Bran Workshop - Bran, Romania

Bran area

The International Network for Traditional Building Architecture & Urbanism and the Architecture Faculty of Timisoara, Romania, have run a 7 day charrette in the village of Bran, producing a landscape protection plan for the area. The plan was designed in order to be used by the local authorities in producing and enforcing a wider protection programme for the village, which attracts thousands of tourists every year.

Bran is located within the Southern Carpathians Mountains in an attractive and mostly unspoiled landscape of the western historical province of Romania, known as Transylvania.

Download the final report in English or Româna (PDF, 1.5Mb) or view an aerial panorama of the Balaban hill (QTV, 1Mb) (requires QuickTime).

Bran Area

Bran Village Over the last ten years the number of new buildings, mostly designed for tourists, has increased significantly. However, the development was rather chaotic and lacked any regard as to the specific features of the mountain architecture of Bran. The focal centre of the Village is Bran Castle, built in the 14th century.

Allegedly the count Vlad Tepes, nicknamed Vlad Dracul, spent some time at the castle. However, the locals dismiss Dracula as a western myth and prefer to link the castle to the Queen Marie, an outstanding figure in the Romanian history. Queen Marie (1875 - 1938) was regarded as one of the most beautiful women of her time and she had a very important contribution to the future development of Romania. Bran castle was one of her official residencies and her heart is interred here.

Landscape Protection Plan

The workshop, run by INTBAU from 31 July - 7 August 2005 in Bran commune, ended with a set of proposal on the landscape protection of the area. The event was attended by Romanian, British and Norwegian architects as well as academics and students from those countries, and supported by Dan Dimancescu, the Honorary Consul of Romania in Boston, USA. The local authorities played an active role and expressed great interest in the work undertook by the international team of practitioners.

Bran Workshop The participants analysed the landscape of the countryside and the way it has been used by now. A preliminary protected area was designed, with some limitations given the modest mapping of Romania.

Hanna Derer of Architecture Institute of Bucharest undertook a historical examination of the area starting from early medieval times when the houses were built on the top of the mountain as a precautionary measure against the invaders. Over the years as the threat disappeared, the norm became to build houses down the mountains, near the valleys.

Architect Dorin Boila presented a paper on the wild habitat of the area. The preliminary protected area is margined by two national parks, therefore the need of a corridor for the protected wild animals is required, concluded architect Boila. The participants also developed a set of preliminary guidelines for buildings within the worrying context of a number of houses altered recently and painted in bright colours such as orange or yellow.

The tourism profile of Bran is based on guest houses. The tourists either come to relax for a few days but are not very interested in walking or other active exercises or they just visit the Bran castle without spending time in the village or spending any money in the local economy. As Bran is an outstanding area of beauty, the participants tried to develop possible walking tours maps - designed for different levels of fitness. Such tours will benefit both the tourists as they will see more of the area and the local economy, dependent mostly on tourism.

The local authorities of Bran have welcome the conclusions of the final report and have decided to use the outcome of the workshop as reference for the future legislation on the landscape protection of the area.

The charrette

The charrette is designed as an intensive effort to solve architectural problems within a limited time. Instead of taking ideas and plans and going away to develop them, the architects operate in a highly collaborative atmosphere, allowing the participation of everyone involved with the project.

The term 'charrette' is of French origin and it was first time mentioned in the late 1800's, when architecture students in Paris who needed to rush their drawings to the Ecole Des Beaux-Arts placed them on a cart which was called a 'charette'. Somewhere along the line the word picked up an extra 'r' and is now widely recognised as an efficient equitable technique.

Further information

For further information about the project please contact INTBAU.