Piața Sfatului Brașov

Within the density of the urban tissue, the main square of Brașov offers a moment of uniqueness in its context. The market thus becomes a symbol, and regardless of its instances, the Council Square never loses this primary function. The public void makes room for intimate urban dwelling around it, and sometimes also creates a frantic context within. It is this particular quality that needs to be attended to and treated with a plausible response.

With the image it has today, covered in its postmodernist layer, the market is merged with the richness of image and of flavor that lives around it: the neverending series of advertisements covering the old facades, the restlessness of the passer-bys, the roar of the fountain during the summer, the cloud of chatter covering the terraces of the nearby restaurants, or the rumble of the cars up and down Mureșenilor street: a full series of sensorial images that do not quite allow the space of the market to breathe freely.

The proposal has taken on the responsibility to formulate a concept that will bring this space closer to the richness of its historical traits, through recovering its medieval geometry, and mostly to obtain a sensorial equivalent to its void quality, in the form of temporary silence, surrounded by contemporary buzz.

The void of the square lives independently through its dimensions and importance, with a precise connection to the many public events it has hosted in the past. Freeing the space thus becomes the main idea, in an attempt to make room and sufficiently define a limit of the Marktplatz, in a formula that will allow for contemplating the past. Once the main space has been recreated, the intersection with the streets that govern the path of the pedestrian increases in importance - they become fully-fledged spaces. The individual treatment of each intersection brings the spatiality of the adjacent streets back into the consciousness of the pedestrian, until he reaches the nucleus of the square and is free to look back and reflect on the route. It is important that there is a mineral link between the Council Square and the courtyard of the Black Church. For this to be possible, the quietness of the Honterus garden need to find an equivalent inside the space of the Main square, to facilitate a natural transition.