On Thursday, December 1, 2016, at 5:00 PM in the A310 auditorium of the Faculty of Architecture at the Brno University of Technology (Poříčí 5), there will be a lecture by Professor Mirko Baum, who is a founding member of the Liberec School and a professor at the Faculty of Architecture at RWTH Aachen University. The lecture titled Coincidentia oppositorum (lat. Unity of Opposites) On Pre-tensioned Tension Systems will consist of a theoretical and a practical part. The first part will discuss pre-tensioned tension systems in technical, cultural, and historical contexts, while the second part will provide a detailed presentation of the Comenius Bridge in Jaroměř, the latest realization of the studio baum & baroš ARCHITEKTI.

Prof. Ing.arch. Mirko Baum (*1944 Mladá Boleslav) is undoubtedly among the architects who have managed to establish themselves not only in their home country but also abroad after leaving the republic in 1974. A member of the so-called School that gathered young and promising architects in the Liberec Stavoprojekt called SIAL, he now works in Germany as a professor of architecture at RWTH Aachen. Mirko Baum joined SIAL in the 1960s and from the beginning stood out for his interest in the technological and engineering fundamentals of architectural work. His works reveal an admiration for the creations of R. B. Fuller, the Archigram group, or the early works of J. Stirling. All of these are figures and groups that stood at the beginning of the Hi-tech movement. On a similar basis—engineering and design fundamentals—Baum's Berlin employer J. P. Kleihues built, in whose studio Baum spent quite a long time. His clear and rational view of architecture, the influence of SIAL's machinism enriched by the use of modern technologies is presented not only in studies and projects from the School but also in his later works from emigration. Inspiration from industry, although not in as "raw" a form as in the works from the Liberec period, is also felt in the construction of his own family house in Roetgen and also in his latest realization—the new building of the Faculty of Architecture in Aachen. In 2007, he co-founded the studio baum & baroš architekti in Aachen with David Baroš.

The lecture takes place in the winter semester of 2016 as part of the subject 'Architect in Practice' intended for second-year students of the MSP program at the FA VUT. The course is open to all interested parties at the faculty and the general public.

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