Exterior Exhibition: The Story of Panel Houses in the Liberec Region

We cordially invite you to the thirteenth exhibition of the traveling series titled The Story of Prefabricated Housing Estates in the Liberec Region. The vernissage will take place on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, at 4:00 PM at Soukenné Square in Liberec. The exhibition will be on display until September 19, 2017.



From June 22 to September 19, 2017, Liberec will host an outdoor exhibition The Story of Prefabricated Housing Estates in the Liberec Region, which will bring closer the history and present of selected prefabricated housing estates in Liberec (Králův Háj, Ruprechtice, the complex along Aloisina vyšina and Franklinova streets) and in Jablonec nad Nisou (Mšeno). The selection is complemented by one residential solitaire (the Liberec "Wolkerák"). This exhibition, freely accessible to the general public at Soukenné Square, is the thirteenth exhibition from a traveling series dedicated to selected prefabricated housing estates in different regions of the Czech Republic.

“We would like to show that not all housing estates are the same, that they do not necessarily have to be monotonous clusters of boxes designed by an anonymous team at an architectural institute,” explains the main author of the project, Lucie Skřivánková (Zadražilová) from the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. “Prefabricated housing estates have their past, present, and in many cases, also developmental potential and represent a home for their inhabitants. It would therefore be a mistake to turn a blind eye to the distinctiveness of many of them and to be influenced by one-sided judgments,” she adds.

According to the last census, 31% (nearly 130,000) of the residents of the Liberec Region live in panel buildings.

A typical feature of panel construction in the 1960s in Liberec was the architects' emphasis on working with the morphology of the local landscape. They were not afraid to complement the challenging hilly terrain of this foothill city with striking solitaires. The housing estate Králův Háj documents the transformation of Czechoslovak architecture and urbanism associated with the success of Czech architects at the 1958 World Expo in Brussels and the subsequent rise of modernism. The shift from linear development, represented by traditional brick houses similar to an earlier stage of socialist realism, to a relaxed spatial configuration of elegant point high-rise buildings made of panels is evident here. The residential complex Wolkerova was designed by architect Jaromír Vacek as a unique solitaire. It represents an idealistic vision of architecture and living in the 1960s, similar to the grandiose projects of that time, such as Etarea or Domurbia, which, however, were never realized. Wolkerák hints at where the development of mass housing could have been heading in freer circumstances. The housing estate Ruprechtice closes the golden era of apartment construction in the 1960s in Liberec. From the sloped terrain, point and panel buildings of varying heights and volumes rise at considerable distances. The horizon of the estate is closed by its dominant feature – a twice-bending eleven-story panel building of unique length (380 meters), nicknamed Hokejka. It is among the longest panel buildings in the republic and houses 693 apartments. The complex along Aloisina výšina and Franklinova streets from the 1970s owes its quality not only to the architects but also to the investor – the Sever housing cooperative, which became a crucial driver of construction in Liberec. Sever was the largest self-help housing cooperative in the republic. The spatial solution of this housing estate follows a fan-shaped ground plan. The group of houses immediately captures attention with its sophisticated façade solutions, combining brick cladding and wooden details.

The first concept of the detailed land use plan for the new Mšeno in Jablonec nad Nisou from the late 1960s reflects the echoes of an era full of creative engagement and optimism. Its realization, however, fell into the normalization conditions governed by strict technical and economic indicators. The land use studies of individual phases were drastically revised, and the area of old Mšeno was completely sanitized. The uniform environment of the new district for ten thousand inhabitants was saved by the immediate proximity of a water reservoir and recreational areas.

The realization of these housing estates involved very capable architects who creatively developed the ideas of architects and urbanists of the interwar avant-garde. The exhibition also addresses issues of urbanism, apartment layouts, artistic decoration of the housing estates, and construction technologies. It does not overlook the question of the age, educational, and professional structure of the local inhabitants and how it has changed since the time of construction. “We show through examples what is happening today with selected prefabricated housing estates, whether regeneration interventions have contributed to improving the living environment or conversely disrupted the genius loci of these complexes,” adds Lucie Skřivánková.

The grant project Prefabricated Housing Estates in the Czech Republic as part of the Urban Living Environment: Evaluation and Presentation of Their Residential Potential is a five-year research and exhibition project in which nearly two dozen architectural historians, urban planners, heritage conservationists, demographers, and other professionals from museum and academic institutions collaborate. The academic guarantor is art and architecture historian Professor Rostislav Švácha, and the project is institutionally supported by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. The Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic supports the project within the grant program for research and development of national cultural identity (NAKI).

Alongside two Czech and one English publication on the phenomenon of housing estate construction in Bohemia and Moravia and individual scholarly writings, the main output of the project is a series of thirteen exhibitions in individual regional cities, culminating this year with a comprehensive exhibition at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. The exhibition cycle is intended for interested parties from both professional and general public. The exhibition is designed by the architectural studio A1 Architects (Tereza Schneiderová, Lenka Křemenová, David Maštálka) and features a stylized panel town. Six freestanding elements made of lightweight concrete were custom fabricated for the purposes of the project by the company LIAS Vintířov. The author of the graphic design is Štěpán Malovec.

Prefabricated housing estates represent an important urban, architectural, and historical phenomenon. Although they were the most typical and widespread form of mass housing construction from the 1950s to the 1980s and today nearly three million inhabitants of the Czech Republic live in housing estates, research into their significance and sociocultural role is still in its early stages. After years of one-sided criticism and rejection, we are now witnessing a growing interest in the topic of housing estates not only among experts but also among contemporary artists.

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