Multifunctional Municipal Centre in Câmpina

Authors’ Comment

The site is represented by the central marketplace - the main old commercial nucleus of Câmpina, a hillside town located in the county of Prahova. By replacing some of the commercial features, the proposal links to the existing markethall and reshapes the central space of the city.

The Multifunctional Municipal Centre assmebles together numerous public facilities in the core of the town, solving thus a socio-cultural gap in a city that has lost its nucleus in the last 50 years due to various urban changes. Right now, the centre is suffocated by a plenitude of commercial facilities and parking lots.

Urbanism-wise, the building solves a confused (although central) area of the city and organizes the public space in different areas with different characters: from public and active to intimate and semi-private.

A reccurent theme of the project is the multifunctionality: being located in the heart of the city, the building must offer as many uses as possible. Therefore, the spaces, both inside and outside, offer a large spectrum of alternatives – by themselves only, or in combination with the other facilities.

The proposal’s main feature is the emphasis on the local citizen. Therefore, the building reunites cultural facilities such as the local library, the Town Museum, which reunites pencil drawings of Nicolae Grigorescu with exhibits of local artists. Besides these, the proposal also offers a conference hall, workshop rooms and municipaltiy offices, such as the Archive, Citizen Information Centre and Social Assistence. The higher scope of the project is to reinforce the urban culture and citizenship, to nourish the sense of community and to build local social capital.