Report from the Prague lecture Querkraft

The Dialog of Contemporary Housing

On October 6th, the first lecture of a three-part exhibition and lecture series on the topic of Family Houses took place at the Raiffeisen Building Savings Bank headquarters (the other topics in the series are Apartment Buildings - I.-III./2006 and Extensions, Additions, Constructions - IV.-VI./2006), which focuses on Czech and Austrian residential creation. The first lecture was led by Jakob Dunkl, a member of the prominent Viennese studio Querkraft, and it must be said that he set a very high standard for the other speakers, especially in terms of the lecture's entertainment value.
At first, it seemed that it would be a dry lecture building upon the Querkraft exhibition at the J. Fragner Gallery. Although the lecture mostly focused only on the objects exhibited in the mentioned gallery, the humorous anecdotes (such as how a client had to get divorced for the project to proceed), delicate information about materials (the smelly rubber used instead of doors, glass panels of such enormous dimensions that they were used in several different buildings at different locations), and insights into the philosophy of Querkraft made this ordinary lecture an immensely uplifting “gathering” with one of Europe’s architectural elites.
Jakob Dunkl initially spoke about young architects and studios, about poetry in architecture, and about the idea that a house itself has no meaning because architecture is for people and only with them is architecture completed. He also mentioned the beginnings of Querkraft (1998) - their small realizations primarily for restaurants and bars and the gradual acquisition of larger projects. Finally, Jakob Dunkl began to explain the philosophy of Querkraft, which is essentially perceptible from the name itself - the "quer" can be likened to the English term lateral thinking, which means interrupting the obvious sequence and achieving solutions from a different angle. To this essential starting point of Querkraft philosophy, J. Dunkl added several phrases which he projected in English, and I would like to keep them as he presented them, since English is not a mother tongue for Querkraft either and thus the English wording certainly has its significance:
Lateral thinking
Efficienci
Concept
Humour
Self critical
Social responsibility
Offensive
Enhance
Passion

I think there is nothing more to add… they are amazing!

---

The lecture was organized by: Jaroslav Fragner Gallery, Centre for Central European Architecture, and Raiffeisen Building Savings Bank.
The lecture is part of the Architects in RSTS and Designblok 2005 series.