An Evening in the Heart of Mântuleasa
There are neighborhoods in Bucharest where, if you walk attentively, you feel the city breathing differently. Mântuleasa is one of them. An area where the quiet of streets paved with stories intertwines with the beauty of houses built at the beginning of the 20th century. Facades with Neo-Romanian details, elegant Art Nouveau lines, or modernist accents speak of a Bucharest that once knew refinement and diversity.
The streets Popa Soare, Sfântul Ștefan, Plantelor, and even Mântuleasa itself carry a special atmosphere that evokes interwar life. The Mântuleasa Church watches over the neighborhood, while the literary memory of Mircea Eliade, through his novella On Mântuleasa Street, adds a layer of mystery and nostalgia.
20 SEPTEMBER
For one evening only, the houses of Mântuleasa will open their doors. Some of them have never before been visited by the public, but now they become living spaces, animated by art and technology. The atmosphere of the early 20th century will be recreated through:
-
Video projections and digital animations – visual stories about dwelling and daily life in Mântuleasa, transforming walls into screens of memory.
-
Guided tours – historical explorations of streets and houses, with a route revealing neighborly ties and urban transformations. A special tour will also be available for children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
-
Exhibitions and installations – artistic creations inspired by the idea of community and coexistence, bringing past and present into dialogue.
-
Educational and creative workshops – for children and youth, a way to discover architecture and the role of community in urban life.
-
Antiques fair and culinary experiences – period objects, material stories, and flavors from the past complete the neighborhood’s atmosphere.
Why Mântuleasa?
Mântuleasa is a symbolic neighborhood: fragile, caught between preservation and the pressure of urban development. Here one can still feel the pulse of old Bucharest. By choosing this area, Urban Explorers aims to draw public attention not only to its architectural beauty but also to the ways in which dwelling, neighborhood, and community shape a city’s identity.
Urban Explorers
Urban Explorers – Night Session is more than just an evening dedicated to heritage houses. It is an exercise in reconnecting with the city and its memory. In a Bucharest that is changing rapidly, where old buildings are often invisible, abandoned, or transformed without respect for history, Urban Explorers creates a framework where people can rediscover the value of built heritage.
Each edition of the event highlights a different part of the city, presenting houses that are most often not open to the public. They are not only beautiful buildings but also witnesses of eras, family stories, and the ways in which Bucharest has developed and built its identity. Through artistic, educational, and interactive activities – from video projections and digital installations to guided tours, workshops, or historical culinary experiences – these houses come to life and reveal their histories.
The concept rests on two essential directions:
-
Accessibility and openness – inaccessible houses become, for one evening, living spaces, offered to the community.
-
Interaction and personal experience – the public does not simply visit but lives heritage. Each edition brings new ways for people to identify with places, turning the experience into an emotional bond with the city.
A city truly becomes yours only when you know it and live it personally. When you step into an old house and feel its atmosphere, it ceases to be just a building and becomes part of your identity. This is the aim of Urban Explorers: to transform heritage into a shared legacy that residents reclaim and cherish.
Over time, successive editions build a cultural and emotional map of Bucharest. They create a tradition through which heritage is no longer perceived as a relic of the past but as a living resource, an integral part of today’s urban life. Urban Explorers thus becomes an annual invitation to see the city differently, to reclaim it, and to collectively create an authentic and lasting cultural identity.
Urban Explorers – Night Session, 2nd Edition takes place on 20 September 2025 in the Mântuleasa area.
PLAN4 will be open for visits between 18:00–23:00.
A project implemented by Youth Vision for Society Association, together with Revista Arhitectura and the Union of Architects of Romania.
Event supported by: OAR Bucharest, ARCUB through the “Open Streets” program, Bucureștiul Povestit, Asociația Istoria Povestită, Pro Patrimonio, Grădina Mântuleasa, the Association of Mincu Students, and Revista Crochiu.
Project co-financed by Sector 2 City Hall.