Happening this weekend: Shared Spaces at Street Delivery Bucharest 2023

Street Delivery Bucharest will take place during the weekend of September 15-17, and returns after the pandemic period on Pictor Arthur Verona Street. At the 18th edition, discussions will focus on restoring the role of the street as a public space and transitioning from a festival to a public policy.

One of the highlights of the event is the crossing of Magheru Boulevard, which will be resumed on the traces of the pedestrian crossings demolished in the ’70s. The organizers announce that on Saturday night, for 15 minutes, between 10:00 PM and 10:15 PM, the crossing of Magheru Boulevard will be resumed on the imprints of the pedestrian crossings demolished in the 1970s – a symbolic crossing, a reconnection of the fragments of Arthur Verona Street. The crossing will be controlled, timed, and under the guidance of the police from the Traffic Brigade. Participants in the crossing will be required to wear reflective vests and move in groups, accompanied by volunteers.

Street Delivery 2023 – Shared Spaces

The theme of this edition is Shared Spaces. For three days, public space will be returned to pedestrians, children, cyclists, and all those who want to live in the city, not just pass through it. Thus, Arthur Verona Street will become a livable model.

“In 17 years of recurrence, the Street Delivery festival and Arthur Verona Street have been joined by various other similar events – Armeneasca Street (2014-2019), Block Party on I.L. Caragiale Street (2018, 2019), Women on Mătăsari Street, Men on Mătăsari Street, Via Sport, Urban Promenade on Calea Victoriei (2018 – 2019), Open Streets (2020 – 2023). However, temporary pedestrianization is, legislatively speaking, classified as an event/festival and not seen as an instrument of urban planning or urban policy for managing public space. We invited professionals from the field, public administration, civil society, and investors to public debates within Street Delivery because it is necessary to discuss together, in the open and democratic space of the street, how we govern our city for the common good: How much does the disappearance of the city cost us? and How much does our heritage cost us?” said Maria Duda, architect at BAZA. We open the city, curator of Street Delivery 2023.

The first debate on “How much does the disappearance of the city cost us?” will be held on Friday and will address the issue of raising awareness of the cost of disappearances in public space, green spaces, pedestrian areas, urban plinths, and built landmarks.

On the second day of the festival, the organizers emphasize “How much does our heritage cost us?” – the balance between the common costs of losing heritage through destruction, abandonment, wrongly implemented good intentions, risk ignorance, and the individual costs of maintaining, conserving, restoring, and repurposing historical and heritage buildings.

Street Delivery Program

Among the festival elements that we are accustomed to on the street, we have selected 10 ideas from the project call that illustrate social, cultural, architectural, urbanistic, ecological, or identity aspects of the street space:

Colivia – the experimental installation of the Legal Resource Center
“No man’s land in the heart of the city” – a project by the Civic Initiative Group Icoanei-Ioanid
Reclaiming the street through collective art – installation by Alternative Bucharest & Săfiţicuminţi
Civic Design Lab: Our City, Our Solutions – workshop designed by Marinela Raţă – Panaite
Neighbors with wings. Discover the wild birds of Bucharest – a project proposed by the Romanian Ornithological Society
Plastic Comics Cube – a street art project proposed by artists Maria Bălan & Robert Obert
Transparency in Images: Gallery of Requests and Responses in Access to Public Information – proposed by the Corruption Kills Association
Everything for endorphins. Pop-up movement and contemporary dance workshops – supported by the National Dance Center Bucharest
Reading and creativity workshops for children supported by the Dandelion Workshop
Harmony of nature: connecting with nature in the urban tumult – installation proposed by artist Andr0meda / Andra Bularca

Among the invited projects are the “Performative Walks” laboratories of Developing Art and “Street Delivery in Motion” supported by Areal | space for choreographic development, which address the intersection between the body and the city through contemporary dance, as well as discussions about the built heritage – about the seismic vulnerability of spaces and buildings in Bucharest with the Re:Rise team and about alert tools against aggressive interventions in Bucharest’s heritage within the 112 Heritage platform (a tool developed by the Working Group of the Bucharest Order of Architects). These are accompanied by exhibitions “Memorialul lui Ursu” at ARO Block (Re:Rise) and “Good Practices Exhibition – reliefs and associated historical studies” at the Mincu House (112 Heritage).

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