Architecture Overlaps: Marcela Steinbachová – Tripod

The lecture and discussion series "Crossings of Architecture" continues on Wednesday, June 7, 2017, with the third installment featuring architect Marcela Steinbachová. The chairwoman of the Kruh association, founder of the successful nationwide festival Day of Architecture, editor of the anthology "Texts on Architecture", dramaturge of the festival "Film and Architecture", member of the editorial board of the magazine ERA 21, and a practicing architect will dedicate her talk to her own work, education, and awareness in architecture.

Date: June 7, 2017
Time: 18:30
Place: Café Papírna, Zahradní 2, Plzeň

What can the path to architecture look like? How does one collaborate with visual artists? Why was Kruh founded? How does the Day of Architecture festival take place? Who can change our cities? How is a new yearbook of Czech architecture conceptualized? How are children educated in architecture and how is architecture popularized among the "adult" public?
Marcela Steinbachová will seek answers to all of the mentioned questions based on her own experience. She uniquely combines the ability and expertise of a practicing architect with long-term activities in the field of architectural awareness. Her various professional activities intersect and connect since her studies—a project on architecture and later the Kruh association, dedicated to the popularization, mediation, and contemplation of architecture, was founded by Marcela Steinbachová in 2001, two years before her graduation from the AVU in Prague. Since 2003, she has operated her own architectural practice, and in 2007 she founded the architectural association Skupina.
Her outstanding works include the realized designs for the reconstruction of the Aero and Světozor cinemas in Prague, the interiors of the Komorní scéna Aréna theater in Ostrava, the "History of Transport" exhibition at the NTM in Prague, a timber construction project for the Swiss town of Mohren (co-authored with Martin Rusina), and the Franz Kafka Center in Prague, which she developed together with the world-renowned American architect Steven Holl.
She has been equally successful in leading the Kruh association, which has brought dozens of excellent architects from around the world to the Czech Republic. The outputs from the well-attended lectures, discussions, and workshops, along with interviews with selected speakers, have been published in several anthologies. The festival Day of Architecture has reached extraordinary popularity; since its first year (2011), it has also taken place in Plzeň, where hundreds of architects, theorists, historians, and architecture enthusiasts guide thousands of interested members of the public in dozens of Czech cities. In 2015, she realized the exhibition "Rooms" at the House of Art in České Budějovice, which aimed to help explain certain aspects of architecture to the very youngest.
The activities of the Kruh association brought her the Award for Outstanding Achievement within the Czech Architecture Award last year and certainly significantly contributed to her receiving the prestigious title Architect(ess) of the Year 2017. She received it for her exceptional contribution to architecture over the past five years—for her excellent personal work and education of both professional and lay public in the field of architecture.
Admission to the event is 50 CZK. The next installment of the "Crossings of Architecture" series will take place on Wednesday, June 28, 2017, at 18:30 again at Café Papírna in Plzeň. Slovak architect Martin Jančok, multiple award winner of the CE-ZA-AR professional award, will present a lecture titled "Limits of Community".

Marcela Steinbachová (*1975) studied for her bachelor's degree in Humanities at FF UK in Prague (1993–1997), attended the Atelier A1 of Martin Rajniš and Jiří Střítecký at VŠUP Prague (1996–2000), and graduated from the School of Architecture of Emil Přikryl at AVU Prague (1998–2003). In October, she completed her doctoral studies there. She participated in a semester internship at Cooper Union in New York, at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, and the Summer School of Architecture in Salzburg.
In 2001, she founded the Kruh project on architecture (now the Kruh association) and in 2011 the nationwide festival Day of Architecture. The highlight of Kruh's efforts was a long-term project with the architecture faculty of the prestigious Swiss school ETH Zurich. Kruh+ activities focus on educating children and youth.
Since 2003, she has operated her architectural practice, and since 2007 in her own architectural association Skupina. She is a regular collaborator with the editorial team and a member of the editorial board of the magazine ERA21. She worked as a professional assistant at the School of Architecture of the Prague AVU and was also a member of one of the working groups of the Czech Chamber of Architects. She lives architecture, literature, films, and travel.
Last year, she received the award Architect of the Year 2017 and the Award for Outstanding Achievement within the Czech Architecture Award.

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