01 — Project
Deschidem Mântuleasa is a multi-year project focused on urban exploration, interdisciplinary education, culture and community engagement, initiated by Youth Vision for Society.
We begin in Mântuleasa — a neighbourhood with rich historical, architectural, social and cultural layers — and use it as a field of research through which to better understand the city.
We are interested in buildings, but also in the people who live in them. In heritage, but also in everyday life. In streets, courtyards, vegetation, memory, details, sounds, the way we use public space and the way the city changes.
Mântuleasa thus becomes a small-scale urban laboratory: a place where we can observe relationships and processes that, in different forms, can be found throughout Bucharest.
Because we want to look at the city from as many perspectives as possible.
We are not creating a traditional, static, exclusively academic monograph. Over time, we are building a living monograph: participatory, interdisciplinary and open.
A monograph that can be written through texts, but also through photographs, maps, interviews, routes, field research, installations, stories, archives, observations, drawings, sounds or ideas for the city.
Each edition explores different questions and adds new materials, perspectives and interpretations.
Over time, they build an increasingly complex picture of the neighbourhood — and, through it, of the city.
Explore the monographThrough Mântuleasa LAB, students explore the neighbourhood together with mentors, specialists, artists and people from the local community. They observe, document, photograph, map, look for sources and ask questions.
The research does not remain in notebooks. Materials and observations are transformed into stories, maps, photographs, works, installations, projects, routes or other ways of interpreting the city.
Every year, the results are presented publicly as part of the Deschidem Mântuleasa event. The neighbourhood becomes not only the subject of research, but also the place where that research returns to the community and the wider public.
The results of each edition are collected in the project archive. Year after year, they build the neighbourhood's living monograph.
Deschidem Mântuleasa is not conceived as a one-off event.
It is a project built through successive editions.
Each year, we can look at the city through a different layer: heritage, memory, housing, urban nature, public space, details, sound, atmosphere or other themes that help us better understand how a neighbourhood works.
Some questions will return. Others will emerge along the way.
The monograph does not need to be “finished”. The accumulation of perspectives is the project itself.
In 2026, we open the first page of the project.
On 3–4 October, Plantelor Street becomes the setting for the first public edition of Deschidem Mântuleasa: two days of encounters, exhibitions, cultural interventions, urban exploration and community activities.
The pilot edition is developed together with One Night Gallery, the main partner of the 2026 edition, in the context of the RADAR în comunitate — Mântuleasa edition project.
Deschidem Mântuleasa is initiated and coordinated by Youth Vision for Society.
The programme partners are Revista Arhitectura and the Union of Architects of Romania, with whom we are developing the project's cultural, educational, professional and research dimensions over the long term.
With each edition, new organisations, spaces, professionals, local initiatives and members of the community can join the project.
02 — Event
With each edition, what has been observed, researched and created through Mântuleasa LAB is presented publicly in the place where it began: the neighbourhood itself.
The Deschidem Mântuleasa event is the public moment of the project.
It is neither a festival separate from Mântuleasa LAB nor simply a final presentation.
It is the stage in which research becomes accessible to the public, the results enter into dialogue with the places they came from, and participants, residents, specialists and visitors meet in the same space.
Depending on the theme and the outcomes of each edition, the event may bring into the neighbourhood:
The format is not identical every year.
It changes with the theme being explored and with what Mântuleasa LAB produces.
Starting in 2027, the event will be built around the outcomes of Mântuleasa LAB.
Students will work on an annual theme, research the neighbourhood and develop their own projects and interpretations.
Some outcomes may be exhibited. Others may become routes, installations, maps, publications, visual projects, interventions, archives or experiences created specifically for the urban space.
The event will be the moment when these outcomes leave the working process and become accessible to the public.
2026 is different.
It is the year in which we launch Deschidem Mântuleasa and test, at full scale, the relationship between the project, the neighbourhood, the community and the public event.
The first full edition of Mântuleasa LAB will begin in 2027.
The 2026 pilot edition, however, is developed together with One Night Gallery, the main partner of this edition, through RADAR în comunitate — Mântuleasa edition.
Together, we explore the relationship between the heritage of a historic neighbourhood and contemporary cultural interventions, and the ways in which art, urban research and community activities can create new ways of engaging with the city.
On 3–4 October, this first edition opens to the public on Plantelor Street.
03 — Deschidem Mântuleasa
3–4 October 2026
Plantelor Street, Bucharest
Two days in which we explore the neighbourhood through heritage, contemporary art, stories, children's activities, encounters and urban experiences.
General admission to the event is free.
Some activities require registration and may involve a participation fee. All details will be clearly stated in the registration section.
2026 is the year in which we launch Deschidem Mântuleasa.
It is a pilot edition: a first test of how the project can bring together urban exploration, heritage, contemporary art and community.
For two days, Plantelor Street and partner spaces in the area become meeting points for residents, visitors, children, professionals and people curious to see Mântuleasa differently.
We are not yet presenting the outcomes of a full Mântuleasa LAB edition — the first modular workshops will begin in 2027.
This year, we open the project, test the format and begin the conversation.
Over the two days, the pilot edition will include:
The full programme, with times and venues for every activity, is now published.
The pilot edition is developed together with One Night Gallery, the main partner of the 2026 edition, through the RADAR în comunitate — Mântuleasa edition project.
The meeting between the two projects begins with a shared question: how can we build a contemporary relationship with a historic neighbourhood?
RADAR brings media installations and interventions into Mântuleasa, while Deschidem Mântuleasa builds around them a wider framework for exploring heritage, places and community.
Contemporary art thus becomes one of the ways in which we can look again at historic spaces, discover them from new perspectives and create new ways of engaging with the city.
Deschidem Mântuleasa is not intended to be an event that simply “arrives” in a neighbourhood for two days and then leaves.
We want the project to grow together with the people who live and work here.
That is why the pilot edition also includes a community meeting: a moment to talk about the neighbourhood, about what works, what is missing and how future editions of the project can be built together.
Residents, property owners, organisations and small local businesses are invited to take part not only as an audience, but also as partners in the process.
General admission to the event is free.
For some activities — such as guided tours, the treasure hunt or certain workshops — places may be limited and advance registration may be required.
Some activities may involve a participation fee.
Details about available places, fees, meeting points and participation conditions are given in each activity's registration form.
04 — Frequently asked questions
General admission to the event is free. Some activities may involve a participation fee. If a fee applies, it will be clearly stated before registration, together with all relevant details about the activity.
Not for general access to the event. Advance registration will be required for certain activities with a limited number of participants.
The Deschidem Mântuleasa pilot edition takes place on 3 and 4 October 2026, in the Plantelor Street area of Bucharest.
The full programme, with times, venues and details of every activity, is published on the website: use the “See the programme” button in the 2026 Edition section, or visit the Programme page.
Yes. The programme includes activities for children and families. Where an activity has age restrictions or requires registration, this will be clearly stated in its description.
Yes. The event is open both to the local community and to anyone interested in the city, heritage, culture and urban exploration.
The event itself is open to the public. Some tours and workshops may have a limited number of places. In these cases, participation will be based on registration.
05 — Mântuleasa LAB
A neighbourhood can become a classroom, an archive, a field of research and a space for creation at the same time.
Mântuleasa LAB is the educational and research component of Deschidem Mântuleasa.
These are modular workshops for students, built around a simple idea: the city cannot be understood through plans, archival photographs or books alone.
You have to walk its streets.
You have to observe it.
You have to listen to it.
You have to compare what you see with what you find in sources and with what the people who live there tell you.
The city does not belong to a single discipline.
That is why Mântuleasa LAB brings together students from different fields of study and practice:
… and other fields that can help us read the city.
Interdisciplinary teams are essential.
The same place can be seen differently by an architect, an anthropologist, a photographer or an art student. It is precisely where these perspectives meet that a more complex picture emerges.
We go out into the field. We look closely at buildings, streets, courtyards, vegetation, details, rhythms and the ways people use space.
We talk to people. We listen to stories, experiences, memories and different perceptions of the neighbourhood.
We put information into relation. We build maps and identify connections between places, uses, problems, stories or urban phenomena.
We photograph, search for sources, work with archives, take notes and create materials that can be preserved and used over time.
We transform research into something that can tell a story about the city. It can take the form of photography, a map, text, drawing, installation, project, route, object, multimedia material or a combination of these.
The outcomes leave the lab. They are presented publicly during the annual Deschidem Mântuleasa event and then become part of the project archive.
Mântuleasa LAB does not have to repeat the same research from one edition to the next.
Each year can begin with a theme or one of the layers of the monograph: heritage, memory, housing, urban nature, public space, details, atmosphere or other dimensions of the city.
The theme provides a starting point.
The neighbourhood and the people in it may, however, change the questions along the way.
Explore the monographThe first full edition of Mântuleasa LAB will take place in 2027.
Participation will be through an open call dedicated to students.
On this website, we will publish the theme of the edition, the dates, participation criteria, timeline and all the information needed to apply.
06 — The Monograph
We read it in layers.
In the traditional sense, a monograph sets out to study a subject systematically.
We keep the idea of depth, but change the form.
The Deschidem Mântuleasa monograph is neither a closed book nor research produced from a single point of view.
It is an archive in permanent construction, made up of research, stories, photographs, maps, projects, interviews, observations, works, documentation and interpretations produced across successive editions.
It is interdisciplinary.
It is participatory.
And, above all, it is cumulative: each edition adds something new.
A neighbourhood cannot be explained through architecture alone.
A house can simultaneously mean heritage, housing, memory, materials, people, vegetation, economy and social relationships.
A street can be infrastructure, public space, a daily route, a meeting place, a soundscape and a repository of memory.
That is why the monograph does not divide the city into rigid compartments.
It looks at it through several lenses.
The eight layers below are examples of the perspectives that Deschidem Mântuleasa editions may explore.
Buildings, façades, materials, ornaments, deterioration, interventions, restoration and transformation.
We are interested not only in what has survived from the past, but also in how heritage lives today and in the relationship we have with it.
A neighbourhood is not made up of buildings alone. Residents' stories, memories, biographies, neighbourly relationships and the memory attached to places can explain things that plans and archives do not.
Houses, flats, courtyards, staircases, gates and thresholds. We look at how space is inhabited and negotiated between private, semi-public and shared realms, and at how the relationship between the home and the street changes over time.
The street, pavement, intersection, corner, bench, fence and daily route. We observe who uses public space, when and how, what enables encounters and what gets in their way.
Trees, gardens, spontaneous vegetation, courtyard plants, shade, biodiversity and microclimate. Nature is not the decoration of the city. It is one of its essential infrastructures.
Gates, handles, windows, house numbers, plaster, inscriptions, traces, objects and materials.
Small things often tell larger stories about the history, use and identity of a place.
Noise and quiet. Voices, traffic, bells, courtyards, light, shadow and the changing rhythm of the neighbourhood from morning to evening. The city is not only what we see. It is also what we hear, feel and perceive.
Research does not have to stop at observation. Questions, scenarios, small proposals, ideas for use or directions worth exploring can emerge from what we observe. We are not looking for definitive solutions. We are looking for more attentive ways of asking the right questions.
These themes do not exist separately.
A courtyard can simultaneously be housing, heritage, urban nature, memory and social space.
A gate can be an architectural detail, but also a boundary between private and public space, evidence of a particular period or the beginning of a story about the people who have passed through it.
These overlaps are precisely what make the city interesting.
We begin here because a neighbourhood is small enough to be studied in depth and complex enough to speak about larger urban questions.
Over time, the method can be developed and applied to other urban areas as well.
Mântuleasa is the laboratory. The city is the subject.
07 — Deschidem Mântuleasa Archive
The archive will bring together the outcomes produced through the Mântuleasa LAB editions.
From one year to the next, research, photographs, maps, texts, interviews, audio-video materials, projects, documentation and other outcomes developed by participants will be added here.
It will not simply be a collection of photographs from events.
It will be the project's working memory.
A place where information can be discovered, compared and connected from one edition to the next.
Texts, observations, sources and documentation produced during the modular workshops.
Thematic mappings and materials that connect information to territory.
Visual documentation, photographic series and interpretations of the neighbourhood.
Interviews, fragments of memory, essays and other written materials.
Recordings, interviews, sound documentation and multimedia works.
Outcomes developed by participants, from installations and objects to proposals and urban concepts.
Materials, stories and contributions coming from the people of the neighbourhood.
The archive will begin to take shape with the first full edition of Mântuleasa LAB in 2027.
Each edition will have its own chapter.
Over time, the chapters will connect and build the project's living monograph.
In preparation
08 — Contact
For questions, collaborations, proposals, partnerships or information about the project, you can write to us.
Youth Vision for Society (YVS) is the organisation that initiates and coordinates Deschidem Mântuleasa.
We work at the intersection of culture, heritage, education, community and participation, developing projects that help people better understand the places they live in and play a more active role in their relationship with those places.
Through Deschidem Mântuleasa, we continue this direction and use urban exploration as a tool for learning, research, cultural interpretation and dialogue.
Deschidem Mântuleasa is a project built over time.
We are interested in collaborations with organisations, universities, professionals, local initiatives, cultural spaces, property owners, small businesses and people from the community.
If you have an idea, a story, a space, an archive, research or simply want to learn more about the project, write to us.
Deschidem Mântuleasa is initiated and coordinated by Youth Vision for Society, in partnership with Revista Arhitectura and the Union of Architects of Romania.
Each edition may bring new organisations, local initiatives and collaborators into the project, depending on that year's theme and activities.