Accompanying text:Our very good client called me and wants us to draw a covered parking space for one car and a new fence for his acquaintance. During the meeting with Ms. Ryčlová in front of their house, we learned more details. Although we are pressed for time, I insist that it is necessary to handle this minor task as well. After some time, I show my sketches to Petr, but he doesn’t want to have anything to do with it. We have plenty of other work, he wants to focus on it, and moreover, he doesn't like my concept at all.
Should we approach the assignment with an overt association between the client’s profession and the construction itself? Draw a concrete shelter for the director of the cement plant and approach it sculpturally? Define the object and start shaping it? Such an approach to a purely utilitarian thing, which is only supposed to ensure that the car doesn’t get wet or overheated?
Isn't this precisely the type of assignment that brings with it a greater degree of freedom in searching for form? Doesn’t one find oneself at the intersection of architecture and sculpture while working on this project? The shelter doesn't define an interior space; it is merely an object in the garden, and then there is the desire to work with concrete more as a cast and moldable material, without using any system formwork.
At the first meeting with the Ryčlovs over the sketches with the concept, I cannot shake the tension and fear that this simply cannot work! They surely won’t build this in their well-kept garden!
They agree. We order more coffee and begin addressing technical problems.
“You must be out of your mind! And how do you imagine that it will be shuttered!” Mr. Šindelář, who is supposed to realize it, is a bit nervous about my curves. I act as if it’s his problem because such trifles really don't interest me, and I have the client’s support behind me. Everything stems from Mr. Šindelář's perfectionist approach. With my mind somewhere near
La Tourette, I fightfully explain that the upper rounded edge of the fence will simply be created by hand. He nearly flies off the handle.
Money. A very strong argument. I kept pushing it aside and hoped that the client wouldn’t lose his courage and that at least some portion of the numerous curves would be preserved.
It is late afternoon, and Petr and I are driving through Heřmanův Městec. We have time, so we stop to check out that concrete monstrosity. It's snowed in, the sun is shining down on the facade of the row house, the Ryčlovs are satisfied, and I am excitedly skipping around some concrete thing that serves for parking one car...
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