Urban Interventions Brno 2011 - Selected Projects

Architecture of Public Space
197 proposals from 160 authors and author teams

Organizer: City Interventions, o.s.
Project authors: Matúš Vallo and Oliver Sadovský (Vallo Sadovsky Architects)
Curator: Adam Gebrian
Co-organizer: Art House of the City of Brno
Venue: Building of the former City Jail, Soudní Street
Exhibition Duration: May 27 – June 30, 2011

The exhibition was held with the support of the Statutory City of Brno
   
The shared urban space is public property. City Interventions present architectural projects that were not commissioned by anyone. All of them arose from the inner or professional need of their authors. The need to point out what does not work in urban space, even though there is a solution for how it could work; the need to reveal the potential of places we walk by daily and often do not even perceive.

The idea of the project “city interventions” originated in Bratislava in 2007. Matúš Vallo and Oliver Sadovský (Vallo Sadovsky Architects) brought their idea of a civic-professional initiative to life: they decided not to wait for a commission from outside and approached several of their colleagues and architectural studios to first identify and then propose - without claiming any fee - solutions for architecturally problematic public places in the wider center of the capital city of Bratislava.

The project met with unprecedented response. A year later, the same principle took place in Prague, and its results were exhibited at the DOX Center for Contemporary Art. The Prague exhibition was attended by 29,000 visitors. Two of the presented projects found direct response from officials of the affected city districts and are currently in further development.

Still in the same year, a joint exhibition of proposals from Bratislava and Prague was held, which was presented at the Brno City Jail. It was seen by 2,500 people.

The call for participation in the Brno round of the city interventions was announced in mid-September 2010, and the deadline for submitting proposals was set for the end of November last year.

A total of 197 proposals for various locations in the Moravian metropolis were submitted from 160 authors and author teams. The exhibition of results will take place in the building of the former Brno City Jail. Proposals will be presented on A1 format panels.
 
As part of the exhibition, there were author presentations of projects and accompanying programs discussing issues of public space.

The curator of the Brno City Interventions says of the project: “I believe that the highest goal of the interventions (and perhaps not entirely clearly stated) is not to activate architects. It's not even an effort to implement some of the hastily created projects and thus gain work paid for by public sources. It is an effort to activate politicians and officials. A group of people we pay to represent the public interest.”

A good sign in this regard is the fact that the Brno City Interventions have been realized due to the interest from the Brno city hall, which largely financed the project. The mayor of the city, Roman Onderka, commented on its outcome as follows: “A record number of proposals was submitted to the Brno version of the project, which indicates that after decades of indifference to common matters, public spaces are once again at the forefront of interest. This is certainly due to the fact that the quality of urban public spaces directly affects the quality of life in the city as a whole. The high participation of architects, designers, and other artists in the Brno City Interventions is indeed a good testament for the city of Brno and a promise for the future.”

At the opening of the Brno exhibition, the book City Interventions. With Love from Your Architects was also launched, which maps the entire project from its beginnings in Bratislava to the results in Brno. It presents selected projects from all three cities, contains theoretical studies, statistics, and records reflections on the project from both professional and lay audiences. The book is published by the Slovart publishing house, and its editors Matúš Vallo and Oliver Sadovský comment on it succinctly in numbers: “If we tried to put the entire project of city interventions into numbers, it would reveal an interesting fact that the 255 architects who participated in this project donated work worth 186,900 EUR and 9,800 hours of work to their city and themselves.”

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