Coronation Festivitie

Authors’ Comment

On the 15th of October, 1922, in Alba-Iulia, the symbolic birth of Greater Romania was consecrated by the coronation of King Ferdinand and Queen Maria. The ceremonies held in the heart of Transylvania, along with the celebrations organized in Bucharest, marked the fulfillment of the "dream of ages, the golden dream", that of uniting all Romanians under one crown.

The Coronation celebrations were seen as a way to celebrate Romania's triumph and the fulfillment of the national ideal of reunification, after the suffering and despair of the war years. The lavish Coronation ceremony was completed by popular celebrations organized in Alba-Iulia and Bucharest, with hundreds of thousands of participants. The print media, photography and cinematography carried the news of the Coronation and the sense of national pride to millions of people, both in the country and abroad.

The exhibition organized on the 100th anniversary of the Coronation of the Kings of Great Romania brings back to the public's attention an unique moment in the history of our country, a link between the past, present and future.

The exhibition project began with the way the 3 days of celebrations were held. For each of the 3 days, there is a set of representative images that have been enlarged to very large sizes (170x120 cm) and colored.
Using contemporary digital photography technologies and through a documentary process carried out by historians and designers, the colors in the photographs could be reconstructed with a high degree of precision. The clothing details that were described in the queen's memoirs, as well as the color lithographs of the era, were the basis of this contemporary transposition.

Apart from the large color photographs, each of the 3 days was captured in a multimedia installation. Three 3d printed models of each significant place of each day were made: the Coronation Cathedral in Alba Iulia, the Arch de Triumph and the Roman Arenas in Bucharest. The light projections pass through the models and overlap with an animation that suggests an anecdotal aspect of each day. At Alba Iulia there were 20 planes in the sky, at the Triumphal Arch in Bucharest it rained torrentially all day, at the Roman Arena those present paid tribute to the royal presence with a shower of flowers.