Viila Cheia is, first and foremost, a story about continuity - about values inherited, reinterpreted and passed forward. Iosif grew up in the orchard where the guesthouse now stands, a place he later inherited from his father, Iozef Vincze, a painter and stonemason. Decades earlier, Iozef had painted the house of Paul’s grandparents, establishing an unexpected link between families that would quietly resurface years later in this project.
In 2014, Iosif and his wife Laura decided to return to the orchard and build something enduring - a guesthouse rooted in hospitality, memory and the rural practice of preserving food and wine for winter. The 1-hectare site sits along a northwest ridge overlooking the Aries Valley, and the architecture responds directly to this topography. The building adopts a linear bar plan that deliberately delays the encounter with the panoramic view. Upon entry, a forced-perspective section amplifies the release toward the landscape. The living room becomes both threshold and hinge, separating guest bedrooms, the hosts’ quarters and a mixed-use basement carved into a former gypsum extraction pit, physically anchoring the house to its terrain.
Cheia village lacks a strong architectural identity, so the project turns to the deeper structural logic of archaic Romanian rural architecture rather than to stylistic imitation. A contemporary volume is articulated through a stratified material language: stone at the base, wood and plaster at ground level, and a shingled roof above. The intention was not replication, but resonance.
Drawing from the concept of ekphrasis - understood in its original sense as a vivid, detailed evocation - the design operates from outside in. Architectural decisions extend into spatial sequencing and object scale. The distribution of exterior cladding, the calibrated rainwater drainage system, and patios inspired by traditional porches mediate between interior rooms and orchard. Inside, the hearth and a four-metre communal table act as social anchors; triptychs above the beds evoke the quiet presence of faith; three-legged tables, lounge chairs and luminaires with braided cables reinterpret familiar rural gestures in a contemporary vocabulary. Each element is intended to trigger a subtle, almost Proustian recognition - a sense of belonging without direct formal quotation.
Construction unfolded as a collective act. Iosif led the stonemasonry; Laura mediated decisions on site; children moved between drawings and dust. The building was shaped as much by hands as by plans.
Today, Viila Cheia continues to evolve through its guests. What began as an orchard has become a lived environment - one where architecture frames landscape, memory and hospitality within a contemporary yet deeply rooted rural experience.
Design Team: Paul-Mihai Moldovan, Anamaria Moldovan, Adrian-Ioan Urda, Victor-Ioan Stefan, Adrian Ovidiu Bucin, Daniela VIERU, Diana Canta
Collaborator[s]: Top Proiect, Caloria
Design Year: 2014-2019
Status: Completed
Execution | Completion Year: 2020
Location: Cheia Village, Cluj, Romania
Gross area: 505 sqm
General Contractor: Practic Construct - Iosif Vincze
Text: ateliercetrei
Photographer[s]: Ovidiu Micsa / ADMO Studio