HUMAN SCALE

Vlad Nancă & Muromuro Studio (Ioana Chifu, Onar Stănescu)
Curator Cosmina Goagea | Commissioner Attila Kim

Human Scale, an exhibition and research project by artist Vlad Nancă and architecture duo Muromuro Studio, curated by Cosmina Goagea, represents Romania at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Human Scale unfolds across the Romanian Pavilion in the Giardini della Biennale and the New Gallery of the Romanian Institute of Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice, inviting reflection on the intersection of visual arts and architecture, through a dialogue between drawings by 20th century Romanian architects and the work of contemporary artist Vlad Nancă.

Since 2017, artist Vlad Nancă has developed a body of work at the intersection of sculpture and drawing, inspired by scale figures used in architecture. Starting with anonymous illustrations found in flea markets and sketch pads from the 1970s–80s, he enlarged them to life size, creating delicate sculptures from metal rods. This gesture of “liberating” figures from the page recurs throughout Human Scale as a symbolic reactivation of the human presence in architecture​

ROMANIAN PAVILION

Giardini della Biennale
Sestiere Castello, 30122 Venice

Human Scale explores the vital, emotional and symbolic functions of architecture. In the Romanian Pavilion, the central, immersive installation is defined by massive translucent sheets that fill the space, and reverse the focus: architecture disappears, and human interaction comes to the forefront. A selection of chronologically arranged drawings on display reconstructs a condensed social history of architecture imagined or built in Romania throughout the 20th century, marking critical moments, ideologies, schools of thought and controversies. 

The architectural drawings on display offer an array of historical inflexion points, from interwar modernist optimism (Horia Creangă, Haralamb Georgescu, Henrieta Delavrancea) and its postwar adaptation to the new socialist regime (Octav Doicescu, Horia Maicu, Tiberiu Niga), to subtle architectural resistance against the totalitarianism of the 1980s (Mariana Celac, Vasile Mitrea) and Romania’s reconnection with the global community following its anti-communist revolution of 1989 (Ioan Andreescu, Vlad Gaivoronschi, Ștefan Davidovici). The exhibition revalues architectural hand drawing not only as a creative method but as a form of historical, social and conceptual intelligence and memory, capturing the aspirations, ideals and conflicts of its time, in the architecture imagined or built in Romania throughout the 20th century.

The scope widens through a selection of maps from the 16th to 18th century, where human presence is rendered allegorically. These maps turn drawing into a rhetorical tool, used to project political and social power. In one 1737 map of the three main regions that make up today’s Romania and Moldova, a female figure symbolises the fertile soil of Wallachia; two dwarves represent Transylvania’s underground wealth; and Diana, goddess of the hunt and moon, poetically anchors Moldova in the East. Urban representations—based on architects’ drawings—carry symbolic messages about diplomacy, commerce and cultural identity. A 1686 mathematics treatise, for instance, juxtaposes abstract geometry with mapped cities in today’s Romania, like Timișoara and Satu Mare, linking physical space with conceptual constructs. A cartographic game—a popular pastime at European royal courts—from 1670, with Venice at its centre and as the game’s endpoint, asserts the imperial power of the Venetian nobility. Its educational purpose was to teach players about the size and administrative structures of various regions—including the Romanian principalities—as well as facts about different peoples and parts of the world.

NEW GALLERY OF THE ROMANIAN INSTITUTE FOR CULTURE AND HUMANISTIC RESEARCH IN VENICE

Campo Santa Fosca, Palazzo Correr,
Cannaregio 2214, 30121 Venice

At its core, Human Scale recovers the emotional dimension and the essential relationship between architecture, nature and the life forms inhabiting it. Consciously distancing itself from standardised representations of digital design, it draws attention to architects’ hand drawings—spaces where fragments of life, utopian ideas and collective aspirations can be rediscovered and explored.

The New Gallery of the Romanian Institute for Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice (RICHR) expands this exploration through the display of an extensive archive of hand drawings – old and new, signed by local star architects or anonymous students. The layout encourages engagement: a central study table sits between two pillars housing an archive and a decade-by-decade exhibition. Ten enclosed metal frames, hinged around a central pillar, present key works in chronological order. A circular library area offers over 300 reproduced drawings in custom folders—which visitors can explore.

The research within the Human Scale project introduces an intuition born from a different type of sensitivity and subtlety—an emotional, empathetic and imaginative intelligence— which opens up new spatial narratives through the recontextualisation of human figures from architectural drawings. This gesture allows us to question their meaning and, consequently, the intentions and promises with which they were originally imbued. Collectively, these elements can expand the boundaries of architectural knowledge and culture, providing criteria for decision-making in the design practice shaping the city of tomorrow.

A SHIFT OF PERSPECTIVE

Architecture is never neutral—it can harm or heal. It shapes social life, use of resources and urban futures. In response to the question How should we approach architecture in the 21st century? we are invited to focus on the most sustainable construction—the one already built—and ask how it serves human life today. In particular, we examine 20th-century Modernist architecture, which now requires regeneration. By returning to the original drawings and focusing on the human silhouettes they depict, we uncover how these spaces were meant to serve life – and how they might still do so today.

Examining this architecture through the lens of human figures found in the original drawings of 20th-century architects, allows us to critically question the complex relationships between architecture and its context, exploring what architecture gives back to the city, how it cultivates or undermines urbanity, and to what extent it creates quality public space. Viewing architecture from a human perspective, we better understand spatial politics, power dynamics in public spaces, universal accessibility, and how various rights are respected, such as the right to a city accessible to all, heritage and culture, among others.
The project leverages utopia to critically question contemporary tendencies in architecture and urbanism, highlighting the risk of losing a direct, human and equitable relationship with built space and its surrounding natural environment.