Municipal Interventions Prague 2010 - Invitation to the Exhibition

Architecture of public space.
80 solutions for 80 places in the city.

Organizer: City Interventions
Project authors: Matúš Vallo and Oliver Sadovský
Curator: Adam Gebrian
Consultant: Prof. Miroslav Masák
Coordination and production: Jana Kostelecká
Venue and co-organizer: Center for Contemporary Art DOX
Duration of the exhibition: May 13, 2010 - August 2, 2010
Dates of live presentations: May 19, May 26, June 2, June 9, June 23, June 30, always at 7:00 PM
   
Shared urban space is public property. City Interventions present architectural projects that were not commissioned by anyone. All arose from the inner or professional needs of their authors. The need to point out what does not work in the urban space, even though a solution exists for how it could work; the need to reveal the potential of places we pass by every day and often do not even notice.

The idea of the "city interventions" project originated in Bratislava in 2007. Matúš Vallo and Oliver Sadovský (Vallo Sadovsky Architects) brought their idea of a civic-professional initiative to life: they decided not to wait for a commission from outside and approached several of their colleagues and architectural studios to first choose and then design - without claiming a fee - a solution for an architecturally problematic public place in the broader center of the capital city of Bratislava.

The project received unprecedented responses, not only from the authors themselves (mostly architects), who enthusiastically responded to the challenge that allowed them not only to solve long-considered problems of public space but also to improve the profession's reputation as that of a selfish, authoritative builder of their own monumental memorial.

The exhibition of projects then became the most visited exhibition of the Slovak National Gallery and was strongly reflected in Slovak nationwide media. The responses it generated led to expansion.

The curator of City Interventions Prague 2010 – Adam Gebrian – speaks about the emergence of the idea to transfer the project to another city: “For more than a year, I have been moderating the program Bourání on Radio Wave. Bourání is dedicated to hour-long interviews with architects and people related to architecture in some way. The guest of the 33rd episode was the young Slovak architect Matúš Vallo, co-founder of the Bratislava office Vallo Sadovsky Architects. During the interview, he described their realized project called City Interventions (Bratislava). In an effort to repair the severely tarnished reputation of architects in the eyes of the general public, they came up with a project with this name. Why wait for the initiative from the city or a private investor? Architects can help improve public space themselves. By naming its problems and presenting their solutions to these problems. Moreover, completely selflessly, for free. They approached over thirty architects, mostly their friends, peers, but also legends of the Slovak architectural scene. The result was 40 proposals, an exhibition in the SNG, a catalog, but above all increased interest in public space, the quality of life in the city, and its potential future. After mutual agreement, we tried to transfer the same activity to Prague in the spring of 2010.”

On February 20, 2010, over sixty architects, artists, and architecture students were invited to participate in City Interventions Prague 2010. That is, to find problematic places in Prague and to create proposals aimed at improving these sites. The visualization of the proposal was to follow a relatively simple principle of representation “before” x “after.”

Adam Gebrian on the selection of contacted studios says: “How did we proceed when contacting individual authors and offices? Just like anyone else who would find themselves in a similar situation. We turned to our friends whom we were convinced would take the challenge seriously and present quality proposals. At the same time, we reached out to more experienced authors who have long been engaged with public space. To our immense delight, they mostly responded positively again. And last but not least, we left the call open and offered anyone the opportunity to send their proposal and thus become part of the City Interventions initiative. 20 teams took this opportunity. Everyone who sent their proposal by the deadline is represented at the exhibition. The role of curator was therefore immensely easy. He did not have to choose.”

Matúš Vallo (one of the two authors of the concept of city interventions) evaluates the responses to the call: “The reaction exceeded our expectations. Within two months, we received 90 projects, the vast majority of which were created specifically for City Interventions. Only a few projects had been created earlier, but since they address the same issues, they were not widely published and are not known to the public, we decided to include them in the exhibition.”

The topics of individual interventions were not limited in any way. The proposers chose them themselves. Of the ninety proposals, a full ten focus on modifications of rivers, which is quite a lot. Another ten modify transport constructions. These are the two most represented tendencies. It is probably no coincidence that the Vltava River and the way of moving around Prague deserve more attention.

Oliver Sadovský (the second half of the authors) adds to the essence of the project: “We hope that the entire event will not end only with an exhibition, a catalog, and live presentations. The intent is to awaken and increase interest in the problems of public space and to offer some possible solutions. The unhidden, unmasked desire is to try to realize some of the ‘interventions’. We call on anyone who could contribute to the realization of some proposals not to hesitate and contact the authors. We also believe that the principle of City Interventions is applicable to other cities, not just in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.”
   
Another aspect of the project, curatorially very valuable (we again quote Adam Gebrian): “Due to City Interventions, several new collaborations were formed between individual architects and artists that might never have happened otherwise. And that’s no small thing!”

The exhibition and especially the series of public presentations of individual proposals, which will be linked to discussions of the professional community with authorities, developers, and the general public, will take place from May 13, 2010, to August 2, 2010, at the DOX Center for Contemporary Art in Prague, which co-organizes the project.

Live presentations will always take place on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. Each evening, ten author teams will personally present their projects and their genesis. Dates: May 19, May 26, June 2, June 9, June 23, June 30, always at 7:00 PM.

The exhibition also includes the project Database of other Prague locations, which the authors of the concept want to use to invite visitors to the exhibition to look around them and see if they know more problematic places than they could observe at the exhibition. In case they photograph them and send a brief description of the locality to [email protected] with the subject “Database of City Interventions,” the organizers will arrange for their development and display at a special place in the exhibition. At the same time, these places will be included in a database that may serve for precise commissions in the future.

List of author teams and individuals represented at the exhibition:
FoRM Associates London
Pavel Hnilička Architects
terra florida landscape architects and stempel & tesar architects
Petr Janda / doomgroup
Petra Hlaváčková + Písek Seyček architects
Pinkas Žalský architects
MIXAGE
Markéta Němcová
Michal Krejčík
Karel Hausenblas + Jiří Koten
LINHARTS ARCHITECT
Roháč Stratil architectural studio
Jakub Filip Novák
VHE and associates - architectural office
Šafer Hájek architects
Michaela Dlouhá and Tomáš Petermann
Tomáš Petermann and Michaela Dlouhá
Atelier K2
Dominik Saitl
ov-a
AP atelier (Josef Pleskot)
Roman Koucký architectural office
FAM Architects
COLL COLL
BI – students FA STU
BAAR
Chmelař architects
Markéta Burešová and Lukáš Brom
ROBUST & Cyril Říha
SKVADRA
Eliška Slámová / Šimon Brabec
BLACK BACK
Bára Šafářová
Tomáš Legner and Matěj Görner
iddi
Jan Kazimour and Jana Hladíková
Ota Maloušek | Viktor Tonner
D and M
A1Architects
MOBA / Yvette Vašourková, Tomáš Džadoň, Igor Kovačević
Tomáš Král and Irena Šebová
Kristina Magasaniková and Jan Magasanik
Laboratory
Jan Kaláb, Tomáš Děták and Jan Kozák
napiatu
Juraj Biroš
Atelier of Petr Hájek and Jaroslav Hulín, FA CTU
ARTKIOSK / Veronika Jiroušková
sporadical
PÍNAČ&PENOŽ
Ida Čapounová and Jakub Chuchlík / iuch
T2TT / KOLMO
Milan Houser
Qubus / Maxim Velčovský
Štěpán Matějka
Balda - Janďourek - Žid architects
A69 – architects
BEEF

About the curator:
Adam Gebrian (AG-ENT)
Architect, critic, theorist, and promoter of architecture. He graduated from the FA TU in Liberec (2006) and, thanks to a Fulbright scholarship, also completed a postgraduate program SCIFI at the Southern California Institute for Architecture (SCI-Arc) in Los Angeles (2008). He has lived, studied, and worked in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Prague, Paris, London, and Los Angeles. He published a collection of lectures titled 29+3 and co-founded the architecture server archit.cz (2005). He is a member of the editorial board of the magazine Era21, to which he regularly contributes. He participates in the organization of PechaKucha Nights in Prague. He exhibited his project for Dubai at the 11th Venice Biennale (2008). Since 2009, he has been the host of the program “Bourání” on Radio Wave, and since the same year has been head of the architectural studio at the Faculty of Art and Architecture of TU in Liberec. He currently lives in Prague.
http://ag-ent.cz  

Matúš Vallo and Oliver Sadovský (vallo sadovsky architects)
In 2004, after a long friendship, they founded an architectural office headquartered in Bratislava. They are interested in architecture and urbanism, the creation of urban environments, interior design, furniture design, and exhibition design. They love their city, architecture, and music. They have gone through internships in several foreign studios (David Adjaye Associates in London, John Bosch Architects in Amsterdam). In 2007, they conceived and subsequently implemented the City Interventions Bratislava project.
www.vallosadovsky.sk, www.mestskezasahy.sk

Graphic design: Studio Najbrt (www.najbrt.cz)

Media partners of the project: Hospodářské noviny, Czech Radio 3 – Vltava, Radio 1, Kino Aero, Kino Světozor, BIO|OKO

Project supported by
Penta Investments Limited, o.s.
Czech Architecture Foundation
Copy General s.r.o.
Easytalk, s.r.o.
Ferona Thyssen Plastics, s.r.o.

Special thanks:
Martin Danko, Leoš Válka, Aleš Najbrt, Jindra Dienstbierová, Marcela Zápotocká, Jiří Šebesta, Hana Nováková, Jan Pelčík, Klára Mergerová

Partners of the DOX Center: 
Zdeněk Bakala, Capital City of Prague, TECHO, a.s., POSTER INFINITY s.r.o.

The program of the DOX Center is carried out with financial support from the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.
Media partner of the DOX Center: 
Hospodářské noviny