PlayEscapes 4.0

The story of a brick that wanted to be a factory

Location: Syndicate House Park, 500 m from the ruins of the Nicolina Factory
Date: 16-17, 23-24 May

You say to brick, “What do you want, brick?” Brick says to you, “I like an arch.” if you say to brick, “arches are expensive and I can use a concrete lintel over an opening. What do you think of that, brick?” Brick says: “I like an arch.”
Even a brick wants to be something.
A brick wants to be something.
It aspires.
Even a common, ordinary brick… wants to be something more than it is.
It wants to be something better than it is.”

Louis Kahn, architect, professor and material whisperer

500 m from the Casa Sindicatelor Park, hidden among apartment buildings, supermarkets and noise, lie forgotten remains of a former red brick giant, the former Nicolina Factory or the former CFR Workshops…a former space.

The 4th iteration of PlayEscapes proposes a symbolic recovery of this space through play, story and compassion, aiming to reactivate the human and spatial memory of the oldest factory in Iași. The project aims to establish an intergenerational dialogue between those who have passed through its gates and those for whom the site has become a “blind spot” in the mental geography of the city.

We want to place a temporary signage that will mark the existence and history of more than a century of this rare example of late 19th century industrial architecture. Through urban installations and activations, PlayEscapes transforms the 500m physical distance between the two locations into a cultural mediation journey. The approach does not aim at historical documentation, but at recontextualizing industrial architecture as an active resource for the community and generating a space for reflection on urban evolution and local identity.

The Little Red PlayFactory: a play and exploration installation that uses remixed elements from the factory facade.

Brick by brick: An outdoor workshop for modeling mini clay bricks.

The brick pit: A construction game with giant soft bricks.

We make a factory: A workshop for building small cardboard models.

The story of a brick that wanted to be a factory, the cardboard theater:

In the form of a participatory puppet theater, the Caterpillar (the animated personification of a brick) will carry us with humor and fantasy through a century of history as part of the vault of an arch.

From behind the fence: pop-up photography exhibition of the factory seen from the limit of the legal perimeter of the public space, an exploration of the tension between the historical monument that belongs culturally to the city and the private property on which it is located.