Romanian Film Museum: Conversion of Palatul Eforiilor Civile, Cinema Corso and Cinemateca Eforie into a Museum Complex

Authors’ Comment

The Romanian Film Museum draws on the cinematic memory of Regina Elisabeta Boulevard, known during the interwar period as the “Film Boulevard,” and on the need to reactivate an urban fragment in which cinema played an important role. The project proposes the integration of the Eforiilor Civile Palace, Cinema Corso, and Eforie Cinematheque into a museum complex dedicated to Romanian film, through an intervention that builds upon the existing built fabric and establishes new spatial relationships between the three buildings.
The project concept is based on cinematic montage, understood not as an image or form associated with film, but as a principle for bringing distinct fragments into relation. The three buildings retain their architectural identities, while the contemporary interventions create connections between them and allow them to function as parts of the same complex. The museum route thus becomes the means through which the existing and the new are brought into relation and organized into a coherent structure.
The museum does not seek to represent cinema through recognizable forms or imagery, but to draw on the way in which it constructs experiences. Just as a film acquires meaning through the relationship between frames, the complex gains coherence through the relationship between buildings, spaces, and sequences. The three buildings become fragments, the courtyards become pauses, the new volumes become transitions, and the succession of spaces establishes the unity of the complex.
The route begins in the Eforiilor Civile Palace and continues through reception, exhibition, and social spaces towards Cinema Corso and Eforie Cinematheque. Two contemporary volumes establish the connections between the buildings and organize the relationship between the interior spaces and the existing courtyards. These are reclaimed as public spaces and as moments of transition within the museum route.
The spatial experience is shaped through sequence, rhythm, light, perspective, and changes in atmosphere. Exhibition spaces, courtyards, foyers, and connecting volumes alternate between moments of concentration and openness, while differences in scale, light, and materiality contribute to the distinct character of each sequence.
The contemporary interventions introduce a new layer, clearly differentiated from the historic fabric yet integrated into the structure of the complex. The new insertions connect the existing buildings and organize the relationship between them through the museum route. The difference between the existing and the new thus becomes a means of making the different layers of the complex legible and of articulating the ensemble.
The cinematic principle is translated into the spatial organization through the succession of frames, the alternation between spaces, and the relationship between the different sequences of the route. The existing buildings are treated as fragments, the courtyards as moments of pause, and the new interventions as elements of connection and transition. Through the relationship between these elements, the project creates a coherent museum experience in which the relationship between the buildings becomes an essential part of the architecture.