<HTML>Reflection on the Plzeň Festival Containers to the World</HTML>
Festival Containers to the World, which introduced a wide range of activities into public spaces in Plzeň, Prague, Brno, Ostrava, and other cities between May 10 and June 8, is already nearly a month in the past. And with it, also Architecture Center, which operated in container number 17 at Chodské náměstí in Plzeň for these four weeks. A dozen events that took place at the Center were held under the auspices of the Cultivate the Space program of Plzeň 2015, o.p.s.
At the Architecture Center, whose programming under the leadership of Petr Klíma focused on the theme of public space, urban relationships in contemporary cities, and contemporary architecture, both local Plzeň architects and urban planners, as well as experts from Prague, Brno, and beyond, took part. Nearly three hundred visitors attended the public lectures, presentations, and workshops—many of whom returned repeatedly to container No. 17. Among others, Plzeň's mayor Martin Baxa and the director of the West Bohemian Gallery in Plzeň Roman Musil arrived at the container.
The most visited events were the opening and closing evenings. The first, titled Generation 70s, during which local architects born mostly in the 1970s presented their work, showed that the local public is interested in contemporary architecture—the audience's interest exceeded the organizers' expectations and transcended the container format. Thus, the space of the container has since typically become just a stage. The second event was Visual Manual Special Plzeň, which brought a series of presentations from architecture students and recent graduates from Plzeň, as well as those who focused on Plzeň in their studio assignments.
The first of two community workshops aimed at the general public—deck chair workshop—was also extremely successful. On Saturday, May 18, from 10 in the morning until late evening, three dozen volunteers from the general public actively participated in making deck chairs from popular pallets at the square near the container. The deck chairs immediately began to serve their purpose—visitors and passersby conversed and read in them. During Melina Mercouri Day, the deck chairs were placed at the English Embankment, and throughout the summer, they will appear at other events in Plzeň. Despite inclement weather, the urban planning and architectural workshop for children Architect Daddy led by architects Aleš Hamhalter and Kristýna Stará was also successful. The children present attempted to establish their relationship with the city through play city—by building individual volumes into the whole of the city, they learned to understand basic spatial relationships in the city and the importance of public spaces.
Urban relationships were also the focus of the lecture by Petr Domanický Urban Development of Plzeň in the Last Century. The author, head of the West Bohemian Gallery's architectural collection and editor of the recently published book Guide to the Architecture of the City from the Early 19th Century, pointed out the city-forming values that Plzeň of the second half of the 19th century and interwar Plzeň boasted. He highlighted a number of insensitive interventions and demolitions that affected the city in the second half of the 20th century and continue to plague it today. Petr Domanický's lecture followed the opening of the exhibition IGNITED | PLZEŇ | 2002-2012, which presented the history of Plzeň over the last ten years through two parallel projections according to Ignited—a group of Plzeň architects and historians who incorporated the name of the most significant regional architect of the interwar period into the title of their association. The Ignited group also focused on urban developments in Plzeň.
A discussion evening Thinking City with the author of the project of the same name, Lucie Stejskalová, was dedicated to the contemporary city, urban strategies, and city planning. This project, whose exhibition part was simultaneously on display at the VŠUP Gallery in Prague, focuses on research into current approaches to city planning, which range between efforts for strict control of city development and spontaneous, unregulated laissez-faire, illustrated by examples of ten global cities from Copenhagen to Curitiba to Lagos. During the discussion evening, the author focused on describing and interpreting different ways of urban and strategic planning under varying conditions in Zurich and Curitiba. Her partner was theorist and educator from VŠUP Cyril Říha, who addressed planning and spontaneity in relation to urban development strategies. He emphasized that contemporary planning should work with both controlled and spontaneous processes, as they are not two opposing tendencies (control versus laissez-faire) but rather two forms of instruments or city arrangements that coexist and create a tense relationship within the city.
The monumental aspects of city planning (specifically Bucharest) and its modern dominants were presented in the lecture Romanian Monumentality by architect Marek Přikryl and architecture theorist Klára Mergerová. The primary focus of their presentation was Ceauşescu's Palace of the Parliament and its role in the city's imagery, as well as the arrangement and architecture of the local housing estates. On suburban development, architects Jiří Zábran and Tereza Nová focused in their lecture—among other things, they pointed out that in the banal settlement mush, one possible typological, or spatial solution for a family house could be the atrium. The centerpiece of the subsequent open discussion was especially urban planning in smaller municipalities.
Ida Čapounová and Jakub Chuchlík, forming the duo iuch, architectural workshop, which is a co-recipient of one of the Grand Prix Architects 2013 awards, touched upon their designs and realizations as well as activities related to public space—whether it was their collaboration on the transformation of a neglected forest park in Vodňany (this realization was awarded the aforementioned prize), the proposal for revitalizing and enlivening the embankment near the Straka Academy, or organizing successful City Interventions in Jablonec nad Nisou. Interventions in urban space are one of the activities pursued by the Brno association 4AM/Forum for Architecture and Media. Its representatives presented other activities and projects at the Architecture Center—events that took place at the Brno Gallery of Architecture, which 4AM operated from 2011 to 2012, cooperation on the Czech-Slovak exhibition Asking Architecture at the 13th Venice Biennale of Architecture, the project Kill Your Fox, or a series of workshops MEDIUM:EXHIBITION - New Concepts in Exhibiting Architecture.
The thematic line of the container-based Center, which focused on urbanism, public space, the contemporary city led by Plzeň, and local architectural activities, was only deviated by the lecture I [love] Module by the authors of the eponymous publication Jaroslav Sládeček, editor of the earch.cz portal, Jiří Kout, and Martin Hart. Since the entire festival took place in several dozen containers, this was a deliberate deviation—where else but in a container to introduce visitors to the developments and current trends in modular and container architecture.
The conclusion of the Containers to the World festival and the Architecture Center does not mean the end of this year's activities of Plzeň 2015, o.p.s. in the field of architecture. On the contrary—starting from July 8, a workcamp with foreign volunteers will take place in Plzeň, who will help realize the initiatives of this year's Cultivate the Space. At the beginning of October, another edition of Architecture Day will be held in Plzeň—this year with active participation and support from Plzeň 2015. Let us hope that interest in architectural happenings in Plzeň and the region will grow hand in hand with further initiatives—especially mentioning the cycle Architecture as Strong Coffee, organized by the group Ignited 02 with the support of Plzeň 2015—as well as the growing interest of Plzeň residents in public space, which is noticeably evident, for example, through the Cultivate the Space program.
At the Architecture Center, whose programming under the leadership of Petr Klíma focused on the theme of public space, urban relationships in contemporary cities, and contemporary architecture, both local Plzeň architects and urban planners, as well as experts from Prague, Brno, and beyond, took part. Nearly three hundred visitors attended the public lectures, presentations, and workshops—many of whom returned repeatedly to container No. 17. Among others, Plzeň's mayor Martin Baxa and the director of the West Bohemian Gallery in Plzeň Roman Musil arrived at the container.
The most visited events were the opening and closing evenings. The first, titled Generation 70s, during which local architects born mostly in the 1970s presented their work, showed that the local public is interested in contemporary architecture—the audience's interest exceeded the organizers' expectations and transcended the container format. Thus, the space of the container has since typically become just a stage. The second event was Visual Manual Special Plzeň, which brought a series of presentations from architecture students and recent graduates from Plzeň, as well as those who focused on Plzeň in their studio assignments.
The first of two community workshops aimed at the general public—deck chair workshop—was also extremely successful. On Saturday, May 18, from 10 in the morning until late evening, three dozen volunteers from the general public actively participated in making deck chairs from popular pallets at the square near the container. The deck chairs immediately began to serve their purpose—visitors and passersby conversed and read in them. During Melina Mercouri Day, the deck chairs were placed at the English Embankment, and throughout the summer, they will appear at other events in Plzeň. Despite inclement weather, the urban planning and architectural workshop for children Architect Daddy led by architects Aleš Hamhalter and Kristýna Stará was also successful. The children present attempted to establish their relationship with the city through play city—by building individual volumes into the whole of the city, they learned to understand basic spatial relationships in the city and the importance of public spaces.
Urban relationships were also the focus of the lecture by Petr Domanický Urban Development of Plzeň in the Last Century. The author, head of the West Bohemian Gallery's architectural collection and editor of the recently published book Guide to the Architecture of the City from the Early 19th Century, pointed out the city-forming values that Plzeň of the second half of the 19th century and interwar Plzeň boasted. He highlighted a number of insensitive interventions and demolitions that affected the city in the second half of the 20th century and continue to plague it today. Petr Domanický's lecture followed the opening of the exhibition IGNITED | PLZEŇ | 2002-2012, which presented the history of Plzeň over the last ten years through two parallel projections according to Ignited—a group of Plzeň architects and historians who incorporated the name of the most significant regional architect of the interwar period into the title of their association. The Ignited group also focused on urban developments in Plzeň.
A discussion evening Thinking City with the author of the project of the same name, Lucie Stejskalová, was dedicated to the contemporary city, urban strategies, and city planning. This project, whose exhibition part was simultaneously on display at the VŠUP Gallery in Prague, focuses on research into current approaches to city planning, which range between efforts for strict control of city development and spontaneous, unregulated laissez-faire, illustrated by examples of ten global cities from Copenhagen to Curitiba to Lagos. During the discussion evening, the author focused on describing and interpreting different ways of urban and strategic planning under varying conditions in Zurich and Curitiba. Her partner was theorist and educator from VŠUP Cyril Říha, who addressed planning and spontaneity in relation to urban development strategies. He emphasized that contemporary planning should work with both controlled and spontaneous processes, as they are not two opposing tendencies (control versus laissez-faire) but rather two forms of instruments or city arrangements that coexist and create a tense relationship within the city.
The monumental aspects of city planning (specifically Bucharest) and its modern dominants were presented in the lecture Romanian Monumentality by architect Marek Přikryl and architecture theorist Klára Mergerová. The primary focus of their presentation was Ceauşescu's Palace of the Parliament and its role in the city's imagery, as well as the arrangement and architecture of the local housing estates. On suburban development, architects Jiří Zábran and Tereza Nová focused in their lecture—among other things, they pointed out that in the banal settlement mush, one possible typological, or spatial solution for a family house could be the atrium. The centerpiece of the subsequent open discussion was especially urban planning in smaller municipalities.
Ida Čapounová and Jakub Chuchlík, forming the duo iuch, architectural workshop, which is a co-recipient of one of the Grand Prix Architects 2013 awards, touched upon their designs and realizations as well as activities related to public space—whether it was their collaboration on the transformation of a neglected forest park in Vodňany (this realization was awarded the aforementioned prize), the proposal for revitalizing and enlivening the embankment near the Straka Academy, or organizing successful City Interventions in Jablonec nad Nisou. Interventions in urban space are one of the activities pursued by the Brno association 4AM/Forum for Architecture and Media. Its representatives presented other activities and projects at the Architecture Center—events that took place at the Brno Gallery of Architecture, which 4AM operated from 2011 to 2012, cooperation on the Czech-Slovak exhibition Asking Architecture at the 13th Venice Biennale of Architecture, the project Kill Your Fox, or a series of workshops MEDIUM:EXHIBITION - New Concepts in Exhibiting Architecture.
The thematic line of the container-based Center, which focused on urbanism, public space, the contemporary city led by Plzeň, and local architectural activities, was only deviated by the lecture I [love] Module by the authors of the eponymous publication Jaroslav Sládeček, editor of the earch.cz portal, Jiří Kout, and Martin Hart. Since the entire festival took place in several dozen containers, this was a deliberate deviation—where else but in a container to introduce visitors to the developments and current trends in modular and container architecture.
The conclusion of the Containers to the World festival and the Architecture Center does not mean the end of this year's activities of Plzeň 2015, o.p.s. in the field of architecture. On the contrary—starting from July 8, a workcamp with foreign volunteers will take place in Plzeň, who will help realize the initiatives of this year's Cultivate the Space. At the beginning of October, another edition of Architecture Day will be held in Plzeň—this year with active participation and support from Plzeň 2015. Let us hope that interest in architectural happenings in Plzeň and the region will grow hand in hand with further initiatives—especially mentioning the cycle Architecture as Strong Coffee, organized by the group Ignited 02 with the support of Plzeň 2015—as well as the growing interest of Plzeň residents in public space, which is noticeably evident, for example, through the Cultivate the Space program.
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