ART SEMESTER 07 – PROJECTS FROM UMPRUMKY

Introductory word
A1: Vít Svoboda - Gallery of Contemporary Art + Hippo and Antelope Pavilion
A2: Jakub Klaška - Urban Image
A3: Ida Čapounová - House at the Crossroads / Urban Plomb
DIaN: Jan Plecháč - Department Store with Furniture

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"Architecture has had its place at the Prague VŠUP almost from the very beginning. From the original single studio, there are now four, but throughout this time, the school has maintained its alternative approach compared to the models applied at technical schools. The difference should lie in the weaker representation of engineering subjects and an inclination towards interior design. On the contrary, the school's strength is to transcend the narrow boundaries of disciplines and connect different areas or planes of creativity. The common roof with the studios of design, fine arts, and applied arts forms a natural prerequisite for this interconnection. Mutual openness and permeability of the individual studies are as important for the outcome as the shared teaching of drawing and humanities disciplines."¹ This is how the Department of Architecture at VŠUP sees its characterization and position within Czech education, to quote Jindřich Vybíral. Approximately 80 students (distributed fairly evenly across the aforementioned four studios) and another 6 international interns study over six years. However, this statistic should only be taken as an orientation: students move to internships in selected studios and each year more than ten percent of them go abroad for experience. Thus, permeability functions on several levels.

Visitors had the opportunity to verify how accurate the mentioned characterization is and what the level at Umprumka is during the second week of June: thesis works were on display (in most studios together with semester assignments; which sometimes intersected). For the uninitiated, it can be simplified by stating that while semester assignments are created under pedagogical supervision and take longer, theses close the semester, are shorter, and require independent work.
At the recommendation of studio heads (in the case of A2, the professional assistant), we present one work from each studio and also provide the evaluations from the educators that the Archiweb editorial team requested. Thanks to the omnipresent, enriching, and motivating "permeability," we will see semester assignments, thesis works, as well as those created under the guidance of educators from ČVUT or in the Rotterdam office of Rem Koolhaas.

If you now regret that you missed ART SEMESTR 07, let it be a consolation that in the swift rush of the end of the school year, theses are already installed at VŠUP (open to the public until 2 July, nám. Jana Palacha 80, Prague 1).

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1/ Jindřich Vybíral, Department of Architecture, in: Vysoká škola uměleckoprůmyslová v Praze 1885 - 2005, VŠUP Prague 2005, p. 94.