Deeper than Density

Laura Viscovich, the Foundation's Executive Director, opened the evening by setting the stakes plainly: the aim of the event series, she said, is "how we can accelerate building better cities for the future, starting here in Bucharest."

The conversation was moderated by architect Ștefan Ghenciulescu, editor-in-chief of the architecture magazine Zeppelin. Alongside him sat urban economist Marina Batog, co-founder of the consultancy MKBT; architect Esenghiul Abdul, a partner at the leading Romanian practice ADN BA; Geo Margescu, CEO of the developer Forte Partners; and Stefan Zghibarcea, a technical specification manager at Holcim Romania.

The panel kicked off with a simple premise: the city's future should be dense. Ghenciulescu located the real threat elsewhere. "Sprawl is one of the biggest disasters of our era," he said, describing a continent running short of land to build on and live upon. "The very normal dream of having a house in the suburbs is becoming a nightmare." Density, in his framing, is the city's most promising path — "something wonderful," he said, "that needs to be discussed very thoroughly."

Abdul urged the room to hold its vocabulary lightly when talking about building a better built environment. "We have to be very careful how we use all these buzzwords," she said — "density," "green," "smart cities." "The danger is looking for simple responses to problems that are, in reality, very complex." Good density, in her account, begins with close attention to a specific place: its community anchors, its existing structures, the people already there. "It's a difficult balance — to understand each area by itself and see what is actually needed there." She noted that Bucharest's center has been thinning as development pressure pushes new buildings outward, and she argued for bringing more life back to the core.

When the floor opened to questions from the audience, the discussion turned to how projects are judged. Abdul pointed to cities such as London, where an independent panel weighs major schemes on their design merits. A body like that, she suggested, would let Bucharest weigh the spirit of an urban infrastructure project — the benefit it brings to the city — by providing regulations and rewarding schemes that give something back.

From the developer's side, Margescu made the commercial case for building well in the city. Quality rewards the people who invest in it, he argued: "Good quality projects are paying off." He described Romania's property market maturing past its rough early post-Soviet years, with more firms now delivering buildings worth keeping and the old image of the developer-as-shark losing ground. His one request of the public sector — city hall and the state alike — was clarity. "Strong rules will bring good quality buildings," he said, advocating for consistent standards that let good developers and good architecture come together.

The argument for doing density well came to life through the story of the theater itself. Tiberiu Mercurian, who steered Grivița 53 through the cultural association behind it, traced its origin to 2016 and "a dream, a dream of a theatre." Two people with no background in architecture set out to make a public stage from a derelict urban house in a protected quarter, and spent years turning, in his words, an "it's not possible" dream into a "let's find a solution" reality. "Urban development is about negotiation," he said. After more than 14,000 supporters got behind its development, the theater opened in 2025. "Grivița 53 is a success of the community."

That, in the end, was the evening's case for good density: a tired city block reinvigorated with new use and a supportive public. As CityMakers Live prepares to carry the conversation onward to other destinations, the theater provides proof that a city's future can be built from what it already has.