Crossing over

Graduated FAUT (Timișoara Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism) in 2021. While working as a full time architect I'm also engaged in an academic career, as a teaching assistant at FAUT, since 2023, where my contribution is made for both theoretical and practical courses. My work as a photographer revolves around exploring and capturing unique scenes or viewpoints that express a deeper understanding behind the complex relationship between a piece of architecture and its context. I believe they should enhance each other and work together. Great architecture is one that stands out by fitting perfectly in a place.

Chișinau — the capital of a small country in Eastern Europe - is a city which perpetuates the memory of the Soviet Union, but adapts to the present in specific ways. While the representative buildings of power are rooted in the monumentality of Soviet architecture, ordinary people carry out their activities around these impressive objects in various kinds of improvised and adapted contexts. Moldovan railway infrastructure is in disrepair, so people appropriate the national railway spaces for different activities. This visual essay shows the livelihood of a flea market which spread from its initial assigned area, covering the bridge over the tracks and the streets leading to the station. The railway spaces couldn't keep their functional character, but they have been transformed into a perfect place to survive the difficulties of everyday life. You no longer hear the trains passing by, no longer see people running with their luggage or simply waiting for their train, instead you hear the traders shouting out offers and people haggling over the price of old products. The crosswalk is no longer a transitory space, but an appealing spot speculated by local merchants, reminiscent of a commercial gallery that provides an impressive background for shopping, a real mall called Atrium.