An evening in the heart of Mantulisa
There are neighborhoods in Bucharest where, if you walk carefully, you feel that the city breathes differently. Mântuleasa is one of them. An area where the tranquility of streets paved with stories intertwines with the beauty of houses built at the beginning of the 20th century. Facades with neo-Romanian details, elegant Art Nouveau lines or modernist accents tell you about a Bucharest that has known refinement and diversity.
Popa Soare, Sfântul Ștefan, Plantelor and even Mântuleasa streets are filled with a special atmosphere, evoking interwar life. The Mântuleasa Church watches over the neighborhood, and the literary memory of Mircea Eliade, through the short story On Mantuleasa Street, adds a layer of mystery and nostalgia.
What will we do in the second edition?
For one evening only, the houses of Mântuleasa will open their doors. Some of them have never been visited by the public, but now they become living spaces, animated by art and technology. The atmosphere of the early 20th century will be recreated through:
- Video projections and digital animations – visual stories about living and daily life in Mântuleasa, which transform the walls into screens of memory.
- Guided tours – historical explorations of streets and houses, with a route that reveals neighborhood connections and urban transformations. There will also be a special tour for children and young people from disadvantaged categories.
- Exhibitions and installations – artistic creations inspired by the idea of community and coexistence, which bring the past into dialogue with the present.
- Educational and creative workshops – for children and young people, a way to discover architecture and the role of the community in the life of the city.
- Antiques fair and culinary experiences – vintage objects, material stories and tastes of yesteryear complete the atmosphere of the neighborhood.
Why Mantuleasa?
Mântuleasa is a symbolic neighborhood: fragile, caught between conservation and the pressure of urban development. Here you can still feel the pulse of the Bucharest of old. By choosing this area, Urban Explorers aims to bring back to the public's attention not only its architectural beauty, but also the way in which housing, neighborhood and community shape the identity of a city.
Urban Explorers as a concept
Urban Explorers – Night Session is more than just an evening dedicated to heritage houses. It is an exercise in reconnecting with the city and its memory. In a rapidly changing Bucharest, where old buildings are often invisible, abandoned or transformed without respect for history, Urban Explorers creates a framework in which people can rediscover the value of built heritage.
Each edition, the event proposes a different area of the city, bringing to the public houses that, most of the time, are not accessible to visitors. They are not only beautiful buildings, but also witnesses of eras, of family stories, of the way Bucharest developed and built its identity. Through artistic, educational and interactive activities – from video projections and digital installations to guided tours, workshops or historical culinary experiences – these houses come to life and reveal their history.
The concept is based on two essential directions:
- Accessibility and openness – inaccessible houses become, for one evening, living spaces, offered to the community.
- Interaction and personal experience – the public not only visits, but lives heritage. Each edition brings new ways for people to identify with places, transforming the experience into an affective relationship with the city.
A city only truly becomes yours when you know it and experience it on a personal level. When you enter an old house and feel its atmosphere, it ceases to be just a building and becomes part of your identity. This is the goal of Urban Explorers: to transform heritage into a shared legacy, which its inhabitants claim and cherish.
Over time, successive editions build a cultural and emotional map of Bucharest. They give rise to a tradition through which heritage is no longer perceived as a relic of the past, but as a living resource, an integral part of today's urban life. Urban Explorers is thus an annual invitation to look at the city differently, to reclaim it and to create together an authentic and sustainable cultural identity.
Urban Explorers – Night Session, 2nd Edition takes place on September 20, 2025 in the Mântuleasa area.
More details about the event are available on the official website: urban-explorers.org.ro.