Re.form - Center for Minor Movable Heritage

Authors’ Comment

The project proposes the conversion of a building within the former Bragadiru Brewery into a center dedicated to the restoration, exhibition, and commercial circulation of minor movable heritage objects. These include art and design objects that, although they do not fall within the category of monuments or major works of art, retain historical, cultural, social, and identity value. In an urban context where much of the built heritage has been lost, these objects become witnesses to histories and everyday experiences that risk being forgotten.
At a conceptual level, the center is conceived as a portal of interaction between visitors, objects, and the restoration process. The museum route allows objects to be discovered gradually, from their fragile state and the interventions required for their recovery to their reintegration into contemporary life.
The functional organization makes use of the existing structure. The western wing houses the museum, with its four exhibition galleries and circulation through the museum silo, while the eastern wing accommodates the restoration center, with storage, reception and assessment spaces, offices, and laboratories. These are complemented by public, commercial, and hybrid functions. Externally, three extensions are generated by adapting, multiplying, and rotating the module of the main hall in relation to Calea Rahovei, defining the entrance to the museum, the commercial space, and the upper volume dedicated to events and auctions.
Inside, the architectural language is built around oblique elements that organize the space and create a sense of apparent instability. This becomes a spatial translation of the fragility of the objects and the memories they preserve. The materiality used throughout the project is introduced in the museum reception, preserving traces of the passage of time and valuing exposed brick and deteriorated surfaces as elements of the building’s identity. These are contrasted with contemporary additions in concrete, metal, and oxidized copper. Left untreated, the copper gradually develops its own patina, accumulating traces of use and the passage of time. In this way, the material becomes a carrier of the space’s memory, while the building continues to build its value through the experiences and traces left by those who use it.
The four galleries are defined by pairs of oblique, adaptable walls made of a metal structure and aluminum cladding, with interchangeable elements for different types of exhibitions. The intervention remains discreet, allowing the existing atmosphere and the exhibited objects to remain the primary elements of the space. In the gallery with the lowest ceiling, a mezzanine makes the volume feel lighter. Portals connecting to the restoration laboratories allow visitors to observe the working process, exposing both the objects and the process through which they are recovered. The three laboratories are flexible spaces; two are reserved for specialists, while the third is accessible to the public.
The museum silo becomes the project’s main spatial accent. Its verticality contrasts with the low, predominantly horizontal galleries. An oblique concrete wall crosses the volume and transforms this difference into a deliberate sequence of spaces: from the height of the silo, through a space compressed along two directions, towards the expansive horizontality of the galleries. A metal staircase clad in oxidized copper develops along the wall, its geometry reinforcing the sense of instability. The silo thus becomes both a circulation and exhibition space, in which architecture actively contributes to the construction of the museum experience. On the upper level, the café is organized around an opening cut into the existing floor slab, shaped as the portal, which restores the verticality of the silo and reconnects the space with the original circular skylight.
The second silo becomes a “silo-archive”, where the storage of objects becomes part of the museum route. The objects are organized according to their stage of restoration, from fragile and unrestored pieces to recovered ones, located on the upper levels. Visitors move through the volume using a panoramic lift and observe both the objects and the activity of the staff. The downward route thus proposes a “disassembling” of the restoration process, from the recovered object back to its initial fragile state.
Ultimately, Re.form proposes more than a museum or a restoration center. It is a place dedicated to small histories, ordinary objects, and the traces of lives that risk being overlooked. Through restoration, exhibition, and reintegration, the project seeks to preserve not only the objects themselves, but also the stories connected to them. The portal thus becomes the central image of the project: a passage between city and museum, between object and story, between degradation and the possibility of recovering memory.