Mesteshukar ButiQ is a non-profit social enterprise based in Bucharest that promotes traditional Romany craftsmanship by bringing together artisans and designers. Stardust Architects designed the interior of the store, which specializes in home furnishings and jewelry.
In fact, MBQ is more than a shop, as it also functions as a workshop—around the long, central table you can not only watch and touch objects, but also make them, or even read about different crafts over a coffee.
The project is based on a glimpse of memory, which can be found on the website of Stardust Architects:
“I remembered the years I have spent with my grandparents. I wouldn’t say they were craftsmen, but my grandmother was baking bread, spinning the wool in order to be knitted into our socks and sweaters or she was weaving baskets for her own use. When I think of her, I don’t remember the way the basket looked in the end, nor the bread or the socks, but I can still feel in my fingers the point of the spindle and the low sound of the wool while becoming a thread. […] While talking about crafts you end up inevitably talking about remembering. Distant memories, the joy of recovering them and the fear of losing them, along with the ones vaguely describing them, like an old, kind dream.”
To display the products, they designed a flexible structure that allows for the variable placement of different types of objects. This is a simple linden system with pillars that resemble flutes and can be fitted with shelves and hooks.
They envisioned the completion of the walls as a community event involving people from every social group that MBQ wants to bring together: craftsmen, designers, students, potential customers and anyone who preserves the tradition of craft.
Photos: Vlad Albu
Mesteshukar ButiQ | Web | Facebook | Instagram
Stardust Architects | Web | Facebook | Instagram
Source: ArchDaily, Stardust Architects