A mythic aura pervades Transylvania, perhaps popularised most by Bram Stoker’s seminal Dracula and his portrayal of the natural landscape (described by him as “one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe'') and the titular vampire’s castle to build on the Gothic and suspenseful atmosphere of the novel. The fortified churches in Transylvania, through their visual language—the turrets, gothic windows with intricate metal lattices and the rough-hewn stone masonry—seem to add to the popular perception of the region as a land teeming with mythological and folkloric creatures such as vampires and werewolves. Forming a significant part of the region’s cultural landscape, the villages with fortified churches in the region are recognised as part of the list of UNESCO Heritage sites.

While over 300 churches were built between the 13th and 16th centuries, the communities maintaining these structures gradually emigrated from Romania, leaving them to face degradation and ruin. To this end, The Fortified Churches Foundation is an organisation that works to preserve and maintain these bastions of an ancient culture through a programme that focuses on preservation, education and advocacy. As part of the organisation’s initiative, a fortified church in Curciu, Transylvania, was the subject of a refurbishment and adaptive reuse exercise by the Romania-based architecture studio Modul 28.

The intervention entailed restoring the church to open it to the public, while at the same time introducing contemporary functions to the secondary annexe structures, which as the architects mention, served no present function. It is these structures built after the original church was constructed—the old chapel, the gate tower, the rectory and the bellringer’s tower—that have been converted by the design team into a guesthouse.

Where most restoration architecture projects focus on converting annexe spaces into visitor centres or museums that delineate the histories of the relevant sites, the choice of converting these into a hospitality design not only updates the site for a casual visitor but ensures that it can be integrated more firmly into the lives of the local community. “The initiative is based on the belief that turning heritage buildings into museums does not serve their long-term well-being,” the architects explain in the official release. While the church may have fallen out of use, the restoration project also brings to mind English poet Philip Larkin’s poem, Church Going, where the poet reflects on a secular society’s reception to religious architecture. In the poem, Larkin questions what will remain of churches when people no longer believe in what they represent, going on to ask,

“what remains when disbelief has gone?”

In their statement, the architects provide a detailed history of the church to provide context into their interventions. Constructed in the 14th century, the structure underwent many restorations and additions, most significantly between 1973 and 1986. It was also constructed in two stages, with the apse, sacristy and the western and southern portals built later. The bell tower and bell ringer’s house were both constructed much later. Hence, the goal of the restoration exercise focused on preserving the volumetric configuration of the church and highlighting its palimpsestic history, bearing witness to the many alterations the church has undergone over the years.

In contrast to the imposing yet graceful church architecture, the intervention in the secondary annexes focused on maintaining the historical value of the structures while improving the quality of the spaces. This included building a wooden pavilion housing additional facilities and an external staircase for ease of access. As the architects specify, a key concern for contemporary architecture was minimal impact on the historic site. Lightweight materials such as wood and metal inserts that could be easily dismantled were used for the design to ensure this.

“A shape less recognisable each week,
A purpose more obscure”

A double bedroom alongside a kitchen and dining area add to the facilities conceived for guests in the hospitality architecture. A highlight of this space is the main living area, situated in the apse of the former chapel that incorporates the structure’s gothic windows and the seemingly untreated walls; adding to the historic narrative of the site. Other measures to update the structures for contemporary use involved replastering the rectory and renovating the doorways and window shutters. Here, the minimal aesthetic of the wooden pavilion and the interior design are meant to contrast the otherwise bulky stone architecture of the chapel and gatehouse, allowing the contemporary structures to stand out.

The proposal, which deviates from conventional exercises of refurbishment by conceiving of a dwelling within a religious building serves as a potential prototype for the upgradation of such structures that might attest to their longevity. The architects rationalise their design in the official release stating, “The fortified churches that were once embedded in their traditional surroundings have become—despite their conservation—unused empty shells in a senselessly modernised environment. This phenomenon highlights the importance of responsibly modernising traditional Transylvanian houses.” Straddling the line between contemporary and historic, the illusion of myth and the equal transience of reality, the spaces that house the studio’s proposal for a guesthouse—Larkin’s “serious house on serious earth”—open themselves out to contemplation on the relevance of simple gestures of simple architectural solutions in creating something novel.