German Raumlabor to start teaching at VŠUP in Prague

In Prague, September 23, 2009 / Markus Bader and Mattias Rick, two members of the leading Berlin architectural studio RAUMLABOR, have just become heads of the Architecture Studio III at the AAAD in Prague. “This is the first time in the post-war history of the school that foreign educators will work here. We see this fact as a contribution to the collaboration of experts and educators from neighboring countries in the European Union,” says the rector of AAAD, PhDr. Ing. Pavel Liška.

Both architects, who have experience from German higher education (having worked as external educators at technical universities in Halle and Stuttgart), have chosen Czech assistant Ing. arch. Kateřina Vídenová. “We expect a positive contribution in the analytical and socially-aesthetic approach from the representatives of Raumlabor; this is an expansion of the offerings for architecture students in the current direction of conceptual architectural thinking, which is completely missing in the Czech lands,” adds the rector of AAAD.



Raumlabor, as a team of young German architects, has built a very good reputation in the European space over the 10 years of its existence. They represented Germany at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale, and are working on projects in Graz, Poznań, New York, etc. The architects are also not completely unknown to the Czech audience. At AAAD, Raumlabor presented a lecture titled Acting in Public in March. They have also appeared, for example, as part of the international exhibition project InterCity: Berlin – Prague, where they shone with their vision of Berlin in the future – a city with an inventive collection of spiky buildings and concrete mountains under the name Der Bergglueck and an original project of a forest city set on slender pillars among the treetops.

In their projects, Raumlabor attempts to generate new typologies of the city and transcend its traditional urban perception. Urbanistically, they allow the space to grow with nature, transforming it into a center for social gathering or using it for the realization of artistic-social performances. They address the so-called “soft” factor, which means the people who are users of the given space, and also the question of what to do with the built architecture that is “surplus” (e.g., panel housing estates). For Raumlabor, architecture is not merely a matter of “building,” but primarily a question of “using” the space. Each architectural project begins with an exploration of the given spatial and social conditions on-site, followed by its evaluation, which culminates in the final concept and plan for change. Their approach is also reflected in the latest spectacular project Eichenbaumoper, a summer performance of a professional opera at the Eichenbaum station, an inhospitable concrete station in the fields of the intercity railway between Essen and Muelheim in the Ruhr, where two highways intersect. This highly frequented station is a testament to the architectural failures of the past. The opera performance (in collaboration with the opera and theater ensemble in Essen and Muelheim) began in the train, continued on the platform, and lasted two hours at the station, which was architecturally transformed into a scene with an audience. The entire project was followed by nationwide television and press, as it represented an unprecedented transformation of a concrete desert (comparable to the Vltavská station in Prague) into a highly cultural place. Raumlabor initiated the entire event, designed and built the stage.

The Raumlabor studio, alongside Markus Bader and Mattias Rick, includes architects: Francesco Apuzzo, Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius, Andrea Hoffmann, Jan Liesegang, Christof Mayer, and Axel Timm.