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ЧАДЪР
Looking for the recipe? Find it here! The Sangria night
UmbrellacursionBuzludzha
EUROPEAN ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS ASSEMBLYVELIKO TARNOVO CHADŬR
VOL. 14 - ISSUE 05TUESDAY AUGUST 1ST
The big workshop special
#05: Workshop special2. Contents / introduction3. What’s on? / weather / Lost and Found / Wanted / Quote of the day4.-6. Sangria / ArchiTOUR7. A day in the life of a construction workshop8. A story by Onion9. EASA 2015 / INCM 201410. Typography timeline11.-23. Workshops, workshops, workshops and a few more workshops24.-25 Experiment Balkans26.-29. Excursion to Budludzha30. _Lapse 31. Humans of Veliko Tarnovo32. Photo of the day
EDITORS’NOTE
EASA is drawing to its end and it’s time to recap and see the vast moun-tains of work that has been done during these two weeks by all the par-ticipants, tutors, helpers and organizers. With this in mind umbrella got hold of all the workshops and reports on this issue on the most recent develop-ments.
Offering this small in-
sight is in no way substi-tute for exploring, but we are hoping it will give the overview needed to make your own way through the forrest of experiment, in-stallations and exhibitions on saturday.
Unfortunately a few workshop didn’t pass our path but we are sure they have been doing some amazing things as well and you shouldn’t forget
to check them out on Sat-urday.
We want to thank you all for amazing two weeks and an especially massive thank you for all the con-tributors of Umbrella - you are the people who made Umbrella possible!
Over and out - can’t wait to see you all in sunny Malta! And some of you al-ready in Berlin for INCM!
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WHAT’S ON?
LOST AND FOUND
WANTED
Quote of the day
saturday august 2nd
weathersaturday sunday monday
breakfast
workshop exhibitions
lunch
dinner
group photo and workshop presentations
farewell party
8:00 AM
9:30 AM
12:30 AMfrom the tutors
19:00 PM
20:30 PM
23:00 PMTehnopolis
lost:
Skywalk have lost their notebook
found:
Happiness on finishing on time
Excitement for EASA 2015 - Malta
Traveling friends for Leena, the Finn-ish helper, her flights home are from Bucharest on the 8th of August. You can find Leena usually at the IT-lab info-point.
(about Thursday’s dinner)
“This pasta is so
overcooked I can almost
drink it.”
SANGRIA!The Spanish feeling was through the roof on Wednesday’s party
The Spanish team or-ganized one of the wildest nights of this year’s EASA on Wednesday. The party was held by the river and the location turned out be-ing perfect with the starlit sky and plenty of room for dancing. Not even the police seemed to mind our good times which has been the main problem on some of the previous par-ties. Let’s hope the good luck on that department continues till the very end.
Not surprisingly, the dance floor soon filled up after everyone got around their first glass of sangria and stayed that way all the way till the sun got up. Everybody has been craving for some crazy dancing fun and an open bar with 800 liters of san-gria - which was all fin-ished by the way - made sure that everyone was on the mood for some seri-ous boogying. We even got some pizza mid-way
through the night to keep our energy levels up.
The spicy Spanish at-mosphere, kissing game for shots and the loom-ing end of EASA made sure that the night was not short of romance and heat. Emotions were whirl-ing also because some early birds are already starting to leave the love-ly Veliko Tarnovo causing some early EASA blues – even some tears were spotted on people’s faces.
survival of the fittest – the last remaining party people at 7:30 AM
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Sangria recipesAlthough the Spanish sangria is delicious,
other nations have their editions of the
drink as well. Check out the recipes for
the real thing and these two alternatives so
you can have a sangria night every night!
Sangria
6l red wine6l of Fanta1l gin1l rum1l vodka500g sugar1 kg fruits
Fingria, also known as kilju
10 liters of water2 kg of sugarLemonsYeast
Mix everything and put in bottles. Keep at room temperature and
let it brew. Remember to let some air in the bottles every now and then to pre-vent them from exploding. Brewing time depends on the yeast you use and how strong you want it to be, around a week should be fine. Get ready to enjoy your cheap drunk!
Dangaria
Strawberry jamMilkVodka
Mix the ingredients for your liking. Enjoy from a large canister together with friends.
ArchiTOURDear EASA people!We would like to
spread the word about the supercool FB group - ArchiTOUR Booklets!
ht tps: //w w w.face -book.com/groups/archi-TOUR/
Currently we already have 45 fantastic booklets from different architec-tural excursions around the world with itineraries and selected built master-pieces.
It would be great if you would join and share Ar-chiTOUR Booklets from your faculty trips or others that you came across! Let us make together the best library of architectural ex-cursions booklets in the world!!!
Welcome to join, share and spread the word also back home at your home universities!
Best and enjoy the fan-tastic EASA 2014!!
EASA Dino - Jernej
SANGRIA NIGHT
NAME OF EVENT LITRES OF SANGRIA
750IN NUMBERS
8 HOURSOF PARTY
STARTING AT22:00HRS
END
ING
AT
06:0
0HRS
ROCK AROUND THE CLOCKYEP, THAT IS A LOT OF SANGRIA. IF YOU CALCULATE THE 321 REGISTERED GUESTS AND DIVIDE THEM EQUALLY FOR 750 LITRES OF SANGIRA, YOU GET 2.33644 LITRES PER PERSON. THATS ALSO ALOT IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT A WHILE.
SLICES OF PIZZA
FOUR HUNDRED
INSIDE 50 PIZZA BOXES
PRE-REGISTERED GUESTS
321PAYING 14 LV IN ADVANCE
KILOGRAM OF FRUITS
50ALL CUT BY HANDS AND WITH LOVE
BUT WE DON‘T REALLY KNOW. WE CAN‘T REMEMBER
260NUMBER OF COUPLES THAT HAD A SHOT EACH FOR A KISS
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A day in the shoes of a construction workshop
While the other umbrel-la’s went on an excursion to the much talked about Soviet monument, I decid-ed to get my hands - and eventually feet, clothes, hair - dirty in the Antiroom workshop. Some sort of sadomasochism let’s say.
I must admit I didn’t get up as early as the hardcore Antiroom work-ers, and I also took time for a long shower, but that proved to be irrelevant al-ready after half an hour of working. I joined the group of Antiroom that is working on the basket-ball court, preparing and painting not less than 200 pallets and 48 wooden
doors. Around noon we got the bad news that the sangria party was taking place at the exact spot of Antiroom’s pallets, so eve-rything had to be moved. Seeing tutor Elena’s des-perate face, the espanish people called a group of helpers together to move pallets, so that we could continue painting. Several hours and several paint cans later, with the con-stant noise of drilling and sanding in the background and the scorching sun on our heads, I was officially destroyed and covered in red paint. I never thought moving a brush up and down would be such a
hard job. On the upside, painting requires only one hand. Some of the partici-pants have mastered the technique of having a beer in one hand and a paint brush in the other.
Even after one short day of manual labour - compared to other days of interviewing and typing - I can see what drives the construction workshops. The lunch, the ice cream break in the afternoon, a bottle of ice tea and sev-eral bottles of water, a cold shower, a semi-cold rice dish, a not-so-cold beer and eventually the soft-ness of a mattress never felt as good as today.
Onion participant Madli Kaljuste made continuation story last night at the bar. Read and enjoy!
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INCM – Intermediate National Contacts Meet-ing – is the backbone of EASA. It’s what makes it all possible. It’s a week long meeting where, just as for EASA, a different country with different organisers accommo-dates the event every year. It takes place in the fall, which gives time for post EASA-reflection and pre-future-EASA engage-ment. A part of it is mak-ing decisions on who the future EASA or IMCM or-ganisers should be. These decisions are not taken lightly. In fact, inside this
choice lies a larger discus-sion on ”What do we want EASA to be?”, ”Where are we going with this?” and ”What makes it important to us?”. All NC’s together decide between -in most cases- two bidding teams, who already have put a lot of effort and passion into a proposal.
The emphasis really lies in ‘together’ as all de-cisions are made through the process of consensus: discussing until everyone agrees. This can take hours and hours, but in the end the decision will reflect our common idea
On Tuesday we got en-joy a presentation by the Maltese about next year’s EASA which will be held in Valetta with the theme of links.
The room was filled with excitement as they showed off how far they’re in the organizing of the event. The standard has been set high by this year’s assembly and the Maltese have high ambitions for next year so it will surely be an EASA not-to-miss.
on what EASA is – and that is very fulfilling.
Last fall NC’s met up in Bucharest for 10 days, where the Romanian team had prepared an event under the theme ”Eastern Lab”. They created the framework for discus-sions, inspirational talks and social events. Not to mention parties.
This fall Berlin will, according to last years decisions, be the host of INCM. In the beginning of November at the lat-est we will all know where EASA016 and INCM015 will take place.
Stopover in Berlin for INCM
EASA 2015
The Maltese team
Lightype tutor Vincent Devillard has created a timeline of architectural styles and typography
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Umbrella spent an en-tire day walking around visiting all the workshop - having a talk about the progress, reflections and plans. Not far into the fieldwork it became clear that however small or extensive the inter-views were, together the gathered material forms a pretty substantial docu-ment on this year’s EASA. Not to mention important for future organisers and tutors. So we have been thinking about how to present it best to you, and decided to write a sum-mary of the words said, the experiences had and reflections shared.
For several tutors, the workshops have been a great learning school, in terms of organisational experience, construction skills or interaction with participants. For others it was a way to pass on their knowledge or ideas to a group of eager eas-ians, in the hope to infect more people with the virus of their fascina-tion. We hope you all got infected somehow, be it with the construction bug, the performance bug or just the easa spirit.
Antiroom
Antiroom might be one of the toughest work-shops around this year. The participants and tutors have been cou-rageously slaving away, excavating the terrain or painting the never-ending pile of pallets. Tutor Karl expected it to be tough but unexpected issues such as the power cable cut last week or a mas-sive limestone stuck in the ground that needed to be drilled through, slowed down the progress.
They’re working on two locations, preparing the doors and painting the pallets at the bas-ketball court, and then moving them to the final location where the rest of the team continues the preparation of the terrain. The presence of the for-est around Veliko Tarnovo has been determining for the project and the room
was conceived with these surroundings in mind, on the outskirts of the forest where both the forest is still present but the terrain is flat enough to use. The final result will be a circu-lar room in which small performances can be held for about 120 spectators. They hope to be able to organise a performance there - Karl is dreaming of a violin performance, so if anyone here is a violin vir-tuoso, let him know!
Back to the roots
By the riverbank along-side Boathouse and Wal-den is Back To The Roots’ woven branch construc-tion that almost seems to be growing between the trees. Next to the woven branches they’ve been constructing a shel-ter too, made with adobe
Workshop insights
bricks a.k.a. bricks out of mud and shit. Tutor Hristo notes that the techniques they’re using are not nec-essarily Bulgarian, but part of a bigger Balkan tradition. The materials and techniques are usu-ally the same, with only small differences between countries.
The workshop had gotten the specific as-signment of creating an entrance pavilion to the riverbanks. The design hadn’t been made before-hand but was conceived together with all the par-ticipants. Hristo had pre-pared a back-up design just in case, but in the end he thinks it turned out into something exceeding his expectations.
The progress has been going pretty well, not counting the “Spanish stick in the wheels” from Wednesday evening. Hris-to is especially grateful to the guys form Skywalk, Walden and Boathouse for helping out with mate-rial and the lifting of the branch construction into the trees. Visit them on Friday evening or Satur-day for a little barbeque, or maybe even ask them about their special adobe mud mixture for a small spa treatment.
Boathouse
Something that Boat-house has been experienc-ing first-hand is the differ-ence between conceiving a design and actually building it. The design had been made beforehand and even well prepared, but along the way small changes in detailing have been made to make the construction easier. This doesn’t make it look any less impressive though. It’s a project that resulted from researching Veliko Tarnovo and discovering that the riverbank used to be frequently visited, but became disused in recent years. Tutor Rory hopes that the Boathouse might bring a spark back to the river, creating a platform that will enable leisure and water sports to re-use the river in a modern way, es-pecially in combination with Walden and Back To The Roots’ projects. Ask-ing Rory what they’re plan-ning to do once the pavil-ion is finished he said: “Set it on fire, haha”. We’ll see…
Cameraobscura
What is actually a cam-era obscura? It is a device created long time ago, back in the renaissance, or as Leonardo da Vinci liked to call it “the art of looking at the world up side down”. This work-shop made some smaller experiments in the first week, like the transfor-mation of a room in the IT lab into a camera ob-scura. They covered all the sources of light and completely darkened the room, except for one little circle on the window. So when light comes through that little circle into the room, the scenery from outside projects onto the walls - upside down. Now they are constructing a pavilion near the Asenev-ci statue, where everyone can experience Veliko Tar-novo upside down. The tutors admit that is going
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much slower than they anticipated, but they have fantastic participants and “being together is enough as experience”.
C.L. Tangle
C.L.Tangle’s timber and rubber structure will be fixed into the lime-stone down the steps at the monument. They worked on two different concepts but finally de-cided on a structure that starts out small and fixed and then evolves into a more flexible and open structure. It’s been a de-sign and build workshop where the participants have been completely in-volved in the design of the project, which does mean that the amount of mate-rial and work couldn’t be completely predicted be-forehand. The design did turn out to be more com-
plicated than anticipated, and a lot more timberwork was involved. The design process might also have been slowed down in the end by a laptop that may or may not have been used for a DJ set and got soaked in beer…
The tutors tested the strength of the rubber joints beforehand, and in the final result some joints will be used to their full (hopefully not beyond) capacity. The good thing about the rubber is that it can handle small imper-fections.
On the symbiosis side of the workshop finally, they’ve been working with a lot of other work-shops “that is, if symbio-sis means hanging out and helping each other” assumes tutor Cooey.
City is my playground
City is my playground has been working all over the city - and even inside the easa site and at the beach - with some amaz-ing results. The tutors had no specific expectations, especially not about po-tential symbioses with other workshops. “It turned out very cool, we collaborated with a lot of workshops”. The most significant symbiosis be-ing the moss wall paint-ing they did with guerrilla gardening. Veliko Tarnovo proved to be a very inspir-ing city, with some beauti-ful locations for site spe-cific works. Workshop Up, Down and Stairs also provided them with good locations. Eventually City is My Playground will have 4 final projects, done by small groups or individual participants. They look very professional, con-sidering that most par-ticipants had no previous graffiti experience. “You have to give them some ‘tools’ to make it look neat”, tutor Andrej says.
They’ll probably make a map of their works, so get hold of one of these and go on a graffiti city walk!
Co.
The people from Co have been doing several concrete formwork ex-periments. Right now they are finishing a set of stairs along the river, on the way to the island. The concrete blocks have geometrical patterns, imprints of fab-ric and we think we even spotted some seashells from the excursion in one concrete block.
The project is very site specific. The tutors, who are Bulgarian, spent a couple of days looking for good locations. When they made an early morn-ing walk along the river in winter, the misty atmos-phere convinced them to do a social project here, a staircase to make this path accessible. Eventual-ly, the workshop involved much more manual labour than the tutors expected, since they have to level the entire path. You are all welcome to come help them and get dirty.
Come sense us
Come sense us has been part of EASA for the past 3 years, but this year was a little different, since their concept fits best in a natural environ-ment. Fortunately they found shelter in a house near the architects’ club, which became their own quiet space in the middle of the city. This is where they experimented with the body, did yoga, and looked for a connection between practical exercis-es and theory. Tutor Pat-rick explained how their workshop had more of a ‘laissez faire’ approach, giving a lot of room for the participants to decide their schedule. They were not together as a group all day, but left some free time for the participants to read and reflect on some of the theoretical material that was part of the workshop. Patrick de-scribes the eventual result as “something happening in the brain of the partici-
pants”, a connection be-tween architecture and body centred activities such as your morning jog-ging routine.
Expect “something about the body” on Sat-urday!
Cre8 . bit
Unfor tunate ly we weren’t able to find these bit guys and girls but we are really looking forward to their presentation!
EASA park
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The people from Easa Park are building concrete benches with steel seat-ing, some garbage bins and a table on the square with view on Tsarevets fortress. The design of the furniture was made by the tutors before easa, but the exact location and configuration was not fixed. The colours and materials are also slightly different than what they had planned. If they would have the chance to restart from scratch, they would not use concrete, since it is difficult and hard work.
EASA stats
EASA Stats has been analysing the easians and finding different ways of how to present those sta-tistics. You’ve seen their stats in Umbrella before, but for example they also made a 3D infographic about the Sangria party. Tutor Arian is quite happy with the results so far. Thinking about the output
of the material was chal-lenging but interesting. “At the start of the workshop we meant to use materi-als that other workshops weren’t using anymore, but in the end there wasn’t so much leftover material that could be recycled. Also the printer wasn’t working too well so we had to find alternatives, for example publish them online.” The workshop has been working closely together with EASA tv, EASA fm, and also the one day workshop Experiment Balkans. Only thing Arian would change? Maybe find a second tutor.
EASA TV
Easa tv has been shak-en up a bit this year, there’s quite a few tutors com-pared to other years be-
cause some had to leave early or arrive late and also the group of participants was quite big compared to other years, which hasn’t made the organisation of the workshop easy be-cause it means that more computers and cameras needed to be on hand which wasn’t always the case. At the same time the tutors are really hap-py that the team has been working this hard. Let the EASA tv episodes speak for themselves!
EASA FM
The radio station got off to a rocky start as their antenna got lost on arrival. But there is a silver lining on everything and one the tutors, Joonas, seemed really excited to have learned how to make a ra-
dio antenna out of plum-ing equipment and that it actually works really well. Definitely a nice addition to anyone’s CV!
EASA FM has been symbiozing with the par-ticipants who have come to play their favorite tracks and they will have their fi-nal day on air tomorrow. Be sure to tune in and listen to the sounds that make EASA. The rumor has it the most played song of this year is Happy by Pharrell Williams.
eye the dot. dot the eye
This workshop initially planned to do 26 installa-tions scattered around Ve-liko Tarnovo, all being con-nected together with one common thing. Very soon they realized that it could be too big number to real-ize and they are going to have 7 constructive in-stallations around town – like benches and relaxing area, and the rest are go-ing to be smaller art instal-lations. Dot the eye is not so much in symbiosis with other workshops except using the materials from bigger ones, although they
are planning a pajama party that could include some other workshop but are being secretive about it. For Saturday they are going to have map of in-terventions ready so you can find all of their work in Veliko Tarnovo. When we asked Benjamin what would he do different if he started the workshop today again from the be-ginning, he said: “I would like that all of the installa-tions are connected a bit more – in a way that you can see the idea without having to describe it.”
Geodesic Geometries
By now everyone has seen the result of the Geodesic Geometries workshop: a huge wood-en dome made out of few simple elements. The de-sign is not related to the city or the site, as the main objective of this workshop was knowledge traffic, giv-ing the participants tools and knowledge to build something similar. On the first day of the workshop
they made only 2,5 pieces for the dome, but on the second day the number went up to 55. Eventually, tutor Luca says that the workshop turned out even better than expected be-cause the team was very good. Officially they didn’t symbiose with anyone, but all the construction workshops helped each other a lot, interchang-ing tools and knowledge. They might do something with guerrilla gardening (but we’re not so sure the guerrillas know about this). Since the pavilion was ready on Thursday, Geodesic Geometries will spend their final day on talking about the technol-ogy so that every partici-pant goes home as a geo-desic expert.
Guerilla gardening
As many other work-shops, Guerilla Gardening has been improvising their workshop along the way.
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Veliko Tarnovo turned out being greener than expected and as guerilla gardening plays with the contrast of urban and na-ture, they had to modify their tasks a little bit.
Up, Down and Stairs have symbiozed with the group suggesting some locations and together with City is my playground they made moss graffiti on walls around the city.
What surprised the tutors was that not that many people knew what guerilla gardening actu-ally is. Though they had great participants next time they would love to have even more as many
of the participants aren’t around for the whole day every day.
handPAWER
Unfor tunate ly we weren’t able to find these fluffy fellows but we are really looking forward to their presentation!
Hard Fiber FunAfter some days of ex-
perimenting with smaller
models, Hard Fiber Fun is now working on their final design, a huge three-di-mensional sculpture that will be covered in carbon glass fibre. Both tutors are very satisfied that they could spend a week experimenting, so that the final design is really the result of team work. The structure will be move-able and could be placed on any location in the city, where the unnatural mate-rial would be in sharp con-trast with Veliko Tarnovo.
The workshop looks extremely professional, with all participants cov-ered in protective suits and big masks. Still there
Unfortunately we didn’t catch spaceguide for an interview but we know they found some cool old architecture photos.
is some MacGyver aspect about it, such as the self-made trolley that allows them to apply the car-bon glass evenly on the fibres without having to run around with the pot of resin.
Hay Design & Built
The hay builders are almost finished and will be ready by tonight. They have divided in to two teams, one team working on the Jump which can be
found by the bar courtyard and the other team work-ing on the Nest which will be right next to the library.
The tutors have been super happy with the par-ticipants who have been very involved and worked hard. At the beginning they had a two-day tools work-shop so the tutors trust the participants to work completely independent. The workshop has been about total experimenta-tion and improvisation.
Hidden Corners
Hidden Corners has made an intervention in 2 locations. At the aban-doned church in front of the architects’ club they made a bench, in collabo-ration with Lightsenses who installed a light show. At the grassy spot in front of ‘the’ corner shop they are installing a small sculpture which is some-thing in between a pavil-ion, a shade structure and something to climb on
and sit with a beer (from the shop!). The workshop turned out to be more in-tense than planned, since the time for designing was limited. What the tu-tors have thus far learned from this workshop? That construction workshops should take in mind the number of people that can work simultaneously, from the design phase on!
Light Senses
Light senses is work-ing on a sensory light experience in front of the church near the architects’ club. As we understood it, the lights will respond to the movement of visitors, which would help to re-generate this abandoned spot in the city. They spent about 4 days designing an installation with the entire group and are now install-ing the lights, while Hidden Corners is making urban furniture on the spot. Al-though this specific pro-ject is very much influ-
19
enced by the location, the general idea of lighting up abandoned spaces could be done in any city. If they would do this again, they would try to design their own light fixtures, in stead of using empty beer cans. The tutors hope to have a party here, and prefer-ably even before the end of easa, so that they can make nice graphics about people’s movement at the party.
LIGHTYPE
Light type is a pro-cessing workshop where the tutors have provided a framework in which the participants can freely move and develop their projects as they wish. They have discovered an old language from the time before Cyrillic and some of their installations will be based on that. Two of the installations will be at the bar.
Together with Space-guide they discovered some old architectural
photos from the past which are highly interest-ing and you should try to check them out if you get the chance! Light type is feeling optimistic that they will finish on time for Sat-urday.
The tutor of Lightype, Vincent Devillard, has also created a timeline of typography and architec-tural styles throughout the centuries and you can find an example of it right here on Umbrella. It is really interesting so use your chance and go have a chat with him if you want to find out more.
Onion
Onion is all about spontaneity. They have been doing different kinds of performances daily to spice up our EASA-life with new sensory experiences. If you’ve seen some things happening around dinner time or at the parties and haven’t really figured out
what it was, it was prob-ably Onion.
The workshop was held last year in Zuzem-berk as well but the out-come really depends on the participants so the result is different each time. The tutors love their participants and their joy is infectious. Keep your eyes open tomorrow as they promised one last performance during din-ner time.
Paper Pavillion
Another Irish work-shop! The paper pavilion is slowly rising on one of the best spots of Veliko Tarnovo, on the island of the National Art Gallery. The pavilion would be en-tirely different on another location, the tutors say, as they now focused on pro-viding a panorama on the city and the huge monu-
ment. Like many other construction workshops, they had to deal with a lot of “easa-improvisation” and had to adapt the con-struction process to the availability of tools and materials. Eventually they think they will finish on time, although they had to work late at night the past days. They might organise a small dj-set in collabo-ration with EASA FM, and the bar next to the gallery would like to use it as a salsa dance floor. The tutors ordered around 500 candles, so there will definitely be some sort of opening ceremony of the pavilion.
What they would change if they would do this again? “I wouldn’t have gone out so much”, tutor Peter says. But that might be part of the easa improvisation as well!
Press Play
This workshop de-pends on ideas from its participants a lot and they came up with pretty complex projects. The
final product of the work-shops are three projects – two prototypes and one actual installation that is going to be on the bridge. Everything is going to be on time, and for Saturday they are having a 2min vid-eo about their work. They are going to do symbiosis with EASA TV and they “do symbiosis constantly borrowing materials and having a parasitic rela-tionship with other work-shops.” said William. He added that he is very sat-isfied with the workshop because now they have a group of architecture stu-dents with a specific set of additional skills that they can improve and use later in architecture so our goal is accomplished. When asked what would they do differently second time, Stefanie said that it would be nicer if there were more girls for this workshop – “we should made a little more gender balanced list of participants. Because this is typical – it’s almost all guys!”
SENSymbioza a labyrinth
For those who have not heard about it yet: sen-symbioza / a labyrinth has been doing performances
in an old factory building since Wednesday. Despite some small problems, it is going great and we’ve heard people saying it was the most amazing experience of their life. It is a sort of theater, but not the kind where you go, sit and watch. You are part, you are acting, you meet different persons and situ-ations, and all your senses are being explored. This workshop might be the only one that started a symbiosis before easa, as two groups of tutors hade made a similar proposal in the first application round and have then combined their forces for the second round. The idea of creat-ing a labyrinth was fixed, the exact situations inside the labyrinth are the result of a process with and by the participants.
SKYWALK
The skywalk workshop received some help from an unexpected source.
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The chamber of engineers of Veliko Tarnovo sent pro-fessional workers to make the main structure for the cantilevered platform. Yet for the tutors it was still difficult to deal with everything at the same time: part of the group is welding elements in the school courtyard, while others are on site assem-bling the platform. This project is absolutely site specific. The tutors visit-ed Veliko Tarnovo several times in advance, to find the perfect spot for their concept: providing a plat-form to look out over the spectacular valley and the city. Even if he would be able to redo everything, tutor Mathieu says he is confident about not do-ing anything differently. Although, if they would have known about the pro-fessional help, they might have created something even more ambitious!
Small interventions
The outcome of the Small Interventions work-shop is individual or group projects differing in scale between a small beehive and a large tent. The va-riety of projects is partly due to participants’ in-ventiveness and partly an informed choice by the tutors – there was a wish to open up the workshop, which has a long history in EASA, and allow the workshop to unfold its potentials. During the past two weeks tutors and par-ticipants have attempted to create symbioses with a few other workshops. Among these are the Up, Down and Stairs who were mapping stairs of the city – a map that might turn into a common map of places and interventions for the two workshops.
The biggest surprise to the tutors was the un-predictable nature of the
party factor, but despite this, the work is going to be ready for your visits on Saturday.
Reflecting upon the workshop, the tutors de-scribes it as a kind of para-site, because of their lack of materials and depend-ence on leftovers from other workshops, but isn’t this concept really just a sustainable symbiosis?
Synthesizer
For Artem, one of the tutors, this workshop turned out just as he ex-pected if not even better. He would not do a thing different if he had to start over again. “We did some programming, we were doing circuits and partici-pants learned a lot and liked it – that’s why I’m here.” said Artem. Syn-thesizer was in symbio-sis with Lightype if you consider mutual helping as such, and since they share a workspace with Press Play they tend to do
some mutual stealing of material – and that sym-biosis also, right? With The Imaginarium some real symibiosis is coming soon that includes using movement recognition technology. “But one of the nicest symbiosis was with Up, down and Stairs when we played music on the stairs” he added. Will they have something for Saturday? “Well, electronic parts are finished, pro-gramming is done and all that remains is the wiring - so I think so, but unfor-tunately I will not be there since I have to leave a bit early.”
The imaginarium
Also Imaginarium has lost a few working days for being sick but the great participants together with the tutors have managed to pull of some seriously
interesting things during the past two weeks. If you haven’t checked out the fog room in the bar before, you should defi-nitely do that tomorrow when it’s operating again. There’ll be some other in-stallations in the bar and around the camp site as well so go and explore the Imaginarium.
The workshop has created great group spirit which shows in a great outcome. According to the tutors they really think and work as one. And who wouldn’t want to work with such cute and friendly people?
Think tank _ differently
They were planning to work with a tank but didn’t get one so the workshop was all about improvisa-tion and experimentation. At the beginning it was stressful and impossible to plan. But with the frame work created by the limited materials available they’ve gone far and results seem
impressive.Think tank’s house
can be found in the park between the participants’ accommodation and the IT-lab. The group is work-ing hard to finish on time and according to the tu-tors the Sangria party has just made everyone work even faster – something that can’t be said of every workshop.
Up, Down & Stairs
This workshop has done some impressive things during these two weeks. They designed and built a whole new cultural venue by the Taralej art gallery on top of mapping out the existing stairs of Veliko Tarnovo. Tonight, they are having a concert and the official opening by the gallery starting at 7 pm.
They have been work-ing together with the lo-cals and the people from
23
the gallery who have been a great help in building the new stair that form the cultural venue. Go and check it out!
Walden
The symbiosis of Wal-den with Veliko Tarnovo has already started. It wasn’t planned before-hand, but there’s a hard-ware store in town whose shop owner doesn’t live far from the Walden site, and charmed by the work-shop he’s been coming by and helping them out. Hopefully this is a good sign that the locals will be using the structures of Walden as well as the Boathouse and Back To The Roots. Guerilla Gar-dening will also be joining the symbiosis, as they’re planning to incorporate some planting into the platforms. Tutor Fran had envisioned some planting
into the structure as well, so this turned out to be a perfect match.
Fran is pretty experi-enced with these kind of constructions, so when asked about it he’s pretty confident that everything will get finished on time. Looking back, he’d maybe just change some small details on the design, but all in all it’s been a pretty smooth experience. We can’t wait for the finished result!
Yantra and Chaotium
Chaotium changed its original plan – to use chaotic patterns from re-search of Veliko Tarnovo, but instead they are being inspired by the river. As we wrote in the second edi-tion, they are working with Yantra at the moment and planning further symbio-sis with other workshops
like Hard Fiber Fun and Onion.
On Wednesday night we saw the result of the great symbiosis by Yan-tra and Chaotium as they gave us a light per-formance by the river dam. The effect of mov-ing lights in the dark, the sound of rushing water beneath and the journey from one side of the river to the other was truly pow-erful. If you haven’t seen the dam yet during day time you should do that. They are beautiful build-ings. The performance will happen again tonight so go check it out!
Warm up exercise No 2
SMELL
TASTEVISION
TOGETHER84
SOUND
8
1637
23
ba lkan METERBU
LGAR
IA
ROMANIA
SL
OVEN
IA
ARCHIVE
LANGUAGE
MEMORY
SPACE
EASACOMMUNITY
A map-game of Veliko Tarnovo was distrib-uted to the participants and they were asked to explore Balkan spots of the city. The task was to place words in the predi-fined spots, thus express their perception of Balkan urbanity through the medium of language. The outcome was a verbal map
of
EASA is an autonomous pop-up society that releas-es its own spatiality over the actual space of the hosting city. The 12 participants of the workshop were asked to create an alternative map of EASA town, by placing some words in the overlapse of easa space and the old Turkish city center we have been living these two weeks.
EASA is in Balkan territories at last! The 3 con-tinius stops of easa community during 2013 -2014 have formed a collective memory of the easians over the Balkans. Experiment Balkans aims to reveale the fragments of collective memory through the questionnaires and the Warm Up Exercise No.2, that occured during Saturday 26th of July
An archive has been collected investigating what is the so called Balkan identity. Data and documents from exhibitions, festivals and books and the most important of all, your opinion as analysed through the question-naires of INCM 013 (Romania) and EASA 014 (Bulgaria) are the contents of the Archive. A true symbiosis occured between Experiment Balkans and EASA STATS workshop!
3 stops
verbal
map
Warm up e
xercise N
o 1
What kind of w
ord inhabits e
asa town ?
YES NO
exercise N
o 3
Can you recall the space when you first senced smellying?
What unites the Balkans?
What diferentiates the Balkans?
MEMORY
TRADITIONS
BORDERS
Did EASA served as a vehicle to visit the Balkans?
0 50 100
VALENTIN HOFER (AT)PETER PHILIPPEAU (FR)GUILLAUME STARK (CH)ALICE ESCUDIER (FR)TEREZA HAUMEROVA (SK)MARCELA RACZOVA (SK)
ONE DAY WORKSHOPZANE KALNINA (LV)DUBRAVKO ALEKSIC (BIH)CHRISTOF MATHES (AT)ADRIAN POBO (ES)GEORGIA ATHANOSOPOULOU (GR)ANASTASIA DIMOULAKI (GR)
ATHINAFOUSTERI(GR) ERMIONI GARRAMONE(GR)
25
Warm up exercise No 2
SMELL
TASTEVISION
TOGETHER84
SOUND
8
1637
23
ba lkan METERBU
LGAR
IA
ROMANIA
SL
OVEN
IA
ARCHIVE
LANGUAGE
MEMORY
SPACE
EASACOMMUNITY
A map-game of Veliko Tarnovo was distrib-uted to the participants and they were asked to explore Balkan spots of the city. The task was to place words in the predi-fined spots, thus express their perception of Balkan urbanity through the medium of language. The outcome was a verbal map
of
EASA is an autonomous pop-up society that releas-es its own spatiality over the actual space of the hosting city. The 12 participants of the workshop were asked to create an alternative map of EASA town, by placing some words in the overlapse of easa space and the old Turkish city center we have been living these two weeks.
EASA is in Balkan territories at last! The 3 con-tinius stops of easa community during 2013 -2014 have formed a collective memory of the easians over the Balkans. Experiment Balkans aims to reveale the fragments of collective memory through the questionnaires and the Warm Up Exercise No.2, that occured during Saturday 26th of July
An archive has been collected investigating what is the so called Balkan identity. Data and documents from exhibitions, festivals and books and the most important of all, your opinion as analysed through the question-naires of INCM 013 (Romania) and EASA 014 (Bulgaria) are the contents of the Archive. A true symbiosis occured between Experiment Balkans and EASA STATS workshop!
3 stops
verbal
map
Warm up e
xercise N
o 1
What kind of w
ord inhabits e
asa town ?
YES NO
exercise N
o 3
Can you recall the space when you first senced smellying?
What unites the Balkans?
What diferentiates the Balkans?
MEMORY
TRADITIONS
BORDERS
Did EASA served as a vehicle to visit the Balkans?
0 50 100
VALENTIN HOFER (AT)PETER PHILIPPEAU (FR)GUILLAUME STARK (CH)ALICE ESCUDIER (FR)TEREZA HAUMEROVA (SK)MARCELA RACZOVA (SK)
ONE DAY WORKSHOPZANE KALNINA (LV)DUBRAVKO ALEKSIC (BIH)CHRISTOF MATHES (AT)ADRIAN POBO (ES)GEORGIA ATHANOSOPOULOU (GR)ANASTASIA DIMOULAKI (GR)
ATHINAFOUSTERI(GR) ERMIONI GARRAMONE(GR)
Architecture as a political image
It’s is hard to put into words the effect it has on you, visiting a place, which has for some time been at the top of the to-do list, and for some people has had a great significance or at least has a great amount of connotations.
EASA media group plus guests went on ex-cursion to the abandoned, monumental Congress Hall of Buzludzha. Since 1989 it has been aban-doned, decaying and left for people to rob and ruin. In 2011 it was given to the
excursion to Buzludzha
Socialist Party, but visit-ing it today – the condi-tion of the roof, mosaics dissolved, the broken glass - it doesn’t look like there is any way of restor-ing it.
Looking at a map it seems, it is not too far away. But the road there is a bit longer than it seems because it is situated 1441 m above ground at a historical peek in the mountains. The view is breathtaking and the volume of the building is awe-inspiring.
On several occasions I have been met with in-comprehension, on the edge of disapproval, of our desire to visit such a place. I can’t help wonder the reason behind this strange gap between a large group finding it out-of-this-world interesting, and another finding it pur-poseless. Being clearly on the side with an addiction to ruin porn and an inter-est in political as well as cultural and material her-itage, I wonder what the reason behind not finding
27
THE FACTUAL STUFF
The place
• The peak on which it is situ-ated is, with its 1441 m above ground, the highest point in the mountain range running from Serbia to the Black Sea.
• In 1868 was the year when Bulgaria gained its independ-ence from the Ottoman Empire.
• One of the leaders of the Bul-garian rebels, Hadji Dimitar, was killed at Buzludzha Peak, which is why it would later have its name changed in the memory of him.
• In 1891 20 people gathered at this historically significant point. They founded the Social Democratic Party.
• Since the first congress in 1891 the Social Democratic Party, later the Communist Party and now the Socialist Party gathers every year in the first weekend of August: this Saturday!
The building
• Buzludzha is the name of the biggest ideological monument in Bulgaria.
• It was build between 1974-1981 after drawings by archi-tect Georgi Stoilov.
• The building was build by Army troops and volunteers.
• The Domehall has a diameter of 42 and is 14,5 m high.
• It is decorated with 515 m2 of mosaic, representing the fight of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) and the building of the socialist community. The work took 18 months with con-tributions from 60 artists.
• The tower is 70 m high, and the two pentagrams at the top are each 12 m high.
Photos by /Alexandra KononchenkoAnastasiya AndrukovichNielsine OttoSofie DevriendtSune Jørgensen
“I got to pet a horse” - Sune (Denmark)
such a place interest-ing is. Is it the political im-age which is a thorn in the eye? Is the decay embar-rassing? Is it a will to look forward instead of dwell-ing in old stuff?
The Buzludzha Monu-
ment is together with a lot of other buildings from the same period part of a heritage. And it’s not just Bulgarian heritage. It’s a European heritage, which has in one way or anoth-er, in different degrees
depending on place of birth af-fected the way we live and think today. It’s worth ac-knowledg-ing that just as the
Vernacular architecture of Veliko Tarnovo is im-portant heritage, which should be preserved and appreciated, monuments such as Buzludzha carries stories and has a value which are important to study.
There were many fac-tors that made the place worth the visit. As men-tioned there was the view, the mountains, the flow-ers, the fog and in general the surroundings. Sec-ondly there is the building it self with its UFO looking character and impressive
29
structure and enormous (one almost wants to say potent) tower. And the third really interesting part is the so present notion of a relationship between politics and our material culture, between past, pre-sent and future.
When we arrived on the site on Wednesday another film crew was already there shooting. Only two days earlier they had been there shooting as well and could – to our big regret – tell us that had we been there on
that day we would have met the now 85 year old architect behind the build-ing. They had brought him there for an interview, and have most probably shot some really intense and sentimental pictures of an architect visiting his work
that is not only monumen-tal in its physics but also has monumental signifi-cance in his own life.
While the monument has become increasingly popular destination for decay obsessors, urban explorers, thrill-seekers
and others interested, the architect himself has not been there since the dis-solution of the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1989. He probably has the same difficulty as I have putting in to words what it feels like visiting Buzludzha.
2nd of AugustEvery year in the first
weekend of August The Bulgarian Socialist party gather for a congregation next to the monument. Around 10.000 people participate, and are you up for it, you can be one of them this Saturday the 2nd of August! The con-gregation has been tak-ing place here since the Social Democratic Party was founded in 1891.
_ Lapse have been drawing views from the city. Here’s a small selection of some of their participants drawings.
31
You might have seen him last night at the bar, Alex Slat-er is a traveler from Australia who just arrived to Hostel Mostel and found the EASA-spirit too infectious to avoid.
He’s traveling in Europe
Humans of Veliko TarnovoAlex, a traveler from Hostel Mostel
for six months and there’s still two to go. It’s his first time in Europe and he’s plan-ning to see almost all of it!
His father is actually an architect and he himself just graduated with a degree in
music. “The two fields are actu-
ally similar, it’s just that you are dealing with structure and I’m dealing with sound.” He comments the similari-ties of the two arts.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
@ aaaaaaaaaarian#Abandoned #architecture #horses #bulgaria #communism
