In 1964, the communist governments of Romania and
Yugoslavia decided to build a large dam and hydroelectric power station on the Danube. In order to do that, they demanded the displacement of a small Turkish community situated in a remarkable geographic context - Ada Kaleh.

Ada Kaleh was a fortified island on the Danube, with a long history of continuous occupation. It was described as a lush common garden where people lived in harmony. In 1970, after brutal demolitions and shy intentions of the academia to partially preserve some elements, it vanished under a thick cover of water.

Today, Ada Kaleh is an image and a model, at the same time. 

The project strives to reevaluate it as a cultural landscape and argues for its relevance in relation to the sustainable practices that we are fighting to develop today.

Just a part of a much larger research project, the spatial proposals are tied together in a series of enclosed gardens that follow the traces of important artifacts displaced from the island and act as containers of memories. Their limits mediate between two different spaces and timeframes - the evocative space and time of the island and the real space and time where each artifact sits today.

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Academic project, 2018

Silvia Diaconu

Studio "Objects as grounds", fall semester, AHO

Luis Callejas (LCLA Office), Janike Kampevold Larsen, Tuva Maire Øvsthus

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Nominated for RIBA Part 2 President's Medals 2019

http://www.presidentsmedals.com/Entry-48181

Nomination in BETA City Competition, Timisoara, 2020

https://competition.betacity.eu/en/proiecte/gradinile-fermecate-de-pe-ada-kaleh/

Selected for publishing at the Bucharest Architecture Annual, 2020

https://www.anuala.ro/en/projects/2020/390/

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The completion of this work could not have been possible without the help and support of Engur & Mioara Ahmet, Mahinur Hairi Apostol, (Ada Kaleh - A Spot of Paradise), INP Bucuresti, State Archives Turnu Severin, who provided me not only with an incredible amount of photographs but also with other valuable information and inspiring dialogues.

I am sincerely grateful for all of that.

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