Palimpsest. The Recovery of Tangible and Intangible Heritage in the Historical Center of Mangalia. Center of Cultural and Interethnic Plurality

Authors’ Comment

The Context: The project proposes the recovery of the material and immaterial heritage of Mangalia, a Black Sea settlement marked by a millennia-long and stratified history. The intervention focuses on the urban island of the Esmahan Sultan Mosque (1573), the city's last medieval vestige. Currently, the site suffers from parasitic 20th-century interventions that have isolated and deeply fragmented the collective memory of the place. The primary challenge of this diploma project was to establish a method for inserting contemporary architecture into a highly sensitive heritage context.

The Concept: Responding to these vulnerabilities, the project acts as a nucleus of urban cohesion, operating simultaneously on both macro and micro scales to heal this fractured fabric. Conceptually, the proposal adopts and reinterprets the spatial logic of the traditional Ottoman külliye. The historical hierarchy between served and servant spaces is translated into a contemporary functional distribution, designed to mediate between the physical preservation of the monument and dynamic public life.

The Urban Scale: At the macro level, the project extracts the monument from its isolation through a strategy of reintegration into the municipal network. The masterplan proposes a continuous pedestrian axis that links the city's three existing green spaces. This corridor re-establishes a vital public connection between the urban core and the seafront, transforming the historical ensemble from a disconnected enclave into a node of transit and civic engagement.

The Site Scale: At the plot level, the objective is to consolidate historically divided properties. The intervention removes incompatible additions and merges three parcels to re-establish the historical footprint. The new cultural ensemble homogeneously integrates the surviving medieval heritage (the mosque, the historic cemetery, the imam's house, and a Roman sarcophagus) alongside an abandoned modernist building, recovered and integrated into the complex as pilgrim accommodation.

The Architecture: The new Centre of Cultural and Interethnic Plurality is organized in a centralized geometry. Civic functions (library, museum, imaret) are arranged in concentric rings around a sunken spiritual core and a madrasa strictly oriented towards the Qibla. This configuration generates a dual orientation for the project: the architecture converges inwardly toward the inner public courtyard, while remaining extroverted and permeable in its relationship with the streetscape.

Aesthetically, the insertion is deliberately homogeneous, acting as a respectful frame for the existing monument. The formal and material vocabulary is influenced by regional vernacular architecture: neutral plasters, stone bases mirroring the mosque's perimeter, and functional wooden screens, a reinterpretation of the coastal mashrabiya, used for thermal control and light filtration.

Through this approach, the proposal harmonizes the historical identity of the place with contemporary urban necessities, generating a living ensemble that supports intercultural dialogue, education, and community solidarity.