Letters to the Mayor: Prague - invitation to the exhibition at Norma space
Exhibition of letters from architects to the Mayor of Prague as part of the international project Letters to the Mayor.
Date and time of the exhibition: April 24 - May 30, 2018
Date and time of the opening: April 23, 2018, 18:00 hours
Location: Norma space, Podskalská 370/31, 12800 Prague 2
On April 24, 2018, an exhibition of letters from architects, theorists, and architecture critics addressed to the Mayor of Prague, Adriana Krnáčová, is taking place at Prague's Norma Space. The international initiative by the New York gallery Storefront for Art and Architecture places Prague among the world’s metropolises that have offered their mayors an alternative survey of opinions on the vision and policy of urban planning or their own agenda directly from practicing professionals.
On April 23, 2018, the exhibition Letters to the Mayor: Prague will be opened at Prague's Norma Space. It presents letters from Czech and foreign architects, urban planners, theorists, and publicists addressed to Prague’s mayor Adriana Krnáčová.
The project was first initiated in 2014 in New York by the gallery Storefront for Art and Architecture and has already been implemented in more than fifteen cities worldwide (Athens, Lisbon, Madrid, Oslo, Panama City, Rotterdam, Sao Paulo, Taipei, Bogota, and others). The initiative supports international discussion about the position of architects in urban planning, their relationship to the socio-political apparatus, and to the citizen.
Letters to the Mayor: Prague turns the usual relationship "the city provides the brief - the architect solves the brief." It asks architects and related professionals for the brief. Thus, representatives of all generations, genders, nationalities, and focuses were intentionally invited to write letters to create a situation that denies opinion hierarchy.
Among the foreign participants, we can mention the Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill, who designed several buildings in Prague's Karlín, the American theorist focusing on housing construction in communist Czechoslovakia Kimberly Elman-Zarecor, or the representative of the winning studio OCA from the recently held competition for the expansion of the Congress Center in Pankrác, Marc Subirana. The range of Czech participants includes current and former rectors of architecture schools, a former mayor and practicing architect, activists, academics, studios of various scales, recent graduates, and architects who have shifted to related professions such as graphic design or art.
The installation by artist Jan Boháč thematizes one of the main motifs and motivations of the entire event: the issue of communication among the involved parties. Jan Boháč creates a metaphorical story of the imperfect intermediary of communication, a wild urban postal pigeon, which allows the viewer to adjust the situation in their own way. "The installation that will be created in Norma space will be made of gutter troughs, downspouts, and connectors. These are not only, like the pigeons, an integral part of practically every city, but they also serve as a place where [pigeons] spend their bird lives. The messages they carried disappeared along the way and got stuck in the innards of the gutter systems, where they either disappeared completely or only fragments remained. In Norma, we can glimpse into the guts of the gutter and search for and piece together messages, requests, wishes, and desires that disobedient pigeons lost along the way. The installation thus points out the problems in communication, where different parties are unable to conduct a meaningful dialogue ... and the purpose of this project is precisely to mediate and support the dialogue," says Jan Boháč about the adaptation of the exhibition concept Letters to the Mayor.
The letters will be officially handed over to the Mayor of Prague, Adriana Krnáčová, at the opening of the exhibition. This is an apolitical act assessing the past and present of Prague during the transitional period between elections, offering a survey of approaches and scenarios of its development and opening a discussion between the city's leadership and architects about alternatives for the future of Prague.
The content of the letters will be developed in the accompanying program of the exhibition taking place both in the gallery and in the streets of Prague. This will include running through the streets of Prague mentioned in the letters, discussions in the gallery, and readings and concerts on the (A)VOID Floating Gallery.
Inputs from the letters and discussions will be provided to the City of Prague, its future mayor, and the public as freely accessible data after the exhibition concludes.
Organizers Norma space:
Curators: Kateřina Kulanová, Jana Moravcová Exhibition author: Jan Boháč
Communication and PR: Barbora Kopřivová, Petra Karlová
Production: Sára Davidová, Alžběta Kvasničková, Veronika Sávová
Graphic design: Ihor Sabadosh
Documentation: Igor Machata
At the initiative of Storefront for Art and Architecture:
Executive Director and Chief Curator: Eva Franch i Gilabert
Co-Curator: Carlos Mínguez Carrasco
Director of Strategic Development: Jinny Khanduja
Program Producer: Max Lauter
Supported by: State Fund for Culture of the Czech Republic, Czech Architecture Foundation, U. S. Embassy Prague / Velvyslanectví USA v Praze, mmcité 1, Infloor, JV střechy, Repro Fetterle, (A)VOID Floating Gallery
More information >
Date and time of the exhibition: April 24 - May 30, 2018
Date and time of the opening: April 23, 2018, 18:00 hours
Location: Norma space, Podskalská 370/31, 12800 Prague 2
On April 24, 2018, an exhibition of letters from architects, theorists, and architecture critics addressed to the Mayor of Prague, Adriana Krnáčová, is taking place at Prague's Norma Space. The international initiative by the New York gallery Storefront for Art and Architecture places Prague among the world’s metropolises that have offered their mayors an alternative survey of opinions on the vision and policy of urban planning or their own agenda directly from practicing professionals.
On April 23, 2018, the exhibition Letters to the Mayor: Prague will be opened at Prague's Norma Space. It presents letters from Czech and foreign architects, urban planners, theorists, and publicists addressed to Prague’s mayor Adriana Krnáčová.
The project was first initiated in 2014 in New York by the gallery Storefront for Art and Architecture and has already been implemented in more than fifteen cities worldwide (Athens, Lisbon, Madrid, Oslo, Panama City, Rotterdam, Sao Paulo, Taipei, Bogota, and others). The initiative supports international discussion about the position of architects in urban planning, their relationship to the socio-political apparatus, and to the citizen.
Letters to the Mayor: Prague turns the usual relationship "the city provides the brief - the architect solves the brief." It asks architects and related professionals for the brief. Thus, representatives of all generations, genders, nationalities, and focuses were intentionally invited to write letters to create a situation that denies opinion hierarchy.
Among the foreign participants, we can mention the Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill, who designed several buildings in Prague's Karlín, the American theorist focusing on housing construction in communist Czechoslovakia Kimberly Elman-Zarecor, or the representative of the winning studio OCA from the recently held competition for the expansion of the Congress Center in Pankrác, Marc Subirana. The range of Czech participants includes current and former rectors of architecture schools, a former mayor and practicing architect, activists, academics, studios of various scales, recent graduates, and architects who have shifted to related professions such as graphic design or art.
The installation by artist Jan Boháč thematizes one of the main motifs and motivations of the entire event: the issue of communication among the involved parties. Jan Boháč creates a metaphorical story of the imperfect intermediary of communication, a wild urban postal pigeon, which allows the viewer to adjust the situation in their own way. "The installation that will be created in Norma space will be made of gutter troughs, downspouts, and connectors. These are not only, like the pigeons, an integral part of practically every city, but they also serve as a place where [pigeons] spend their bird lives. The messages they carried disappeared along the way and got stuck in the innards of the gutter systems, where they either disappeared completely or only fragments remained. In Norma, we can glimpse into the guts of the gutter and search for and piece together messages, requests, wishes, and desires that disobedient pigeons lost along the way. The installation thus points out the problems in communication, where different parties are unable to conduct a meaningful dialogue ... and the purpose of this project is precisely to mediate and support the dialogue," says Jan Boháč about the adaptation of the exhibition concept Letters to the Mayor.
The letters will be officially handed over to the Mayor of Prague, Adriana Krnáčová, at the opening of the exhibition. This is an apolitical act assessing the past and present of Prague during the transitional period between elections, offering a survey of approaches and scenarios of its development and opening a discussion between the city's leadership and architects about alternatives for the future of Prague.
The content of the letters will be developed in the accompanying program of the exhibition taking place both in the gallery and in the streets of Prague. This will include running through the streets of Prague mentioned in the letters, discussions in the gallery, and readings and concerts on the (A)VOID Floating Gallery.
Inputs from the letters and discussions will be provided to the City of Prague, its future mayor, and the public as freely accessible data after the exhibition concludes.
Organizers Norma space:
Curators: Kateřina Kulanová, Jana Moravcová Exhibition author: Jan Boháč
Communication and PR: Barbora Kopřivová, Petra Karlová
Production: Sára Davidová, Alžběta Kvasničková, Veronika Sávová
Graphic design: Ihor Sabadosh
Documentation: Igor Machata
At the initiative of Storefront for Art and Architecture:
Executive Director and Chief Curator: Eva Franch i Gilabert
Co-Curator: Carlos Mínguez Carrasco
Director of Strategic Development: Jinny Khanduja
Program Producer: Max Lauter
Supported by: State Fund for Culture of the Czech Republic, Czech Architecture Foundation, U. S. Embassy Prague / Velvyslanectví USA v Praze, mmcité 1, Infloor, JV střechy, Repro Fetterle, (A)VOID Floating Gallery
More information >
The English translation is powered by AI tool. Switch to Czech to view the original text source.
0 comments
add comment
