, travellers may meet people who can explain how the architecture of the region emerged from the way the Saxons organized their communities.
Although most of them have since left Romania, there are communities that are committed to keeping their heritage alive. They have revived the traditional Nachbarschaft (neighbourhood) system, care for the churches and old houses, preserve traditional recipes, and, most importantly, manage to pass the story on.
The hiker begins to understand that architecture, like all forms of artistic expression, is ultimately about people, not merely about buildings and structures.
ABOUT THE CULTURAL IMPRINT LEFT ON THE REGION
The concrete outcome is an architectural tour (or several, depending on the villages covered) that hikers on the Via Transilvanica can follow. After taking the physical tour with the resident, future travellers will be guided by an audio version of it.
It thus becomes, essentially, a reading key left as a legacy to the trail, an instrument through which any hiker arriving in this region, even in the absence of the expert, can “read” the Szekler village as an architect would describe it: as the built expression of an entire philosophy of communal life.
