Upside Down

Anyone who has raised children is familiar with the image of a house turned upside down

Ana-Maria Cononovici, 21.02.2023, 02:06

Anyone who has raised children is familiar with the image of a house turned upside down. We are talking about rooms where nothing seems to be in its place. They got filled with scattered toys, overturned furniture, or, as visitors politely described them, places full of life.

It may be that this is what gave the idea for a park in Romania built around a house which is literally built upside down. This is Brambura Park, in the city of Avrig, in Sibiu County. We were told about this by Adrian Ontica, the manager of the park:

“The developers saw a similar house in Germany, and said, why not? It is a project that is seen in several stages. Brambura Park wants to offer its visitors of all ages a good laugh and good entertainment in an upside down house, but one which conforms to reality. We have serious play spaces for children, such as inflatable slides and a huge trampoline. We have a mini zoo and places for food and drinks, and plenty of surprises. Creating the project, creating the house, was a real challenge, both for the builders and the teams that dealt with all the details of the house. They dealt with 200 sqm, in a place where you climb to the ground floor and descend to the top floor. It has everything that a normal house has, just upside down. It is strange to say the least, the house gives you vertigo a bit, for two reasons: first, the place is slightly off kilter by a few degrees, while the brain has a hard time dealing with everything being topsy-turvy.

Adrian Ontica told us what is impressive about this house:

“There are so many details that, six months after we created the house, I can still see surprise details that I hadn’t noticed before. When you get in the house, as the hallway is upside down completely, we find a full size mirror, some pairs of shoes, a coat hanger, and many more details. Most objects are in the kitchen area, with a table, a fridge, the diswashing machine, the oven, everything is upside down, including the products inside them. If you want to pick up a condiment, nothing is fake, you can get a condiment, but it is upside down. Of course, they are glued in place with different adhesives, and everything that is heavier is fixed in place.

There is a bowl of bananas, there are cups on the upside down table, a stool is by the fireplace for feeding it with coal. All these details are at the top of the room. The organizers promise that this is a place that brings people joy, because they get out of their routine way of seeing things, seeing the world in a different way. We asked Adrian Ontica what people are saying when they visit the house:

“A lot of people are surprised, since this is unique to Romania, it is quite a large place to visit. They are pretty happy, because, in addition to visiting the house, they get to enjoy the specialty foods in our restaurant. The feedback from customers is positive. The park is pretty big, it’s 6 ha. We have a limit on the number of visitors in the house, 25 to 30, because it would be a pity to not be able to enjoy all the details. As for the total number of visitors, in a peak day, we have, let’s say, 1,700 to 2,000 tourists, but the average is around 200 to 300 tourists a day.

In addition to the gravity defying house, which makes you feel weightless, visitors can go to the miniature zoo, which is home to a few alpacas, a deer fawn, a few goats, and rabbits.

Adrian Ontica launched an invitation to go play, for all ages:

“We want everyone, big and small, to have fun, to take your family out for a good time, to eat, get away from things, laugh, to make noise and carry on. At Brambura Park, the whole family will enjoy themselves.