Galerie Jaroslava Fragnera presents Jan Bočan

What the Liberec SIAL School meant for many architects in the 1970s and 1980s, Jan Bočan and his studio at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University personified for young creators starting from the 1990s. Exceptional designs and realizations were created here, young designers not only developed a clear handwriting but were also instilled with theoretical thinking about architecture and a collective way of working. It is no coincidence that Bočan's students regularly won all important student competitions. After graduation, they quickly became sought-after and successful creators, who proudly acknowledged their teacher and guide through the exciting but also treacherous world of architecture – Jan Bočan.

What was the quality of Bočan's creations and designs? How did this thoughtful intellectual manage to maintain his moral integrity in numerous contracts for the then Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other official institutions? What dazzled two generations of emerging architects who continue to develop his handwriting and paradigm of architecture, or more precisely, thinking about architecture? These questions are answered by the anticipated and elaborate exhibition, succinctly named JAN BOČAN, which will be on display at the Jaroslav Fragner Gallery in Prague from 14. 12. to 27. 1. 2013.

"The selection of three dozen realizations, designs, and other valuable documents involved Bočan's closest collaborators and family – primarily architect Zdeněk Rothbauer and Daniela Bočanová, who imparted a very personal, even intimate character to the entire exhibition. One of the most significant Czech creators of the last four decades can thus be 'read' not only as an architect but also as a person – a cosmopolitan and philosopher," says Dan Merta, the director of the Jaroslav Fragner Gallery. "Bočan's work, just like many other examples of architecture from the 60s to the 80s, cannot be viewed, and certainly not condemned, through the prism of 21st-century architectural trends. This is hypocritical, and it is telling that many realizations in which Jan Bočan was involved are honored more abroad than at home to this day. This applies to his exceptional embassies in London, Stockholm, or Tbilisi, whose timeless value lies in the synthesis of the best from the then 'temporal' architecture."

The exhibition and its accompanying publication have been prepared by the civic association People and Space. An extensive monograph will present Bočan’s main realizations and projects (the embassies in London, Stockholm, and Tbilisi, the Main Station in Prague, high-standard housing in Prague-Troja, etc.), but also furniture and interior designs (e.g., the Prague InterContinental Hotel) directly along with the architect's descriptions. The book also includes an architect's biography (by Daniela Bočanová) as well as interviews with his colleagues Stanislav Kolíbal, Zdeněk Rothbauer, and Alena Šrámková, conducted by Jakub Železný.

“For me, architecture is the creation of space. The measure of space is a human being and their perceptions. For me, there is no difference between urbanism and architecture. They are merely tasks that differ in scale and detail. Architecture is space defined by mass. The priority is to compose space. The mass of a building is a means - a material for defining space. I believe this is the essence of architectural creation.” This motto is one of those that define Bočan's work but can also be related to the solution of the exhibition in the Jaroslav Fragner Gallery.

Among other conflicts and oppositions that can be observed in Bočan's creations (and perhaps in his person), his work with mass stands out: although he was perceived as a proponent of the works of Le Corbusier and Paul Rudolph, and many of his realizations featured brutalist elements, he approached interiors and the artistic aspect of architecture very attentively and sensitively, in detail. His close collaborators and "suppliers" included artists such as Stanislav Kolíbal and Hugo Demartini, or glass masters René Roubíček and the design duo Libenský-Brychtová.

One of the best, and defining for the 1960s, is actually his very first significant project, the building of the Czechoslovak Embassy in London, which he worked on with his fellow architect Jan Šrámek between 1968 and 1970. Not only was the embassy awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) as the best building in the London area of that period, but in 2004 it also made it to the list of the ten best realizations of the last 50 years. As architectural historian Rostislav Švácha points out, “this is an award that can only be compared in our country to the Perret Prize for the tower on Ještěd for Karel Hubáček (1969).”

Reinforced concrete construction, prefabricated structural elements, monolithic ceilings, masonry partitions, a combination of brutalism, machinism, and sculpturalism (plasticity) – all of this is integrated not only into the embassy building in London but also into the entire authorship of Bočan, which he later successfully left on other significant buildings: the Czechoslovak Embassy in Stockholm (1972), Prague's Main Station (1973), or even twenty years later in the area of the Czech Embassy in Tbilisi, where he, however, utilized much more wood and greenery, for example, in the form of climbing plants. “Personally, it reminds me of the beginning of my architectural career, which (…) was influenced by the work of Japanese and American architects,” the author himself assessed the outcome.

After the realization in Tbilisi received the Award for the Best Realization of the Year in Tbilisi from the Union of Architects of Georgia and the Ministry of Construction of Georgia, Bočan became a professor honoris causa at the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical University in Tbilisi. Here, in the last year of his life, he also led a studio.

It is interesting to note that many of the realized projects were obtained by Bočan (and let’s mention Jan Šrámek and Zdeněk Rothbauer as well) based on architectural competitions. However, there were also a number of excellent studies that for various reasons did not come to fruition. This includes, for example, the design for the Prague Congress Centre or one of Bočan’s last projects, the competition design for the Czech Embassy in Washington (2009).

For other buildings, several long years passed from the first study to its completion. This is especially true for the unique Diplomatic Quarter in Prague-Troja, which Jan Bočan designed as a “city within a city,” with a rich geometric structure and thoughtful symmetry, as well as a play of many oppositions (mass and dematerialization, two-dimensional surface and three-dimensional depth, etc.). The aforementioned Rostislav Švácha considers the quarter in Troja to be “a unique achievement of Czech architecture of the 1980s and early 1990s. In a distinctive way, based on his own creative method, architect Jan Bočan coped with the stimuli of Western neofunctionalism and neorationalism.”

As Bočan's longtime colleague, family friend, and curator of the ongoing exhibition at the Jaroslav Fragner Gallery, Zdeněk Rothbauer, reminds, the end of the 1960s was the last period when an architect was responsible for the overall effect of a realization: from the smallest detail on the facade, through the comfort of the interior, to the last furnishing item, including the spoons in the cutlery drawer. Many of these design outputs (e.g., ergonomically appealing chairs inspired by Scandinavian furniture) suggest that, unlike many of his "strict" contemporaries, Bočan was gifted with great imagination and a weakness for artistic detail. He was also able to "produce" his designs and ideas and thus substantiate the legitimacy of his creative approach.

This is faithfully illustrated by Bočan's dual villa in Prague's Baba, which he built by himself over several years but ultimately occupied for a much shorter time. It must have been a bitter paradox for him that the new owners could enjoy its fame: in 1991, Flemish architect Jef Geys organized a biennial of 20th-century architecture in São Paulo. For this project, architect Guy Mertens selected 18 representative buildings from around the world. Jan Bočan thus found himself (unbeknownst to him) in the best company of architects – Jean Nouvel, Alvaro Siza, Adolf Loos, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and others.

The indicated creative and intellectual conflict in Bočan's work, intensified by the schizophrenic normalization period, proved to be a vital (auto)dialectical environment. Bočan managed to explain and justify his designs understandably – not only to clients and colleagues but also to students at Prague's CTU, to whom he fully devoted the last years of his life. And they remain loyal to him to this day: “My nature has a sense of order, yet it constantly demands absolute freedom. This constant struggle of two extremes costs me a lot of internal strength, yet it also prepares me for an intensive experience of the creative task, dynamism, and almost physical enjoyment of creative work.”