As above, so below

Authors’ Comment

The project As above, so below is a winning project part of the architectural competition "Iașul își deschide curțile" organized by OAR Iași, within the event Romanian Creative Week, held in May 2023.
The project is located in the courtyard of the University Palace in Iași - an architectural landmark building since 1897 and an important space of memory. This is the building where the first modern university of Romania was established, and today it includes 15 faculties and numerous research centers and is located in one of the historical districts of the city – Copou. It also houses the Sala Pașilor Pierduți which contains 19 murals made by the painter Sabin Bălașa, imagined as a representation of Romanian spirituality.
The two courtyards, outlined like two theater curtains, delimiting the Aula Magna "Carmen Sylva" become the framework for the development of the As above, so below project. It aims to draw attention to the built heritage of the city of Iasi, potentiating the spatial duality, the conceptual metaphors given by the history of the place and the story of Sabin Bălașa's paintings.
Duality is itself the defining word for the two courtyards that mirror each other and are connected by a pedestrian passage that becomes a metaphor for unification. Like the title As above, so below, and Sabin Bălașa's paintings, the project illustrates the connection between the terrestrial plane and the astral plane through the textile material. Also, the duality between the microcosmos – the individual and the macrocosmos – society. "Which is below is like which is above and which is above is like which is below" which means that whatever happens on earth is reflected in the astral plane. The "top" part could refer to nature and the cosmos, the "bottom" part could refer to what goes on inside us as human beings and creatures. Also, the microcosmos can act as a miniature version of the outside world, the macrocosmos. Whatever happens in one component is bound to affect the other.
So, the visual representation is provided by a textile scarf that metaphorically starts from the astral plane - the second floor of the Universal Palace, reaches the horizontal terrestrial plane, climbs to the pavilion located at the moment of unification between the two courtyards and is mirrored in the same way in the other yard. Thus a visible connection of the bodies of the University buildings is created, as it is also manifested in the physical plane of knowledge.