Third lecture from the series "Wednesdays at AVU"

April 28, 2010, 6:00 PM, Digilab AVU (hall) – 3rd floor
Academy of Fine Arts, U Akademie 4, Prague 7

Rostislav ŠVÁCHA:

NEW VISIONS OF MODERNITY, 1985–1995

In his lecture, Rostislav Švácha will explore the work of several prominent Czech architects who, in the 1970s and 1980s, showed a certain interest in western postmodernism but began to seek a different path in the second half of the 1980s. These included Alena Šrámková, Emil Přikryl, Václav Králíček, Josef Pleskot, Ladislav Lábus, Petr Malinský, Martin Němec, and Jan Stempel. A mysterious role in their transition from postmodernism to a new modernity was played by references to the tradition of functionalism, which can be interpreted in various ways. In contrast, Swiss minimalist architecture presented a clear example of new modernity to them.

Architecture historian Prof. Rostislav Švácha works at the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, lectures at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, and at the Department of Art History of the Faculty of Arts of Palacký University in Olomouc. He specializes in architecture from the 17th to the 21st century. He has published numerous articles and books both at home and abroad. Among other things, he is the author of the cult book From Modernity to Functionalism (1985 and 1995) about Prague architecture in the first half of the 20th century, the monograph Le Corbusier (1989), the book The Architecture of New Prague 1895–1945 (MIT Press, 1995), or the publication Czech Architecture and Its Severity. Fifty Buildings 1989–2004 (2004), in which he expressed his theory on the severity of Czech architecture. He co-edited Volumes V and VI of The History of Czech Visual Art (2005 and 2007, with Marie Platovská) and the book Karel Teige/1900-1950: l’enfant terrible of the Czech Modernist Avant-Garde (MIT Press, 1999, with Eric Dluhosch).

Date of the next lecture:
May 12, 2010 Osamu Okamura