A project by - Cinema Cosmos Collective, Anton Kerezov, Aleksandra Gercheva, Viktoria Tashkova, Katerina Serbezova, Maria Dimitrova, Mila Zlatanova, Plamena Georgieva, Yana Radeva, Borislav Tenev, Todor Bashiyanov
The architectural installation is part of a event called "I wish it was". The event had the aim to renew three abondoned places in the center part of the ancient city Plovdiv, Bulgaria. - city of multicultures and religions. Everyday we pass through non-pleasant spaces that we get used to and we don't even notise that they are not supposed to be this way in the heart of the city.
As architects gathered to discuss and propose something for this place we decided that it should be a place for tolerance where all the ethnoses live together, not separated ... It is a place with problems - no sun, no place to sit, no light in the evenings, bad smell, dangerous atmosphere ...
The project is situated between a christian church, a mosque in a multicultural city where turkish, gypcies, armenians, jewish and bulgarians live together.
Searching for improving the site and expressing it with the best forms the team choose The Circle as the symbol of unity, community, oneness and simplisity. The team called it a garden of Tolerance.
The different terрaced benches provide places to relax, meditate, to perform and to communitcate.
The denivilation makes the place have different points of view and amphitheatrical profile.
The hardwork begins. Team of sixteen architects constructed by themselves showing how do these places in the heart of the city have to look like and showing the big will and the small effort needed for the citizens to change the place they live.
Except benches and place for meetings the project contains and scene for street artists where they can perform in front of their audience.
Using the perspective projection the spot from where you can see the symbol of unity was marked.
The Circle form can be seen only from one spot, such as the Tollerance itself can be hard to achieve.
And here is the result. Lighting, paving, waste baskets, landscaping and webcam for whatching the performances online were done with the support of the citizens of Plovdiv, Chamber of Architects and buisness donatores.
The minute The Circle opened its loops, people inhabited it, forgetting about the previous dangerous place which they always tried to sidestep.
The garden of Tolerance had its one month life. One month full of togetherness, friendship and joy conversations. A month later - the Municipality showed what were their intentions about this place.
