From the center to the periphery and beyond…

HRONOV PUBLIC AND HRONOV PRIVATE

The last interview we had together was about five years ago. What significant changes have occurred in Hronov during that time, particularly regarding your projects?
David Chmelař: We completed the reconstruction of the Čs. Armády Square. In 2010, we designed the Alois Jirásek Park, which relates to the adjustments of the city center, as well as other connections such as adjacent streets, etc. However, the project was left in a drawer due to financing issues… Five smaller stages have already been realized from it. Recently, we brought it back to light. And we found out that the building permit had expired in the meantime. So we are applying for a new one, and there is a chance for a European grant to complete the reconstruction of the central part of the park.
In addition, during these last five years, we insulated the facades of eight school facilities… Half of those buildings were devastated by modifications from the 1980s, equipped with standard socialist windows, plastered with břizolit, and so on. The new appearance evokes the original look in terms of subdivision and color. Primarily, we aimed to return the tectonics of the original buildings – solid, historicizing urban houses. My goal was that the houses should not be ridiculed. I believe that people imitate. If they move in a certain environment, they absorb it without thinking much about the subject… By the way, we realized the first dark gray building in Hronov, and interestingly, the local people began to repeat this color…
Thank goodness, we had peace to work, and no one challenged our intention. Once you let someone from the lay public decide, they usually choose the worse option – often something more colorful and cheerful.
I would also add that last year we completed changing rooms for the ice rink, which we finished in 2004.
The city has become quite insightful.

Revitalization of Alois Jirásek Park in Hronov, 2012, Prameník

Is anything else planned in Hronov? Do you see any unused opportunities for the city?
For example, there is a vacant lot in the square, and nearby there’s a brownfield – a textile factory that was bought by Koreans... But as far as I know, just to fight the competition. They stopped operations, took away the machines, and today it's a ruin in the middle of the center. If there were housing, it would be in the right place. However, the new owner does not want to sell the buildings. It's a pity.
In the spring, the city announced a competition for a new town hall, which was another chance to advance Hronov. However, only the council decided on the winner… We didn’t win; on the contrary, we got the fewest points. I apologize for not discussing the winner.

Allow me to shift to the private: last time we also talked about your own house…
We built a house in Hronov ourselves, and we are slowly approaching moving in…

You searched for a plot for almost five years… Did the one by the cemetery win?
Yes, that’s the one. We have parents, friends in Hronov… And this place energizes us. By the way, most people buy a cottage for recreation, an old house where they can satisfy their hidden desire for romance. With us, it’s the opposite: we live in a two-hundred-year-old house in Prague, but this weekend house is contemporary, including its architectural expression. The important thing is the location: the house is located by the cemetery, a short distance from the square, under a protected linden alley, on the site of a burned-down garden center… After fifteen years, in which the original owner did not care for the plot, wild growth occurred, and the original trees could grow peacefully. There’s a huge maple tree, a large oak, pines, elderberry; we planted multi-stemmed birches ourselves… The mature trees basically decided. There’s a birch grove nearby, but I’m a bit anxious that its owner might cut it down. It helps create the backdrop of our house.

Can you describe the concept?
In a way, everyone would like to have a Tugendhat villa. And when we finished the house, it somewhat resembles Tugendhat… (laughs). But it was primarily about building a house from which nature would be very visible – the reason we go there. It’s on a southern slope with a beautiful view of the city. I wanted the house to be from the insulated part of the garden. We can sit on the covered terrace, even when it rains… dig in the soil… It’s somewhat of a counterpoint to all that we have or do in Prague. It’s a completely different world. Intimate, but refreshing.

Own family/weekend house in Hronov, expected completion date 2017, sketch

In your reflections, you also mentioned color…
Absolutely. In Prague, we have a predominantly white interior; in Hronov, vivid colors should dominate. In the interior, we have a lot of exposed concrete, wood (on wall cladding, window frames), black (doors, steel stairs, slate flooring, furniture). The facade was also supposed to be black, but that would have increased the construction cost, so I had to decrease the intensity of the shade; the result is dark gray…

And the furniture?
Colorful. Eclecticism. A mishmash.

Deliberately?
Exactly. It’s a contrast with the rough, impersonal basic materials. We have restored a two-hundred-year-old rustic chest and chair from our ancestors, functionalist chairs, as well as colorful little chairs in the Brussels 58 style. We’ll use strikingly colorful curtains, pink lacobel for the cladding in our bathroom, orange lights from Kartel, heavy glass, a carpet from Karim Rashid… A bit retro, but in a contemporary expression.

In recent years, your larger projects have been more well-known. Do you still deal with family houses, apart from your own?
It’s true that family houses are becoming a minority affair in our office. However, clients return to us, primarily on recommendation. A family house, a villa is a much quicker form of presenting architectural opinions, which you can often formulate more progressively. So I don’t want to give it up. If you excite a specific person, the house gets built. Whereas in development, the client is much more conservative, and market concerns can thwart the best designs. Large investors often request proven solutions.

Own family/weekend house in Hronov, 2017

WITHOUT CRISIS DURING A CRISIS

The slowdown in construction basically did not affect you. What do you attribute this fact to?
Probably to the differentiation of sources of contracts. So that the office is not dependent on one type of clients. I also managed to work alongside my own practice as a project manager for several development groups. This allows you to view your field from a different perspective. And it’s also important to feel that you can afford to be the client – the one who dictates, not just the one to whom it is dictated.

For whom do you specifically work as a project manager?
For a private investor who was creating a portfolio of rental houses in central Prague; but primarily for the Crestyl group, for which I serve as a design supervisor for all residential projects. This means that together we set standards, levels, qualities, so that they can succeed on the market. Or even better, excel. So that houses get built that someone might even imitate. And from that, there’s joy.

Joy?
The same joy as when I awaken someone’s attention on Archiweb… it gives you the assurance that someone sees you. The worst is when no one knows about you. You can be absolutely amazing but only in your microregion. It’s important for me that my houses attract someone and evoke emotions in them. The worst feeling is “doesn’t excite, doesn’t offend.” The extremes are fundamentally important to me.

4Blok, Prague-Vršovice, 2015 - 2017; visualization

Is the mentioned diversity of investors, then, the main reason why you didn’t see a decline in production during the recent construction slowdown?
An important, but not the only reason. Perhaps the most important reason is the fact that over the years, relationships solidify, clients multiply, return, and bring others… We are still primarily working for the same circle of investors or their friends. Most of them were actually unaffected by the crisis...

Let’s return to the mentioned standards of residential projects. Can you start by mentioning which projects are involved?
We met Crestyl in 2010 at the first phase of the Dock project. Since then, we have worked together on two final phases of Barrandov Hills, the project of two houses at Podolské Schody, and concurrently, the 4BLOK project in Vršovice, on the site of the former Tesla factory with 210 apartments…
I have also consulted several other projects from other studios for them continuously.
The peak comprises 900 apartments in Michle, for which we prepared a conceptual study.

That’s already a huge scale. Will the project be realized?
Unfortunately, the project has gained a new owner, so no. But even so, the work represented a unique experience with such a sci-fi scale…

And the mentioned living standards?
I want our layouts not to look like the typical Czech ones: Houses with long, non-ventilated corridors leading to apartments without daylight, significantly glazed staircases wrapping around elevator shafts, with long corridors in the apartments themselves – preferably in “L” shape – from which all living rooms are accessible. We strive to separate the apartment into a day and night part, not suffering from building anachronisms, but rather to have functional and fresh logic…

Reconstruction and addition of an apartment building, Kováků street, Prague 5, 2012; visualization

I heard about your penthouse project in Pařížská…
It’s a 450 square meter rooftop apartment with 100 square meters of terrace above the synagogue. By the way, generally: I try not to offer clients only what they want, but also what they might want if they had more knowledge in the field… In this case, for example, I explained that an apartment at such an address cannot remind you of an ordinary rooftop apartment in Nusle by its material solution. The concept of the apartment must correspond to the character and details of the place. Such a space is then tailored functionally: a formal living room, a private living room, a formal dining room for eighteen people, and a dining area for the family. Such a client knows exactly what he needs and what he will use.

What does elite mean to you?
I have my own trio of highest values. But it’s more private... I believe these people respect the same qualities. And that includes basic decency: not to feel superior. To have power, but to be aware of it. To be able to perform good from one’s position. Wisdom to make the right decision. Not to flaunt that I can have more than others.


SCALE AND "SCALE"

We are still talking about designing in the Czech Republic, but today’s world also offers opportunities abroad…
I have a friend in London, a painter, who has become a citizen of the world… He comes from the neighboring village, Machov. He studied monumental painting at AVU; he’s a hyperrealist, crazy, goes pixel by pixel; the result is better than a photograph… He lived in France for a while, and after winning global portrait competitions, he established himself, and a patron paid for his studio in London. Today he is fully established on the local scene: Hynek Martinec.
When there was an exhibition of contemporary British painting Beyond Reality at Rudolfinum, which he helped initiate, his work hung next to Damien Hirst's piece. He recently had an exhibition at the Špála Gallery. However, he still has some sort of patriotism in him, a feeling that he should give something back to the republic, for example, by introducing the Czechs to British creativity… But at the opening, one of his former classmates physically attacked him – slapping him so hard on the shoulder that it was uncomfortable… Out of jealousy, for being among the world elite, somewhere he himself will never reach.
People like Hynek could one day help create a new republic, a new elite. A million miles away from the current days when the old evils, Czech pettiness, and jealousy manifest in a creeping manner. All without the slightest scruples, accelerated by the president.

Hynek Martinec, At the Same Time, Istanbul, 2009

Doesn’t it draw you abroad?
Hynek tells me to take him as an example, that I could establish a branch in London. That we are interesting, cheaper, exotic. I argue that I don’t know the local regulations and I’m not great at the language. But he disagrees, believing it could work. However, I also believe that architecture is tied to the place. Where you have the space experienced and supervise it long-term. The result can then be rightly labeled as a regionalism expression.
Not only large contracts are worthy of an architect's work. Also the color of streetlamps, public toilets, railings somewhere in front of the station are what influences people. An architect should "lower" themselves to such tasks, even for free. I am the chairman of the building committee in the city of Hronov.
But I am also the chairman of the owners' association in our house. Just to ensure that signs will not be larger than necessary, that flyers will be absent, and that repairs will not be made in the easiest way possible.

Villa Condor on Roatan Island, Honduras, 2016, view of the Caribbean Sea with a coral reef

Yet you are building a villa in the Caribbean.
Precisely, this is what Hynek bases his assertion on, that expansion could be possible. In this case, the client organized an internal competition among Czech architects of renowned names.
After four years of collaboration, the house, plot adjustments, and beaches are ready this year. The construction dragged on due to unreliable local companies. However, after the owner's intervention, I am very pleased with the result. The house resembles a gecko – a lizard that slipped through and peeks out from the slope at the sea. When it sticks out its tongue, a path and a pier appear... By the way, in that direction, two hundred meters from the beaches lies the second longest coral reef in the world. A beautiful place for diving.
For me, it is very important that the investor wants us to build more houses on the island. I find that in life, things come to me naturally and peacefully. It’s something like a realized dream.

Five years ago, you considered the possibility of wanting a larger studio one day. How many people do you work with today?
Basically, still five. It should be noted that a large investor seeks guarantees, so they usually do not bet on one office. The implementation documentation is done by construction designers, who can have up to fifty employees. However, we are present from the beginning of the contract, we design, supervise the project, consult, and lead it until it’s realized…
Even though we are not large, I believe we represent a medium office in the Czech environment.

Villa Condor on Roatan Island, Honduras, 2016, situation

And would you actually want to grow?
To cover as much space as possible is a fetish for me. I have a desire to create an environment that has order, inspires people, and leads them artistically. I am therefore glad that we have more and more space to create. I imagine cleaning the space. It’s a certain obsession. Seeking the essence.

What is essential?
It’s important for me to master the volume so that quality is not expressed just on a small scale. But rather on a large one. When I don’t have money, I don’t build a house that looks expensive. In the case of a state contract, it shouldn’t be pompous – this isn’t about presenting a wealthy bank… Public money should not be wasted. A private person never wastes; they won’t spend more than necessary. A house should be modest in relation to its purpose. An architect must not build monuments to their own ego! There is too little space allocated for architecture for that. Most of the mass around us is simply constructed insensitively and chaotically… Our fault.

Would you reveal your mentioned highest values at the end?
Love. Truth. Beauty. That is my God.
… Just don’t talk nonsense. All of this can be expressed through space.

Thank you for the interview.
Kateřina Lopatová