Mona Vǎtǎmanu & Florin Tudor - 'Omnia Communia Deserta'

Over the last two decades, Mona Vǎtǎmanu and Florin Tudor have developed a collaborative, research-based practice that looks into the material and formal manifestations of ideological change. Tracing the symbolic remains of power structures in the urban landscape and architecture, the duo critically engages with issues surrounding individual and collective memory in postcommunist society. The exhibition at La Loge will present Vǎtǎmanu & Tudor’s research on the Omnia Hall set to become the home of the National Center of Dance in Bucharest after its restoration and refurbishment. Designed in 1967 by the architect Cezar Lăzărescu as part of the headquarters of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party, Omnia Hall was mainly used as a location for party rallies. A brutalist building with an interior of wooden decorative elements referencing archaic principles and folkloristic elements, its socialist modernist architectural setting and its function as a political arena served the nationalist rhetoric and ideological agenda of Ceaușescu’s regime. With the extensive renovation plans, the meticulously staged interior of Omnia hall, its ornaments and sculptural elements, will be dismantled, obliterating the building’s former symbolic function and its uncomfortable historical legacy.