Regeneration: Balneo Center Gighera

Authors’ Comment

In the southern part of Dolj county, near the Danube, there is the village of Gighera, a prolific spa resort more than 80 years ago. The history of the former resort begins a decade ago when the village doctor discovers the qualities of the existing waters in the locals made ditches. Doctor C. Istrati and chemist Eni Baci confirm the therapeutic qualities of the existing water in the village. Thus, the entrepreneurial spirit of the locals is revealed, they form a collective society in order to make the improvised balneological facilities necessary for the exploitation. So in 1945 they start to build a modern treatment base to utilize the potential of the therapeutical water. The unfavorable political climate leads to stopping the development of the resort and the ruin of the treatment base still under construction.
The project aims to regenerate the former spa resort "Gighera Mineral Baths". The intervention is intended to be an experimental pilot type that demonstrates the need for extensive further development. Architecture must collaborate with the ruin, the symbol of the grandiose past, to take account of its evolution and to produce a result that meets the current requirements.