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Balchik First contact

My very first contact with the city, not a physical,

but a cognitive one, as I believe everbody else

had, was the reknown brand of Balchik as a

tourist attraction.

This is their main activity, as some locals were

kind to share: it seems that Balchik's people

mostly work in tourism and services or

agriculture, so the jobs are almost seasonal.

Thus the lack of industry explains the financial

issues of the city and the locals and therefor the

poor condition of the houses and lifestyle.

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Layers

Balchik's fabric is composed of basic elements:

the Black Sea, the stone, vegetation and

buildings, the human element.

Thus there is a layered perception of the space:

the sea as a horizon

the stone as a background and also as a

bonding material for built fabric and nature

the vegetion that acts as a filter in the

whole image

the silhouettes of the buildings with

accurate lines and bright coloured roofs

and plaster.

The landscape is therefore an extravagant but

tectonic blend of textures.

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The elements that weave the fabric of Balchik

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Hidden urban terraces

Though my first impression consisted in a lackof flat surfaces, walking through the townsuprised me with a lot of beautiful unique buthidden public spaces.

Considering the fact that Balchik is a Balkanictown, its urban growth resembles a ruralenvironment, using additions of lots in everybuildable terrain over time.

The vernacular houses, mostly isolated on thelots, have their own personal space, allotmentsfor vegetables or garden terraces.

This image now offers a unique atmosphere in

the old city : it seems that some of theallotments have evolved in time into urbangardens and public spaces, mostly hidden andwaiting to be discovered and improved.

These urban terraces are not very accesible,but they're stop-points in the natural flow of linksand connections to the seaside. Each of themprovide a unique vista, using Balchikselementary layers: the Black Sea, stone, nature,

and the human-touch built element, with redroofs and sharp horizontal cornishes.

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City links - the streets

My second observation is about the mobility in

the old city: there are two, very different kind of

links.

The first one, the street, is mostly used by carsand tourists that don't know the way to

shortcircuit the distances.

These streets are almost parallel with the

seashore and form the organic spine of the

circulation network.

While walking through, their visual impact is a

very dinamic one, due to the urban like street

fronts that flow organicly following the streetline.

The visual perception of this type of space is

much more faster that the pshysical one, so the

whole old city street landscape is a gathering of

perspectives and details.

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The stairs

The other links, the more intimate ones, are the

stairs. They mark the natural flow from the new

city to the shore, a pedestrian stone way from

uphill to the sea.

These stairways connect the urban gardens,each of them is a hidden public space that is

discovered from the stone slope and that opens

new perspectives of journeys.

Each path is unique, narrow and enlarged

occasionally, crossing public and private and

concentrating the emotion on the landscape it

offers.

The seaview is occasionally blocked by stone or

green walls of vegetation, but its always

sustained by the fabric formed below from the

red roof-tops.

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Irina Bogdan

UAUIM Bucharest