Matei Eugen Stoean (b. 1987, Bucharest, Romania) is a practicing architect and teaching assistant in the "Basics of Architectural Design" department of the "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism. PhD in architecture since 2017 with the thesis “The architecture of the borderlands. Masonry Churches of the Romanians from Northern Oltenia and Muntenia and Southern Transylvania (1700-1850)”, as well as postdoctoral studies and grants at the Accademia di Romania in Rome and Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich, extending local studies with a research ecclesiastical architecture on either side of the Alps.
Since 2014, together with architects Șerban Sturdza and Tudor Elian, he is a co-author of the Romanian Orthodox Ecclesiastical Centre in Munich. The project was created in collaboration with PRODID - a full-service architecture studio focusing on researching crafts, new media and experimental techniques.
Project description in English
As part of the ensemble of the "Romanian Orthodox Ecclesiastical Center in Munich" (CBROM), the Hall of Crosses is located under the main space of the church. The itinerary begins at the exterior stone fountain, with its textures contrasting sharply with the smooth travertine that continues the pedestal of the building.
Continuing this initiation journey, the rough materials and textures, from the hewn stone to the bush-hammered concrete (to the south of the foyer) contrast sharply with the smooth travertine that follows on from the church plinth, as do the staircase steps leading up to the hypostyle hall. The foyer continues the Hall of Crosses through four wide doors with an inside-outside continuity effect.
The exterior spaces of the courtyard and foyer intertwine with the interior space of the Hall of Crosses – a large room clad on five sides in exposed brick, one of the most important interior public spaces of the complex. At either end, the Hall of Crosses is determined by two distinct rooms containing essential moments in the definition of the Christian: the Beginning - the Baptistery (west), the Eucharist - the Altar (east chapel), leaving in the middle an entire community space, with the main role of gathering outside of service hours (a setting for conferences, exhibitions as well as agape and celebrations).
The interior of the hypostyle hall is determined by the ten pillars rising from the brick floor (symbolizing the earth) and piercing the golden 'sky'. The sculptural pillars took the form of bas-relief crosses in a space that was intended to be defined not by the built but by the symbol. Each of the ten pillars, different in shape and texture, made of exposed precast concrete, is inlaid with the text of one of the Ten Commandments (in Romanian and German). Thus, as an allegory, through the ten commandments on the pillars supporting the large church, the Old underlies the New - and the public space of the community is connected to the place of worship above.
Every corner of this space has a detail, an inlay, a niche, a light source, a piece of furniture designed specifically to contribute to the overall image of the hypostyle hall - the Hall of Crosses.
