A Survey of Interventions in the Countryside

Text: Sarolta Rab

The Romanian journal Zeppelin published an issue in the summer of 2021 titled Vidéken (La țară – In the Country) with a comprehensive introduction to survey in details the potentials of reactivating society with the means of rural vernacular architecture of the villages based on several interventions already completed in the countryside. Outlined in the introduction, this train of thoughts was defined by the authors’ basic hypothesis that migration from the villages into towns in Romania has been decreasing since the 1990s, whereas simultaneously migration in the opposite direction has been on the increase. Causes of this phenomenon have been found in the change of social attitudes and views taking place in the past decade, which are driven by fleeing from the towns, the need to get into contact with nature, the desire to get rid of stress, and the reconstruction of the local communities. These trends have been encouraged, updated and actualized now because of the pandemic. Whilst migration was formerly and predominantly motivated by reasons of the family background or the wish to do further studies, more recently there have been other and more various explanations revealed.