Celac Mariana

About

Mariana Celac, a renowned architect born in 1936 in Chișinău, graduated from the Ion Mincu Faculty of Architecture in Bucharest and distinguished herself through her multidisciplinary career, marked by innovative projects, urban research, and seminal publications. Among her major achievements are the bilingual guide "Bucharest – An Annotated Architecture Guide" (2017), the biography "Architect B. Ioanide. Life and Work" (2017), "Bucharest, Architecture and Modernity" (2005), and projects such as the Constanța Memorial (First Prize, 1998) or the exhibition "Câmpia Filaretului in 1906" (2000). She participated in international exhibitions, such as "Collage Bucharest" and "We Are What We Are," and made documentaries like "The Unusual Guest," exploring the intersection of architecture, ideology, and art, for which she was awarded the National Order "Star of Romania" in the rank of Knight (2000). She collaborated with institutions such as the Order of Architects of Romania (founding member), Pro Patrimonio Foundation (honorary member), Group for Social Dialogue (studies coordinator since 1990), Center for Public Policies (director 1999-2000), and the editorial office of the magazine "Arhitectura" (director 1996-1999). Involved in civic movements, she founded artistic groups with Iosif Király and Marius Marcu-Lapadat, exploring themes such as housing in extreme poverty through installations like "Tinseltown" or "Guaranteed Minimum Landscape." She gave lectures at universities in the USA, UK, and Japan, contributing to international debates on heritage, public spaces, and communist demolitions. Born in Bessarabia, Mariana Celac was the daughter of Nicolae Cealik, the first communist prefect of Craiova, the sister of diplomat Sergiu Celac, and the wife of dissident Mihai Botez, who emigrated to the USA in 1987. An anti-communist activist, she fought against demolitions in Bucharest (from 1984) and rural systematization, maintaining ties with the Romanian exile, including Mihnea Berindei and Opération Villages Roumains. She lived a discreet life, marked by intellectual generosity and civic engagement, passing away in 2018 in Bucharest, where she was cremated, leaving a legacy dedicated to architectural reform and an open society.