Home Discomfort - Introductory Lecture and Opening at Gallery VI PER

Introductory lecture by Daniel Barber and discussion: 19/5/2026, 18:00
Opening and guided tour of the exhibition: 19/5/2026, 19:00
Gallery VI PER cordially invites you to the opening of the exhibition Home Discomforts, curated by Marianna Janowicz. The evening will begin with an introductory lecture by architectural historian Daniel Barber titled “Thermal Practices” followed by a discussion with the exhibition curator.
How will we eat in the future? How will we do laundry? How will we ensure comfort? How will we care for one another? Given the rising sea levels, increasing air temperatures, dwindling resources, and new energy management systems, the future of household functioning will require radical changes in our habits and behavior: a new approach will be necessary.
What does the market offer us today? More efficient air conditioning, smart kitchen appliances, or ever faster delivery services right to the doorstep. Thus, short-term comfort that rather replaces than reduces the work and energy needed to maintain the current lifestyle. Improving the insulation of houses only leads to short-term energy savings. It is similar to how the expansion of washing machine ownership led to increased water consumption and more frequent laundry. The culture of efficiency has disappointed us in this regard. The exhibition Home Discomforts presents the work of contemporary architects and designers who propose their visions of alternative ways of living, more diverse and less dependent on modern comforts of closed and stably regulated interiors. The Global North has developed and overconsumed at the expense of the Global South for too long. It is here, in Europe and other overly developed regions, that we will have to learn to live less comfortably. Could reduced consumption, pooling resources, and sharing work associated with the social reproduction of society offer opportunities for a future that, while less comfortable, could be happier?
Marianna Janowicz is an architect living in London, a researcher, and a member of the architectural collective Edit. Her research focuses on sites of reproductive labor, both inside and outside the home, viewed through the lens of feminist and environmental sciences. She has previously held residencies at the Canadian Centre of Architecture (2021) and at the Design Museum in London (2022–23), where her project addressed personal laundry habits within the context of contemporary living and interior environments. She writes about architecture, design, and society for various publications, including Architectural Review, Disegno, New York Review of Architecture, and e-flux Architecture. She teaches at the University for the Creative Arts and the London School of Architecture. She is a PhD candidate at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.
Exhibitors: Ankit Kumar Singh, Daniel Parnitzke, Edit, HVAC (Lisa van Heyden & Enno Pötschke), Lacol, Superflux, TAKK
The exhibition was created with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the City of Prague, the State Fund for Culture, the Lina platform, Creative Europe, and the University for the Creative Arts.